Success Stories

Question

Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
When first I was married a neighbor was play with his radio car. He drive it straight into storm drain and down she go. Way down no way to get. Very far down. Neighbor real unhappy.
Next day I get fish tape from work one-hundred of feet long make hook on end. Push almost all way into storm drain. I hook radio car and pull from drain!
Neighbor very happy! I feel success!
Is true story. (I have more.)

Paulo Joe Jingy

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
I've been enjoying Sam and Jim's podcasts (through iTunes) or samandjimgotohollywood.com . They're tv writers who moved from Minnesota, and while they haven't had huge success yet, they are getting into meetings and pitching a Stephen King series to the networks.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
Sorry about that I thought you'd get some "real" stories by now.

Search here and on misc.writing.screenplays the stories are there.

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[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
Here's a few. Paul Haggis and I used to have a writer's group that met once a month for about two years. He was working as a carpenter when I met him but he quickly moved into being a success writing animation, but wasn't making that much money relative to his later success. One night a strawberry grower from Canada shows up with $15,000 and wants to make a movie. I told Paul (who's from Canada) "You take it." He did, got the guy to invest in him, and it gave him the leeway he needed to boost his career into high gear. Some times it take a benefactor or a lucky break like that.Dave Ayer was impressive from the get-go when he started writing scripts. I first met him when he was 15 and living with his aunt and uncle near South Central. He was painting at Wesley Strick's house and he and Strick got to talking about Dave's time in the submarine service out of high school. Strick took him seriously and Dave started writing. He got a lot of admiration leading up to getting an assignment to write the Tupac Shakur story. But guys were calling him from prison about it; wasn't the nicest thing to think about.

So Dave doesn't sign the contract and writes something he wants to write, whether anyone would buy it or not. He was living in the Ramparts area at the time with a mutual friend and former roommate of mine. He writes Training Day. Initially Sam Jackson was gonna to do it, finally it gets to Denzel, and the rest is Dave's very nice career. So some times it takes just saying to **** with it and just writing something you really want to write.
I was able to hone my craft initially because I won enough money on a game show to take off work for a year and learn how to write scripts, and the first thing I pitched I sold. But I was never focused like Paul and Dave - I played music, edited magazines, freelance journalism, radio, theater, etc.
The people I've seen who've made it big with screenwriting are dedicated to that, and also the work their ***** of.

"For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."
Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Adams, 28 October 1813)

Reference: Jefferson Writings, Lemay, ed., 1305.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
I'm in the midst of mine, maybe, just maybe, as are several of the people linked on my blog.
http://www.pillockspad.blogspot.com
Follow the link to 'My forehead is bleeding.' 'Potdoll' just got a short script greenlit.
For uplifting, look at James Moran's blog and go to the earliest entries. (Also linked at my blog) He blogged all, from winning a contest to getting an agent to optioning his first feature. His comedy-horror, SEVERANCE, just screened in the UK and has played at US festivals, ahead of a release. You can find the whole story there. Meetings, execs, development, rewrites, etc. etc. through to seeing the first TV ads, (he has a cool shot of his film poster on a London bus) to attending the premier and going to his first industry parties and getting quizzed all day by journalists at the press junket. Such a cool guy, you can't help but cheer him on. Now he's getting ready for meetings with a director for his second feature.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
There's some old threads on MWS about about NMS selling a screenplay as a result of his wife cold calling.

Usenet · Answer

Hi Jackson,
Thanks, that's just the sort of thing I was looking for. I also read your other post in the "Stories" thread, and it's nice to see someone getting their foot in the door. Good luck!
Cheers,
"Jackson Pillock" (Email Removed) wrote in
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Anybody have any links to blogs or personal success stories about writers who get their first big break and script sale? Something uplifting to offer hope to a wannabe?[/nq]
I don't have a success story about screenplay writing, but I do have one about a story I wrote back in 2001, which some people have told me I need to incorporate into a screenplay, and I'm currently working on that. It's a writer's success story, so maybe it will fit in here, I dunno.
Back in August 2001, I wrote a short satirical news story which I posted to some newsgroups on the internet. I'd written dozens of short stories before, but something about this one was different, and people started passing it around in email and by word of mouth.

At that time, I had a good job as a computer programmer and was making good money, and writing short stories was more or less just a hobby of mine. It was a way to express some of my feelings about some of the things I saw going on around me, and commenting on them, in a satirical or comedic way.
A few days later, I got a message from a friend saying that he heard the morning DJs on a local radio talk show talking about the story. I couldn't believe it. My heart raced as I asked him if he recorded the show, but unfortunately he didn't, so I never got to hear what they said about it. They apparently thought the story was true, and were passing it along as a real news story.

A few weeks later, I received an email from a woman in New York who had received the story in an email. She tracked me down on the internet and said she wanted to option the story for a stage play. Wow. I was so excited I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know what an "option" was at the time. She explained it to me and I told her I'd think about it and let her know.

She sent me her resume and references to a play she wrote which made some good money in a New York playhouse, and I checked her out and she seemed legit, so I was still interested in possibly selling her an option to produce a play from my story. We talked about percentages and profits and other things, and I was hyped up to see my story played out on a stage, even if it was just a stage in New York somewhere, instead of on TV or a movie theater.

Then came the 9/11/2001 disaster. Since she was in New York, and had a friend die in the disaster, she said she couldn't focus on working on the play, so that was the end of that. Bummer...

A few weeks later, I got another message from someone who had just read the latest copy of "Weekly World News," and he said there was a story in it that looked just like my story with a few things changed. Excited, I hopped in my car and drove down to the grocery store and picked up a copy. I thumbed through it while standing in line, but didn't see my story, so I started getting disappointed, or thought maybe I had the wrong edition of the paper.

When I got home, I flipped through it again and found the story he was talking about. Sure enough, WWN had used my story, changing quite a few things, but the root of the story was the same. While having a story used in WWN isn't exactly a writer's wet-dream come true, at least it was something to let me know the story was a winner.

I called the editor of WWN and told him that they'd used my story, and I wanted some sort of compensation. He offered me some free advertising, and told me that if I tried to get more, I'd lose, or something like that. He intimidated me, as such, and I didn't know what to do. He said the story washed up in his inbox and he thought it was true, so I wouldn't have any hope of getting more from WWN in the way of compensation.
So, I dropped any further communication with WWN, and went on my way, still feeling a bit successful, even though my story found its way into a supermarket tabloid trashy newspaper.
Months passed, and every once in a while I'd do a Google search to see if my story was being used anywhere else, and low and behold, I ran across a magazine article by a fellow who had just been to Las Vegas and saw David Brenner doing his comedy routine in one of the casinos out there. Brenner was using my story on stage and getting some good laughs from it.
I contacted his agent about the story, and unbelievably, I actually received an email from Brenner. He promised not to use the story again in his act, and said that he too thought it was a real news story. We exchanged several emails back and forth, talking about comedy and other things, and he sent me an autographed copy of his latest book.
He actually offered me some money to buy the entire rights to the story, but I turned him down because it wasn't enough. I made as much in one day at my current job at the time as he offered, so I felt like it was better to keep the rights for myself.
Several years passed while I continued writing short stories in my spare time. Fast-forward to June 2004, and I get another message from someone who had just finished watching an episode of Six Feet Under on HBO. He said they'd used my story in the opening scene of the current episode. He said he did a double-take and pressed the back button on his TIVO and watched it again, and concluded that yep, they'd used my story too.
I couldn't believe it.
I didn't currently subscribe to HBO and had never even heard of Six Feet Under, so I upgraded my satellite service and waited anxiously for the re-showing of the episode so I could record it. My heart was racing as I finally got it recorded and sat down to watch it. Finally, something I'd written actually getting played out on the screen - something I could watch instead of read...

Like WWN, HBO changed quite a few things, and added some things to the story, but the root of the story was still there, and I was overjoyed but at the same time felt like they used my story and I deserved to be compensated. So I contacted HBO and got in touch with one of their lawyers. She was really nice and straight-forward, and we reached a deal, and I got paid pretty well. Way more than I expected, actually.
I'm glad I asked what she was willing to offer instead of tossing out a figure myself, since what I had in mind was about one-fifth of what she offered me.
It got me into imdb at least, as a credited writer for Six Feet Under, through the back door, I guess. I sent the writers of the show several other story ideas that I thought would make good opening scenes for future episodes, but I didn't get any responses back.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1746336/
Anyway, that's my writing success story, so far. It was a great feeling seeing one of my stories played out on screen, and it encouraged me to keep going with my writing. Since my computer programming job was outsourced to India, I've had more time to write lately, so maybe I'll get to feel that good feeling once again, who knows?

Elroy Willis
www.elroysemporium.com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]They're tv writers who moved from Minnesota, and while they haven't had huge success yet, they are getting into meetings and pitching a Stephen King series to the networks.[/nq]
One of the things I'm discovering is that the phase of "getting meetings and pitching stories" can last a real long time.
It's gratifying to meet with people who clearly like your work and want to meet with you - but it can also get frustrating trying to get the right pieces to fall into place.
-Ron

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Wow, talk about getting lucky!
Elroy Willis (Email Removed) wrote in
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated

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