Why I didn't send you my script

Here in the land of aspiring screenwriters we are so cynical. So many of us are terrible writers who think we're great, just like those American Idol wannabes who warble at the first round of auditions and then promise we'll see them again someday on a stage surrounded by lights of denial. You can't spit in this town without hitting some jackass with a screenplay that's going to revolutionize Hollywood and show us all how it's really done.

So yesterday when I said I had confidence in my screenplay, I can see why a lot of people hesitated to believe I had the goods to back it up.

I received a lot of requests, both publicly and privately, to send my screenplay to other writers so they could read it.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I interpreted most of those requests as tests. Oh she has confidence, does she? We'll see about that. When I'm done with her, she'll be weeping in the shower and cutting herself.

Now granted, some of these people offered to read my script when I was having problems, but most of them only offered after I said I had a good script.

And that tells me that they aren't looking to help me. They're looking to see if I'm as good as I say I am.

Look, if you want to know if I can back it up, okay. Say so. Email me and say "I'm curious about your script. Can I read it?"

I'll send it. I like the script, I'm proud of it, and it's registered so you go right ahead and read all you like.

I've been working with someone who wishes to stay anonymous, someone who has helped me heaps and piles in improving this script. We have gone back and forth, argued and discussed, read and reread the script for months now. I also have a writers group that has read it and given me notes. I have agonized over all those notes and now I feel like my script is high and tight like Dolly's breasts.

So when people offered to give me notes yesterday I was a little surprised and my initial reaction to some of you was probably not the best one I could have had. I'm just not sure how to take it when I say "I'm finished with my script!" and everybody immediately says "Oh let me give you notes! You're not done until I say you're done!"

Or at least that's how I took it.