I don’t like to brag, but, well, I’m not really one to brag.
Even when I do something worth shouting about from the rooftops, I prefer to whisper about it in the basement, near the elevator machine room. I’m extremely modest and softspoken is what I’m trying, subtly and with great humility, to convey here.
But I have to tell you, in a large font, what I managed to accomplish today:
I sent a television pilot screenplay to a genuine Hollywood insider.
(That is the largest and boldest font available, by the way.)
Now let me tell you why this is not at all, not even a little, impressive a feat. It’s not even a feat, really. There’s isn’t anything exciting afoot.
Technically, I did email an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter today. I did ask if he would read my dramedy pilot screenplay. And when he said he would, I did send him my script. But…
The aforementioned screenwriter is a friend of mine. We’ve been friends since college. Despite that we’ve been friends for more than 30 years, I didn’t seem to have his email address, so I had to get it from a mutual friend who did not ask, before providing said email address, if I was going to ask our screenwriter friend to read a screenplay. The fool!
To my delight—though not necessarily my surprise—my man in Hollywood (I’m going to just call him “Alex”) responded to my first email much more promptly than I’d expected an accomplished screenwriter currently working on not just one but the next two seasons of a very popular Netflix series to do. Within minutes, Alex had written back to say, yes, he would read my screenplay, but it might take him some time to get to it. Meanwhile, he would add it to his pile of things to read.
His pile.
Did my eyes deceive me? Or the part of my brain that translates small squiggles on a screen into recognizable elements of written language?
My work was going into his pile. His pile of (I presume) other screenplays and blockbuster novels and back issues of Variety and birthday party invitations from such celebrities as Matthew Perry and Andre Braugher and Raquel Welch who are breathlessly waiting for his response.
(What he actually wrote was “my already extensive reading pile,” which I now like to imagine like a load-bearing pillar in his home, keeping the roof from caving in and crushing him and his family. At the very least, my script will contribute to keeping my friend and his loved ones safe.)
So that’s the exciting thing that happened today. It’s hard to imagine what tomorrow will bring, but I have confidence it will be more of the same.
I will read your Inkling post at some point. I have quite a few other emails, blogs, and messages to get to first however.