So I have a script that performed well on the Black List last year and placed fairly high in a couple 2015 competitions. As a result, I was contacted by a legit manager as well as an Emmy nominated producer. Hooray!
I met with both of them, and based on those meetings and several additional phone conversations, decided to move forward with the producer without signing on with the manager. No checks were written, no papers signed. According to the producer, the work to be done was minimal. "It's already closer to being ready than most of the scripts getting passed around town" he says. "I'm going to send it to these A-list actresses" he says. Hooray! Hooray!
Eight months and who knows how many drafts later, we're still doing the back and forth. The script is starting to take a shape that I don't love, and now it seems like he's wanting to take it even further in that direction. He's now wanting me to do things that are exactly the things I was intentionally avoiding when I first wrote the script. Boo!
I told myself back in January that I would defer to him and his experience. That I was lucky to be in this position and that no matter how hard it may be, I would see it through. But now, I am so ridiculously sick of this script I want to cry every time I open my laptop. The well is bone dry. Not to be dramatic, but I feel a little like Sisyphus pushing that damn boulder up the mountain!
I have a family and own a business that sometimes takes up 60 hours of my week. And I have several other projects in various stages that I absolutely can't wait to crack wide open. But between real life and spinning the hamster wheel with this producer, I can't get anywhere with anything else. I'm not afraid of the work. If I felt the script was really getting better, I'd stick to it. Bottom line is, I feel like this process has run it's course and I'm ready to move on. I need to focus my creative energy on something else. Considering the fact that I'm unrepresented and have no actual screenwriting career to speak of, does this make me a crazy person?
I met with both of them, and based on those meetings and several additional phone conversations, decided to move forward with the producer without signing on with the manager. No checks were written, no papers signed. According to the producer, the work to be done was minimal. "It's already closer to being ready than most of the scripts getting passed around town" he says. "I'm going to send it to these A-list actresses" he says. Hooray! Hooray!
Eight months and who knows how many drafts later, we're still doing the back and forth. The script is starting to take a shape that I don't love, and now it seems like he's wanting to take it even further in that direction. He's now wanting me to do things that are exactly the things I was intentionally avoiding when I first wrote the script. Boo!
I told myself back in January that I would defer to him and his experience. That I was lucky to be in this position and that no matter how hard it may be, I would see it through. But now, I am so ridiculously sick of this script I want to cry every time I open my laptop. The well is bone dry. Not to be dramatic, but I feel a little like Sisyphus pushing that damn boulder up the mountain!
I have a family and own a business that sometimes takes up 60 hours of my week. And I have several other projects in various stages that I absolutely can't wait to crack wide open. But between real life and spinning the hamster wheel with this producer, I can't get anywhere with anything else. I'm not afraid of the work. If I felt the script was really getting better, I'd stick to it. Bottom line is, I feel like this process has run it's course and I'm ready to move on. I need to focus my creative energy on something else. Considering the fact that I'm unrepresented and have no actual screenwriting career to speak of, does this make me a crazy person?
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