Now, I know what you're thinking (
Mentok!) and you're wondering why a site ostensibly about a young screenwriter trying to make it in L.A. mainly talks about freelance journalism and blowing up mannequins. Well, Constant Reader, let's start off on a new more screenwritery (my blog, my grammar) foot. I'm going to tell you how I got my "big" break. I always would ask that question to the successful screenwriters that would talk at Tisch and they always hemmed and hawed on the answer. I always assumed they were holding out on the magic password, but having actually been paid for a script I've written, I found out the truth.
Here's my deal:
About two years ago, I was randomly IM'd by a producer who read my old blog, Japhyjunket. He chatted me up and casually mentioned one of the projects he was working on, a sort of
Cool World television series. I told him that I didn't like his concept and offered another one. He liked it and told me to write the pilot. I did. It was good. Said producer flew me to L.A. to meet lots of fun anime and animation people. Lots of pitch meetings ensued(I'll write about the insanity of pitch meetings at some later date).
Everyone loved my script...
but nobody would buy it.
That is until this past May, when a
rather large production company decided to take an interest in the script. This led to two things: First, I got an option agreement. I'm going to tell you how much I got for the option, not to gloat, but to help readers get a sense of how this works. I got $10,000. From one angle, this is pretty dissapointing. I don't even make it above the poverty line on that, but I look at it this way: I was paid 10 grand for 28 pages of script and a six page treatment and if my producer doesn't sell the script, I get it bck in eighteen months. Not frikken' bad.
For those not in the know, an option is just what it sounds like; it gives the buyer the exlusive "option" to buy the script for a certain time. It's not bought outright. Some people make their livings off of options, actually. In any event, my producer needed the option to entice the rather large production company.
I finally got the last installment of my option last week. The rather large production company remains very interested. It's been two years that I've worked on the pilot and as my producer not-really-jokes "You've got at least a year more."
You can see how this story is useless to anyone trying to "make it". I mean, what advice can I give someone other than "Start a blog and hope some random producer reads it and starts IM'ing you." Also, I can't really say where this will lead. The screenwriter's life consits of 95% waiting. Ideally, you'd be working on new scripts during all that time, but mainly you're sweating whether your project will die or not.
I've become pretty zen about the whole thing after all this time. I no longer wait by the phone and I've learned that "a month from now" means "six months" whenever there are lawyers involved. In the new year I'm gonna start a new spec (I've got six already, but I think of them as slighty retarded children that should be kept in the attic to feed on jellybeans and rat droppings) and start actively peddling my stuff more, but even though I've optioned (and hopefully will sell) a script, I still don't have an agent. I'll talk about agents at some future point, but love them or hate them, they do help get you work. Or access to work. Or something.
So, while I've been paid for my writing (Success!) I'm still nobody. In fact even the most successful screenwriters are nobodys. Charlie Kaufmann's made a career out of being one. So, I'm like a nobody in a world of nobodys, but at least I'm a Nobody! Which makes me Somebody. Right? Bueller?
You see the thing you have to keep reminding yourself, whether you've just signed a six figure deal or optioned a script or just wrote down the first ten pages of your script is that every time you work on your craft and your skills as both businessmen and storyteller, you are getting closer. You're not necessarily getting closer to being #1 at the box office, but you are getting closer to being a professional. Everyone has a script in this town, but the real writer's are the ones who keep at it and who put the writing first.
