The Writing Life: reflections by a working writer.

The Writing Life: reflections by a working writer. The Writing Life

Reflections of a working writer, a university screenwriting professor, and the editor of Oregon Literary Review.

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Everyone Who's Anyone in Adult Trade Publishing and Tinseltown Too
Extraordinary free info useful to writers when marketing.

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A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers, including info on scam agents.

Free screenwriting software
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Short guide to correct screenwriting format and writing style.

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Charles Deemer

Editor,
Oregon Literary Review

MFA, Playwriting, University of Oregon

Writing faculty, Portland State University (part-time)

Retired playwright and screenwriter.
Active novelist, librettist and teacher.

Email: cdeemer(at)yahoo(dot)com

The eagle flies!

Links:

Literary archive

The Sextant Press

Personal home page

Electronic screenwriting tutorial

References

Bookstore
Highlights:

Finalist, Oregon Book Award

Practical Screenwriting

Love At Ground Zero

More books.

Blogs by (mostly) creative writers:

"Can We Talk About Me For A Change?"
Playwright Debra Neff Nathans

Inkygirl
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a weblog for writers (resources)

Silliman's Blog
Ron Silliman, contemporary poetry and poetics

Maud Newton
literary links, amusements, politics, rants

Darren Barefoot
Technical and creative writing, theatre, Dublin

Rob's Writing Pains
Journey of a struggling writer.

Mad, Mad World
Cara Swann, fiction writer, journalist, "reflections on humanity, random news & my life."

Writeright
Random musings on a writer's life and times.

Flaskaland
Barbara Flaska's compilation of the best online articles about music and culture.

Write Of Way
Samantha Blackmon's written musings on writing (composition and rhetoric).

Alexander b. Craghead: blog
Writing, photography, and watercolors.

Rodney's Painted Pen
Rodney Bohen's daily commentary "on the wondrous two legged beast we fondly refer to as mankind." His pen runneth over.

Frustrated Writer
This one named Nicole.

scribble, scribble, scribble
Journalist Dale Keiger teaches nonfiction scribbling to undergraduate and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University.

The Unofficial Dave Barry Blog
The very one.

The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.

William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.

The Word Foundry
Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."

A Writer's Diary
By Cynthia Harrison, who has the good sense to quote Virginia Woolf: "The truth is that writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."

Bow. James Bow.
The journal of James Bow and his writing.

Ravenlike
Michael Montoure's weblog about writing, primarily horror and speculative fiction.

Globemix
By David Henry, "a poet's weblog from Aberdeen, Scotland."

Modem Noise
By Adrian Bedford, a "fledgling Pro SF Writer, living in Perth, Australia."

boynton
"A wry writerly blog named in honour of a minor character in a minor Shirley Temple film."

Real Writers Bounce
Holly Lisle's blog, "a novelist's roadmap through the art and ordeal of finding the damned words."

2020 Hindsight
By Susan.

downWrite creative
Phil Houtz's notes on the writing life.

Vivid: pieces from a writer's notebook
Blog of Canadian poet Erin Noteboom.

The Literary Saloon
The literary weblog at the complete review.

Rabbit Blog
The rabbit writes on popular culture.

This Girl's Calendar
Momoka writes short stories.

Twists & Turns
Musings by writer Michael Gates.

Plays and Musicals -- A Writer's Introspective
A blog by John D. Nugent - Composer, Playwright, and Artistic Director of the Johnson City Independent Theatre Company

The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.

Screenwriting By Blog
David C. Daniel writes a screenplay online. "I've decided to publish the process as a way to push myself through it. From concept to completion, it'll be here."

SeanAlonzo.com
Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative history, philosophy, secret societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.

Crafty Screenwriting
Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.

Letters From The Home Front
The life of a writer, 21, home schooled, rural living.

Venal Scene
The blog of bite-sized plays inspired by the news (by Dan Trujillo).

'Plaint of the Playwright
Rob Matsushita, a playwright from Wisconsin, "whines a lot."

I Pity Da Fool!
Glenn's adventures in screenwriting.

Time In Tel-Aviv
Hebrew modern literature at its best, by Corinna Hasofferett.

Big Window
Robin Reagler's poetry blog.

John Baker's Blog
Author of the Sam Turner and Stone Lewis novels.

The Writing Life With Dorothy Thompson
What goes on during a writer's busy day?

The Rebel Housewife
Not just a housewife!

Barry's Personal Blog
A running commentary on writing and the writing life.

Bonnie Blog
Maintained by Bonnie Burton of grrl.com.

Writer's Blog.
By easywriter. "From the walls of caves to cyberspace."

Flogging the Quill
Pursuing the art and craft of compelling storytelling, by an editor, Ray Rhamey.

Man Bytes Hollywood
Sharing tools, strategies and resources for the screenwriter's journey.

Mad for the smell of paper
A writing journal.

The Writing Life
A blog by Katey Schultz.

It Beats Working 9-5
A screenwriting blog by a young Canadian screenwriter.

Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Writer & Artist, Dee Rimbaud reflects upon politics, religion, art, poetry, the meaning of life, the nature of God and why toast always lands butter side down on carpets.

Robert Peake
Heart and Mind, Fully Engage ... a poet's website.

Sidestepping Real
By Ren Powell, poet, children’s writer, essayist and editor.

Suggest a writer's blog

The Writing Life...

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
J.D. Salinger

"All my best friends are writers and are dead."
A friend over beer, Berkeley, winter, 1959

"And it came to pass that all the stars in the firmament had ceased to shine. But how was anyone to know?"
The Half-Life Conspiracy

After October 31, 2006,
new posts are published at

The Writing Life II

(Posts archived here are from 01/10/03 - 10/31/06)

Monday, August 15, 2005

Marketing screenplays
Got an email from a former student who is ecstatic because two producers have asked to read a script he started in my class a year ago and has recently finished. He used the method I outline in a handout I distribute near the end of the class on marketing screenplays if you don't live in L.A. I once taught an online class around this method and every student in the class received at least one request for a script from a bona fide producer (i.e. one with credits) before the class was over. So the method "works." There's nothing magical about it. Its basic outline is this:

Make sure you script is as good as you can make it.
Register it at the WGA.
Make a list of every movie you can think of that answers the question: "The people who made such-and-such should make my movie." Same genre or anything else.
Look up each movie on the Internet Database and list all the low-end production companies associated with it. Low end means two things: you never heard of them, and they are the ones who actually found the script.
Look up each prodco in a reliable source like the Hollywood Creative Directory (use the one-week trial subscription) or the excellent free online "Anybody Who's Anybody in Hollywood" website. Look for prodcos with email addresses, as this method is email querying only. Build an "A-List" of email addresses this way.
Build a "B-list" this way: go through your directory and ask, Is there a reason I should not query these guys? In HCD, for example, credits are listed and if they obviously make only horror films and you have a romcom, etc.
Write a short query letter that fits on one computer screen. This is harder than writing a script, so take your time with it. Use the three-paragraph template: hook, short summary, credentials. For credentials, do not mention fiction writing (there is a bias that fiction writers can't write screenplays -- it's actually fairly accurate). Good writing backgrounds for screenwriters are ad/copy writers, journalists. Playwrights are iffy but better than fiction -- mention it if you've won a significant award. Also, put your background in its best light. I tell my students, don't say you took a screenwriting class, say you studied screenwriting. It sounds more serious.
Test the query letter with 10 or 20 prodcos on your B list. Expect a 10% request rate. So if 1 or 2 requests for the script don't arrive (usually within a week -- my student mentioned above got two requests the same day, which really jacked him up). If you don't get this, revise your query letter. Keep testing it with the B-list till you get the expected results. Then send it to your A-list and the rest of the B-list.
Make no follow up calls or emails. If they are interested, you'll here from them.
Start a new script! Psychologically very important to get distance from this one or you will go mad from all the rejection.
If you get a request, you may be asked to sign a release form. Sign in. It sounds like you are signing your life away. Sign it.
Keep marketing. There should be several hundred emails on your combined lists. Send them all out. As requests come in, start a new list, an AA list of folks who liked your pitch. You'll be pitching to them again.
Keep writing and keep marketing. This is an endurance game, and a game of numbers. My students who make it are seldom my most talented ones. They are the ones who don't give up.

If you are a beginning screenwriter, know that this marketing method works -- meaning, producers will ask to read your script, even if you are not in LA and don't have an agent. The time to get an agent is when someone wants to option your script, not before (if you don't live in LA), although there are agents who handle spec script writers from out of LA.

Hollywood is the place where Yes means No. The first time a producer asked to read a script of mine, I was as jacked as my former student. Even more so when my first script was optioned. Even more so when I got my first significant check (these checks come much later in the process now since it is a buyer's market, a change that happened in the 80s). Even more so when a producer said she was signing the final papers the next day and starting production immediately (it never happened). But every Yes in this process transformed into a No in the longer haul. Interesting. The experience drives many writers batty. They abandon screenwriting for something less painful. You have to really like writing them and you have to keep writing new ones to distract you from the horror of the marketplace.

End of marketing sermon.

8/15/2005 04:34:00 AM | 2 comments

Comments:

What is the address for Anybody who's Anybody in Hollywood? I can't seem to find it on Google.

Thanks!

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:19 PM

Sorry, it's Everybody not Anybody and the rest is wrong, too. At any rate, the address is ...

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/index.html

# posted by

Charles Deemer : 6:28 PM

After October 31, 2006, new posts are published at

The Writing Life II

After October 31, 2006,
new posts are published at