I've been writing for the screen since 1999. I moved from Seattle to Hollywood in November of 2004. Three of my five screenplays are making the rounds.
My latest comedy, FALSE SECURITY, took 2nd place in the WriteSafe.com contest for the third quarter of 2005.
I wrote, produced, and directed a short film titled, Memoir.
I gained representation as a screenwriter in 2006.

2) I put time into my writing every day, i.e. I stay focused.
If I'm not making pages I'm looking for someone to read what I've finished. I keep up with my existing contacts and I make new ones whenever possible. I read the trades and the newsletters I subscribe to.

The time I've invested has produced products of potential value: saleable screenplays, and/or screenplays that can get me assignment work. You should have more than one finished if you want a rep. If you have only one and it took you a year to finish it... Hell, what would you think about repping that writer? I'd think that writer should get busy, write a couple more excellent screenplays and contact me again.

This is only my opinion: If it takes you more than 4 months to finish a screenplay you need to find out what the problem is, because you have a problem. A typical screenplay averages a lower word count than a typical novella (20K-40K words). It just shouldn't take longer than 4 months on a light writing schedule (3-5 hours a day, 5-6 days a week).

I wrote FEAR OF THUNDER in three (3) months under very non-ideal circumstances. I forced myself to keep a daily schedule. Some days the best I could do was re-read earlier pages and make small changes and corrections, but at least I did something to make progress. FALSE SECURITY was a too-similar situation with the added aspect of someone expecting a spec from me in a reasonable time frame.

And it's more than just the screenplays. You need a good synopsis (one sheet) for each one. Have you written a treatment? If not, you should. Your rep will be asked for them, you need them for submissions. You need them, period.

3) I always try to be professional.
I'm sure I don't always succeed, but I always try. M mentioned that my screenplays were low on typos--she found one (1) typo in FEAR OF THUNDER. I thought I'd found them all. After she mentioned the typo I went back into the script and fixed it. M admitted she tosses heavily typoed scripts and I don't blame her. Presenting a properly formatted, well proofed screenplay goes a long way toward looking like a professional writer.

A manager/agent works for you, the client. The standard contract spells that out. You're taking on an employee when you sign a contract for representation. So, you need to ask yourself, am I someone a rep would want to work for? A "yes" answer requires that you present as a professional writer. The rep makes their cut based on your income so you know they're going to ask themselves early on whether you've got the juice to earn serious money. It doesn't really matter what you think, only what the prospective rep thinks. Brutal, but true.

4) I don't burn my proverbial bridges.
I've harped on this before but it's important: Hollywood is a very very small town. I just found out that M knows one of my contacts from 3 years ago. If I'd maltreated that contact...? Yeah, exactly.

5) I know that I don't know everything.
Some newbie writers make the mistake of presenting to others as a master of the craft. We all know something, even lots of things or we wouldn't reach adulthood. But I don't expect to ever know everything about writing in general or screenwriting specifically.

I see it this way: Writing is communication and communication comes naturally to human beings. So do stories. See for yourself. Sit down with a four-year-old child and ask to hear a story. You're going to get what you asked for so make sure you have the time to listen all the way to the end. Your experience with the child is human storytelling in the oral tradition and that tradition goes back to the earliest days of Homo sapiens language.

Writing is a different critter. We didn't evolve writing like we did language. Writing was invented. It's a fantastic invention, and like many fantastic inventions it appears deceptively simple and straightforward. Writing appears to be an adaptation of the oral tradition to a visual representation and in its most basic form that's all it is. But the invention of writing was the invention of a new medium with its own rules, styles, and protocols. It's a huge and complex medium and that medium humbles me every day.

6) Can you call yourself a writer?
That's still a big hurdle for me. My typical response to the the question, "Are you a writer," is something in the vein of, "I write."

The act of writing does not make someone a writer. I make the distinction based on whether the person doing the writing has established a degree of competency resulting in an appreciative audience. The size of the audience isn't a factor for me except where I judge the competency of the writer as being too low for a large or larger audience.

I can call myself a writer now with less internal flinching than just a few months ago. Part of the change in my attitude is an awareness of at least a prospective audience for my work. Gaining representation helped. But for all anyone knows, M is as deluded about my competency as I am. Why should I assume she knows anything? Maybe she's grasping at screenwriting straws swirling in the filmmaking maelstrom as much as I am. Maybe we're both doomed to failure.

I've referenced this Wordplay article before. It was written by a screenwriter named Terry Rossio. He's a good example of a writer with an audience. It's a viciously honest diatribe and I highly recommend it to everyone who writes.

7) Talent vs. craft
I won't pretend to know where one leaves off and the other begins. The two are so closely interwoven in an ideal medium it doesn't really matter.

I do know that both are required to become a writer. I've been told I'm talented by different people at different times over the years. It took me a long time to believe any of them even a little bit. I'm still working on that neurotic, self-deprecating quirk. Maybe I'll beat it, maybe I won't.

I've decided to keep writing and learning more craft in the meantime. I continue to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I imagine I'll end up with a little of both rather than just one of the other. We'll see.

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