The Black List

Living the Good Death – Scriptapalooza 2015 top 10 Runner up!

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After scoring an 8 on The Blacklist, making the quarter-finals of Cinequest, achieving listing on Spec Scout with a 76.8 rating, and recently making it to the Scriptapalooza finals, my dark romantic dramedy Living the Good Death was just announced as a Runner Up (top 10 out of over 3,000 scripts) in the 2015 Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition.   

Needless to say I’m thrilled and honored the competition’s readers enjoyed my little tale about a quirky young woman claiming to be Death incarnate who finds herself locked in an insane asylum. That they liked it enough to warrant a top-10 ranking… well let’s just say those heart-cockles or mine are certainly warmed.

Ya know, they say writing is re-writing, and Living the Good Death has certainly gone though many revisions before arriving at the draft we have today, and it’s been a fun, frustrating, but ultimately rewarding process. So what does this particular bit of good tidings mean? Why it means it’s time to do exactly what I was doing when I heard the news… keep working on the next script in the pipeline. Writing is like a shark in the ocean… keep moving or drown.  That and it’s just so darn enjoyable.

Here’s hoping the next one will be as much fun to write and as well received. 

Knight Resurrected: Knight Rider Reboot 30 Years Later

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KITT2000

No article today, just a quick self-serving blurb.

I just posted Knight: Resurrected to The Black List. I rather enjoyed this one, the story of a teenager who unwittingly rescues a long-lost artificially intelligent supercar.  The two become friends and ultimately wind up facing enemies from long ago.  Sort of E.T. meets Fast and Furious in a way.  In any case, if you’re on The Black List, give it a gander, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Value of Good Script Coverage

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scripts redline

A little something I posted to Pulse covering some of the better services, as well as the full (and quite detailed) scoring criteria used by SpecScout. Perhaps you’ll find it useful.

The Value of Good Script Coverage – On Pulse

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Scoring High on SpecScout

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After several revisions and some great notes from friends and co-workers, Living the Good Death was recently submitted to SpecScout for coverage. The result? It is one of the very few non-agency submitted scripts to score high enough to warrant listing on SpecScout’s pages. For comparison, Living the Good Death actually scored higher than an Austin Semi-Finalist and a Script Pipeline Grand Prize winner, both recently listed on SpecScout.

Another plus is Living the Good Death will now be highlighted in the next Scoggins Report.

Obviously I’m thrilled, and though a few folks have recently expressed some interest in the script, achieving this positive traction (the script received two “Recommend” and one “Consider” ratings) is a wonderful validation of a story I hold dear.

Whoopeeeee!!!

For writers looking for really good coverage, I highly recommend checking out SpecScout (and no, I’m not a shill or on their payroll in any way).  I’ve also used The Black List (this same script scored an 8 from an Industry Member) in the past but felt their coverage was quite sparse, even though the price is lower. Ultimately it’s up to you which, if any, service to get coverage from.

And now on to the fun part. Writing another one.

Living the Good Death – An 8 on The Black List

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Sharing a bit of good news.

I recently posted my supernatural romantic comedy Living the Good Death to The Black List after making some revisions to it following input from the site’s paid readers. Several really astute observations were made, and after thinking about them and making some changes, I finally arrived at a draft that I felt achieved my expectations.

The result? An Industry Member just rated it an 8.

Having a busy industry member choose to read the script of their own free will and enjoy it enough to take the time to rate it really brings me joy. We know how busy people are in this industry, so it means a lot to me.

I’d venture a guess that many of you would agree that whether or not a script is ever produced, just being able to entertain a reader with a story spawned from your noggin that they truly enjoy is a really good feeling for any writer. I for one hope to ride this wave of happy feelings well into the next script I’m currently outlining. Hopefully people will find that one enjoyable as well one day.

A 9 on the Black List

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Blowback 9 Rating

Validation!

Opening up gmail to read that my pilot script Blowback got a 9 on The Black List was a great way to start a day. While most of us alternate between love and hate of our own work (depending on mood, moon-cycle, and how much coffee we’ve mainlined), getting 3rd party approval of something I’ve labored on for months on end can be quite gratifying to say the least.

Of course I realize that one thing common on the Black List is how drastically ratings can vary from reader to reader. Having cycled several scripts through their site, I’ve certainly noticed that some readers will absolutely hate some aspects of a script that other readers will think are the strongest points.  My philosophy on this is to take everything, good or bad, with a grain of salt, and then really think about the points made in the critiques to try and improve my screenplay. Even some reviews that I haven’t agreed with ultimately wound up inspiring some minor tweaks.

For now I’m just going to bask in the glow of validation before hitting the bricks once more. Getting a 9 is certainly great, but it’s still an uphill slog to get a script out there and into the right hands. Of course meeting a bevy of interesting folks while pursuing those ends can be rewarding as well.