Getting back into the routine of writing consistently has been difficult for me. From 2010 to 2019, I wrote TV specs for The Walking Dead, Parenthood, Transparent, The Mindy Project, and Up All Night. There were around 6 TV pilots, both half-hour dramedies and hour-long dramas, and 1 feature. When 2020 happened, I was glued to the news and social media. There was so much uncertainty about the future that my brain didn’t have the capacity to be creative. After 2020, I managed to write a couple more pilots, but life was getting more financially difficult, so I had to pick up a second job, which meant I had less time to write.
Fast forward to today, and the world is in a shitty, uncertain place again. I have been glued to the news and social media. Deja vu, maybe? Only if I allow it to be. This time around feels different. I’m a different person than who I was six years ago, and the things that I wrote in the past are not the things I want to write about now. There are a few story ideas that have survived, but they require more development due to my evolved point of view and where the world is currently. This has led me to question the stories I want to tell and start over.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to decide what projects to develop and what opportunities to go after. In the past, I would write a script and quickly submit it to the first available screenwriting competition. I regret doing that now, but I think I needed to go through that experience to grow as a writer. Back then, I was treating screenwriting competitions like a chance to win the lottery. I thought I just needed one person to say yes, and I would magically get a screenwriting career out of it. That was the naive writer who didn’t understand how the business worked.
I understand that there are some circumstances where a screenwriter wrote that one script, and it opened a door for a great opportunity. There are always exceptions. I know that the odds are stacked against me in this industry. I don’t live in Los Angeles, so I don’t have a network of people I can reach out to, and I’m a Black woman over 40, and we all know Hollywood rarely champions my demographic. As the saying goes, I “have to work twice as hard” to even get my foot in the door. Even if I accomplish that, it’s a challenge to gain access to spaces where opportunities are available, and it depends on who you know.
I have to come up with a game plan to jump-start my screenwriting career, and that entails starting over and building a new writing portfolio. Also, making plans to move to Los Angeles so I can network, but before I make the move, my writing samples have to be amazing. With the industry going through so many changes right now, writing expectations are exceptionally high, and even then, you may have to know someone to get the ball rolling. More and more screenwriting contests are shutting down, and it’s only getting more competitive for people on the outside trying to break into the industry.
Going forward, I’m drastically reducing the number of screenwriting competitions I submit to and only selecting a handful that will actually help me get my foot in the door. It will only take that one script, but I’m not looking for a lottery win, and I have no desire to be a one-hit wonder. So when opportunity knocks, and I’m asked the infamous question of “what else do you have?” I can confidently show multiple amazing writing samples that will allow me to gain access to a screenwriting career.
findingaprilrenee.com 