Today, I watched the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett. It’s pretty awesome, at least in my opinion, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about a failure of writing. No, not the ones that toxic Star Wars fans often complain about (and likely have complained about with Boba Fett). In fact, their success in the writing of this last episode is part of the failure.

Okay, I can see why that’s confusing. Let me explain.

Still from *The Book of Boba Fett*, Chapter 5, Return of the Mandalorian.

Last year, as a challenge to myself and an opportunity to develop my writing portfolio, I started working on a spec script for The Mandalorian. I Loved everything about the first two seasons of storytelling that, if I’m honest, my dream job is not just to be in a writers’ room one day, but to be in a writers’ room with Jon Favreau. Maybe if he sees this blog post he’d consider it? crosses fingers

Anyway, I chatted with friends and family members who were much bigger Star Wars fans than I was, worked out a clear path for storytelling given the challenges of the previous season, worked hard on a first act that I was proud of, showed it to a couple folks to see what they thought, and then…gave up. Halfway through the entire process, I started doubting myself.

Would people want to see this? Am I the best fit to tell this story? Would people want to hire some black man from the Caribbean over folks who built their career in the US or elsewhere? What was the point?

Well, in this case, the point is that I was right on the money. I watched the latest episode, and everything that I wanted to tell with my spec script came to life in front of me.

I feel relatively safe in sharing some snippets of what I wrote without feeling like I’m spoiling it for folks. Suffice it to say, a lot of the beats I was aiming for with my idea were exactly what happened in the episode itself. And honestly, it feels like throwing away a winning lottery ticket. I’m not actually laboring under the illusion than Paz Vizsla himself would see my script and be so wowed that he’d hire me on the spot. Not because it’s not possible, but because it’s astronomically unlikely. I’m really upset about something else.

I gave up on the story, a story that I was still just as excited and emotional about seeing when I actually did. But, most importantly, I gave up on myself.

If you’re a budding writer, you’ve likely told yourself that you didn’t have what it took to create the right story, or that you’ve never make something good. If you’re from a marginalized community, or were born in a part of the world that doesn’t get the same opportunities as some others, you might’ve told yourself that even if you could write something great, it wouldn’t matter, because no one would see it or no one would care. I did those same things here. As a result, I robbed myself of at least the satisfaction of completing something that I knew I’d care about, and maybe even sharing my writing potential with others to be a part of something incredible in the future. I told myself that what I wanted to make, what I was coming up with, was not good enough. And then, out of nowhere, without even trying to talk to me, Jon Favreau showed me I was wrong.

During the residency of my MFA, award-winning playwright Winter Miller led a workshop challenging students to use our own dismissive inner voices to refine our moral compasses with it comes to our writing. Whether we think you’re not fit to tell a story, or we don’t have enough experience, or any other reason, there is something that our minds are trying to tell us when we feel worried about our capabilities. Sometimes, it’s about making sure that we do the right amount of research, or engage sensitivity readers, or just take our time and try to be authentic. But what it’s never truly telling us, no matter how hard it is to believe, is that we should stop writing. That voice does not, in fact, want us to never become writers. It wants us to never become bad writers - complacent writers, arrogant writers, writers unwilling to do the work. And, more interestingly, it doesn’t want us to be rejected writers. That last part is not really in our control, but we can do as much as we can to tell stories that we’re so proud of that we don’t reject ourselves, stories so well-approached that they’d be hard to say no to.

Now, to be fair, Jon Favreau’s Book of Boba Fett script and mine are very, VERY different. He takes his characters on a slightly different journey than I did, and paid some things off in different ways. Also, Mando appearing in Boba Fett in the way he did changes a lot compared to facing these challenges in a new season of The Mandalorian, as I envisioned. I’m not trying to say we wrote the exact same thing. Jon Favreau has been neck-deep in Star Wars lore for much longer than I’ve honestly counted myself a fan. I’d have to be a lot less than sober to convince myself that I’m just as good as him and the rest of his team. But what I am is a damn good writer, with my fingers on the pulse of great stories. So are you. When you doubt yourself, when you take your fingers off because you’re not sure of your senses anymore, those stories die.

So, as for me, I’m going to keep my fingers on. On the pulse, on the keyboard, on the story. In fact, I’m inspired by another spec script just like this one. What about you?

Sticking With Your Story

Do You Even Care?

The Year of Unbeing