“Never Give Up. Never Surrender!” Peter Quincy Taggart

​This week I received a perfect email from a producer about regarding a screenplay. It was not a bouquet of roses. It was not even a fruit basket. And it definitely was not “clear your calendar, we’re shooting in June.”
What it was was something far rarer in this business than a three-picture deal with Netflix: a thoughtful, encouraging, human response.

I’m not going to get into the particulars of the project or quote the email line by line. If I did, I’d sound like one of those fishermen who swears the trout was “this big.” Let’s just say: the door was not slammed, bolted, or welded shut. It was — pleasantly — left ajar. In Hollywood, that’s basically a parade.

If you’ve spent any time in this business, you know the emotional rhythm: you send something out, you wait, you check your inbox 437 times a day, you convince yourself everyone hates you, then you decide maybe you should just sell shoes at Macy’s.

Then — ping — a note arrives. Not a miracle, not a disaster, but something in between. Something sane. Something respectful. Something that says, “We’re not done with you yet.” That’s not nothing! It’s also not the war. This email didn’t greenlight a movie, change my bank balance, or cause Tom Hanks to suddenly call and ask if I wanted to hang out. But it was a battle — and more importantly, it was a battle that was won. Someone engaged. Someone reconsidered. Someone is willing to look again. That’s forward motion, and in this town, forward motion is like finding a clean bathroom on the 405 at rush hour — shocking, appreciated, and worth celebrating.

Here’s what I’ve learned after too many years in rooms with bad coffee, colder water, and warmer egos: you almost never win big all at once. You win in drips, inches, and occasionally in the form of a kind email. Persistence is not glamorous. It’s less “hero charging the castle” and more “guy stubbornly pushing a stalled car uphill while muttering to himself.” But careers are built on that hill, not on the summit.
So, if you’re out there sending your work into the ether, refreshing your email, and wondering if anyone is actually reading — this is your reminder:

Never give up.
Never surrender!