Annie: The sun’ll come out tomorrow!

Atchity: Meanwhile how do we make it through today?

One night, walking up to my front door, I felt that I was walking on air. I had experienced such a good day I felt I’d died and gone to heaven. I'd gotten up before dawn to write for three hours, closing in on the ending of a new screenplay. Then I'd spent an hour exercising and reading a motivational book. After getting dressed, I went back to my desk and made phone calls--one of them to an agent who was thrilled to accept a client's novel for representation. At lunch, after discovering in the mail that one of my own books had been accepted for publication and a letter out of the blue from a professor who'd read my most recent essay and was inviting me to speak at Villanova and Bryn Mawr, I made a new financing contact, who assured me he'd get in touch with the man in charge of raising money for my next project. The afternoon had brought me the first meeting with an exciting new writing client and agreement on casting with a finance company for a film about to go into pre-production. An early dinner with my best friend was followed by the last meeting of my workshop where everyone thanked me for the past eight productive and happy sessions. Suddenly, I had a vision of an angry goddess coming around the corner and blasting me with a shotgun. And I realized I would have greeted death with a laugh. In such a good mood, and in the middle of my dream, what better way to go? That was a good day.

The waiting room

Eliza: Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait.

Atchity: I don't mind waiting if I have good work to do while I wait.

Most days are neither good nor bad. They're a mixture--bringing as many moments of step-by-step progress as moments of new obstacles and aggravations. Getting through ordinary days is the true test of stamina, because their endlessness is exhausting. I call these ordinary days "the waiting room," because so much of the time the career transit hero is waiting for the new career to "take off."

At first, with your initial burst of energy, you try to turn the waiting room into the emergency room. Picking up the pressure, you think, will expedite the process. Sooner or later you'll learn that this approach produces diminishing returns. Most of the time, you simply have to wait. And waiting can be a real pain, though, as William Lynch reminds us, "The ability to wait is central to hope."

I've noticed over the years that I've formed what might be called a waiting pattern" with the underlying theme of "work while you wait."

Breakfasting on hope

Lewis Carroll: All the king's horses and all the king's men/Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Atchity: Never try to get your head together before you've found all the pieces.

Until my new career became successful my day began with motivating myself to get out of bed in the morning. I'd noticed that once I'd actually gotten my feet on the floor, the day seemed bearable. But dragging myself from the blankets could be a task that required Mercury's guidance to accomplish. Those who embrace the dream quest know that the first important move of the morning is "getting your head together." You can do it in bed, you can do it while the coffee is brewing, or while you're having your cup of tea; some do it walking, jogging, or exercising. Others prefer meditation or staring out the window.

"Getting your head together," one way or the other, is a visualization technique: concentrating your inner vision on the potential positives of the day ahead so that you can turn to action which will inevitably, sooner or later, produce results. You'll decide how and when you'll focus today's ration of creative energy. If the day looks particularly forbidding, you'll decide how you'll protect that energy from the cruel world, remembering that you are its sole arbiter and protector. To fail to take the time in the morning to make those crucial decisions is to dishonor the dream world. Benjamin Disraeli said: "We make our fortunes and call them fate." You must put yourself in charge of how you see the day ahead: "The fault, dear Brutus," as Shakespeare's Cassius points out, "is never in our stars, but in ourselves."

The Type C's day begins properly when he has designed it to his own purposes. I could always tell how successfully my Mind's Eye was functioning by the length of time it took me to rebuild my head in the morning. If I bounded out of bed, it was because the dream world was so close to being a reality that even my Accountant could perceive it. If the process took half an hour, I knew my Mind's Eye had to work overtime to convince the grumbling Accountant and wounded Visionary that the good times would indeed someday roll.

Mercury's inspiration means focusing on your hopes for the day, allowing the patron god of Type Cs to escort your weary soul into your chosen battle. I center my day in various ways depending on what I imagine it might bring. If the day's hope was that a decision might occur that I'd been waiting for, or a check might arrive that was long overdue, I centered myself by figuring out a way to protect that hope. If I was supposed to call for the decision, I would decide to call at 4 p.m., not at 9 a.m., so that I could have a good day in the meantime, either way. I also decided that, regardless of what I learned at four, I would do something pleasurable at five: take in a film, go for a walk with a friend, invite a favorite client or associate for a Cajun dinner. Planning for an enchanted evening always gives me something to look forward to. With that in mind I can make it through anything.

If I could see no hope at all on the day's horizon, I’d do my best to manufacture some. For me, this often meant taking all the phones off the hook to spend the day writing, with my back to the world. I've noticed that doing this generally produced two benefits: first, I felt great about myself after a day of solid creative endeavor; and second, the world seemed somehow to feel bad about being such a deterrent to my dream, and almost always had something hopeful to report the moment I switched it back "online."

At the worst extreme, I forced myself to leave the house and go off for a cup of coffee in a public place like L.A.’s Farmers Market. I reminded myself that the world I live in is the world I'd chosen for myself and designed. It didn’t take long, when I compared my situation to what I imagined to be the situations of passersby, for my psychic energies to regenerate. I recognized that I preferred my lifestyle to that of the non-weird. I also reminded myself that it was not necessary to see a happy conclusion to my whole life--it was enough simply to visualize making it through the day with my hope and vision intact. Creative intensity demanded that as much as possible I remained intent in and on the present. Finally I reminded myself that by focusing on my work, whatever happened, I would leave less time for worry. Some people recommend smiling at yourself in the bathroom mirror. I recommend singing--in the shower, in the rain, or otherwise. I used to keep a sign posted inside the medicine cabinet: "Yesterday hero: today superhero." It psyched me up for the battles of the day by reminding me that I'd heroically overcome yesterday’s. It gave me something to sing about.

Good Morning: vision and salesmanship

The best morning is the morning you move another step forward toward your goal, at the height of your enthusiasm. I would schedule new sales calls for the morning, or work on my own writing project. What these activities have in common is that they are more, rather than less, under my control; whereas actions that are already part of a project in progress are tied to forces beyond my control. A typical morning is getting up at 4:00 to hit my writing desk by 4:30. I’ll write until 6:00 or 6:30, then begin making marketing calls, first to New York (before they go to lunch), then elsewhere. As much as possible, I try to follow up each call immediately. If someone wants to see a screenplay or a book, I write the cover letter and arrange to get it on its way before making the next call.

This is "prime outreach time." Because I've noticed that my belief in myself is always strongest at the moment of initial contact with a new associate, I initiate in the morning, putting my belief into action. Give yourself a limited number of high priority new sales calls to make each day and you’ll see your action produce results. Worst case, you’ll be getting through that finite list of "No’s" as quickly as possible—remembering your determination to turn each of them into a future "Yes."

At 7:30 I usually go off to the gym or the tennis courts for an hour and a half, to return around 9 to begin calling and meeting on Pacific Time.

When you believe in yourself and/or your project, your vision becomes contagious--assuming you either have, or can fake, the self-confidence required to follow through. Success comes from making other people see what you see. In ancient times it was generally a seer or a prophet who sold society on what it should value most highly. Your objective on each sales call is to create the lens through which the prospect views what you're selling. Never allow "cold readings." If you can't create a positive lens, focus on creating a neutral one by seeking an open-minded consideration.

Keep in mind, no matter how pressured you are emotionally or financially, a long-term relationship with your buyer is more valuable to your dream than an immediate sale. (Your buyer is not responsible for your present needs, much less for past problems.) The "right network" for you will be one of mutual respect; where your buyer respects your product even if it doesn't fit his needs at the moment, and you respect your buyer's needs. Never, or at least rarely, try to sell him something that doesn't fit his market. Listen to your prospect. Pull back the moment you sense a negative decision, and begin working instead on the future of the relationship.

I've discovered that a sales call works best for me when I couch it as an information call. I'm calling to inform someone about a product and to ask their advice on its market; to inform myself about the market, as seen through the eyes of this particular buyer. Couching a call this way always allows me to enjoy it and to make it a positive, hopeful experience.

No one can reject you but yourself!

Anon: A prophet is rejected in his own country.

Atchity: True prophets reject rejection.

Of course you can't avoid hearing the word "No." If it's true that you can't fail at being yourself, why does the "No" word hurt so much of the time? Because you're just not good at being yourself yet. You've got to fall in love with "No," learn to see it as a come-on, an enticement, a challenge. One way or another, you must deal with "No" to suit your own purposes, find the chink in its armor.

Some writers burn their rejection slips. Others have more scatological approaches--like the German composer, who wrote to a critic: "I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your criticism in front of me. Soon it will be behind me." At the outset of my freelance writing, I papered the bathroom wall with the worst of my rejection slips. My father came to California for a visit. I hadn't told him about the guest bathroom. When he went to use it in the middle of a dinner party, he returned to the table with a long face. "What's wrong, Dad?" I asked.

"That bathroom," he said. "I'm really proud of you." Then, after a few minutes had passed, he added: "God, that's depressing."

I learned more about my father's conservative nature that night. He didn't like to be rejected and had constructed a life for himself in which little rejection could occur. I didn't like rejection either, but was trying to master it. At first by blatant confrontation, but gradually by redefining all these "No’s" as steps forward.

Whatever your approach, coming to terms with rejection is an absolutely inevitable early stage of Type C success. Thomas Edison said, "He who's never made a mistake has never made anything." The sooner you're rejected, the sooner you'll be accepted. Think about it. If what you're proposing weren’t creative, original, and unique, everyone would say "Yes" immediately. You're doing something new, so rejection is predictable. After all, if they're telling you "No!" they're the wrong people for you. Do you want the wrong person to say "Yes"? Enormous time can be wasted when the wrong people say "Yes." You need not only a "Yes," you need a "Yes" from the right person.

As you get into rejection, you learn to transform each "No" into a "linkage." Each conversation that is less than a definite "Yes" becomes a definite "Maybe" because you accept the buyer's needs and because you don't associate his present, temporary "rejection" of your product with a judgment about you.

Don't be quick to conclude that a negative response is a rejection. Keep in mind that everyone is saddled with "lack of self-confidence," including your buyer. A negative initial response can often be turned around by your insistence, with all due respect, that the buyer doesn't understand the value of the product you're offering and you'd like a chance to demonstrate. Often your excitement, when you believe in it enough to press it, will open the buyer's mind to seeing the product your way. Even if you've had a dozen negative responses in a row, and you're beginning to think all the odds are against you, don't let your current discouragement turn into pessimism. Optimism is still the only policy that makes logical sense. The truly great salespeople base their success not on what they've sold but on the act of selling. They love it. Even after they've made millions, they can't stay away from that door behind which another "Yes," a challenging "No," or a definite "Maybe" may be lurking.

Doing lunch

In my line of work, lunches are so traditional that it took me years to realize that they aren't necessary much of the time. I've also discovered that few people are offended if I try to conduct the same business, or even the get-acquainted conversation, over the telephone, which is an enormous time savings. I've reduced my business Los Angeles lunches from an average of four a week to one or two a week. I've also learned to replace lunch with a walk. I schedule my management and consulting clients between twelve and three because I know everyone else in town is at lunch during those hours. Or I'll schedule a late afternoon "drink" instead of lunch, so that I can spend the lunch hour on the phone with New York (before they leave for the day), or catching up my desk (with the side benefit of not ruining my diet from too much restaurant food). The point is always to create your day around your purposes, finding new ways to advance your dream.

"How softly runs the afternoon"

Before management and production became all consuming the afternoon was a time for me to wind down and lessen stress. After spending an hour on follow-up calls after lunch, I would try to find quiet activity to carry me to dinnertime. This was a great time for errands, for catching a film, reading, going for a drive, taking a walk, or taking a nap. From 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. I was on the phone, from 4:00 to 5:00 trying to find that quiet time. When I did, I’d realize that the hours of 5:00 to 7:00 were highly productive--usually receiving phone calls from people who'd waited until the end of the day to deal with a project. So from 5:00 to 7:00 I’d schedule activities at my desk that could bear interrupting (letter writing, accounting, organizing, making notes on tomorrow's marketing calls). And I was happy to be interrupted by the phone.

Enchanted evening

Cajun proverb: There's always something to celebrate.

Atchity: Celebrate making it through the day.

You're not going to have a terrible day if you've planned a pleasurable evening. That's why planning the evening is one of the most effective methods of centering yourself in the morning. Make the evening a time to celebrate, to entertain friends, to retreat, to go bar hopping, to roam around The Grove, hang out with friends or family, to play "Guts," to enjoy the fact that you're alive, to abandon the hunt and take your daily vacation from the intensity of your life. I have to force myself away from the desk sometimes in order to put this into practice, and I don't always succeed because my desk is usually overflowing and I love my work. But I find the evening fun most pleasurable when things didn’t go as smoothly as I would’ve liked them to during the day. If the evening has been enchanted, your dreams will be sweet dreams--the best possible preparation for a bright tomorrow.