A respected colleague made a comment on another blog recently that made me realize how little we really know about each other. I super appreciated this person giving me a shoutout, especially since he only recommended me and John August which is a massive compliment, but still. I forget what people don't know.
I realized that unless you've been reading my shit for a while, you probably think I've only ever written one screenplay because I talk about the same one all the time.
And that in turn made me realize that it's not something I've ever really talked about on here. The "how many scripts do I have to write before I'm good" thing.
I kind of hate Diablo Cody. She wrote a screenplay and boop! Instant success at the highest level. Then her TV show got picked up. Then her second screenplay got bought. So I hate her so very much, for no other reason than I am enormously jealous - or should I say, "I am totally jello".
Sure, she did some work in her previous life. She wrote a blog, she wrote a book and whatnot, but so did I. I got a goddamn masters degree in creative writing and I wrote a thesis a million years ago, but you don't see me wearing my leopard print dress to the Oscars and being all whatever.
I really hate her. Stupid Diablo Cody and her stupid success.
Anyway, so she's one in a bazillion. Most of us plug away at it, year after year, trying desperately to write the next big thing. I started about eight years ago with the same idea as everybody else. I had this great sci-fi idea and I wrote a screenplay. Then I thought about TV and The Dead Zone supposedly had this program for new writers. I shit you not, after about five months of being an amateur screenwriter I was actually thinking about what would happen if I got a job working on The Dead Zone and had to move to Vancouver, because of course that's where the show was shot.
Oh, Emily. You were so very naive.
In the end I've probably written about 6 screenplays in various stages of completeness, 5 teleplays and about 5 short film scripts, one of which IS STILL IN GODDAMN POST PRODUCTION. But whatever. Anyway, so I've written a lot, but I never felt like anything I'd written was really, really good.
Then I wrote Not Dead Yet and there is was. They always say it takes about 6-10 shitty scripts to get to the one you love and I'd say that is 100% true for me. I didn't want it to take that long but it did. I got that one good script, the one people like so much they're actually working on my behalf. Hell I have people I've never met in person passing my shit around and trying to find me a buyer. How crazy is that? Totally crazy.
They always say this is a marathon, not a sprint, and they are right. It sucks ass when you hear it, but you get over it as soon as you see that one, beautiful script at the end of the rainbow. So that's why I keep talking about my one script: it's been eight years in the making for me.
On an unrelated note, today is my birthday, and as an added bonus I am meeting the Beefcake's parents for the first time this weekend. So if I am too hungover and/or murdered by my future mother-in-law to return, please remember me fondly.
