My agent has my new script.
That phrase, by itself, is a little weird, given that I had completely quit screenwriting a long while back, had left my agent about that time because I wanted to write a novel, and had zero intentions of ever going back to screenwriting. The business side of screenwriting is insane, and I had had enough of it to know that I didn't want to ever ever go through the ordeal again. I started on the novel, got about half-way through it when life turned upside down and business kept me away from it for a while. Then the script idea took hold with a ferosity that I cannot explain. I had to write that one, and it had to be a script.
Even after writing it, after getting it out of my system (and showing it to one person who'd encouraged me and who had implied he wanted to option it or better... then who didn't, and I still don't know what that was about)... I put it in a drawer and decided to forget all about it.
Only, I didn't.
I waited six months (read: I was insanely busy with work), dusted it off, polished it up with the benefit of a handful of notes I'd gotten in a very constructive workshop I belong to, and then it sort of seemed silly not to at least get an agent's opinion. And getting an agent is another ordeal akin to having one's toes amputated by way of the ear canal. Not entirely a fun process. Since I had no real emotions invested, I thought I'd send it to my old agent first, figuring she'd turn it down (I really doubted she'd like it), and then that would be that -- I could say I tried and not feel guilty for doing nothing with all that work.
Frankly, I didn't expect her to answer the e-mail. Which she did, in 15 minutes. I sent the script and didn't expect her to read it for a couple of weeks. She read it overnight and loved it. When she called, I expected her to have notes throughout the script. She's never not had notes. This time, she had none. I expected her to tell me she wasn't going to take it out, though, because the market isn't right for it (for whatever reason.) Then she said she wanted to take it out, and thought she'd do so in March.
I'm pretty sure it isn't going to sell. (What the hell, this negative streak has worked so far.) Seriously, specs so rarely do -- they usually just "introduce" a writer to producers, who then want to meet with the writer (assuming they liked the script well enough) to "get to know the writer" (which is code for deciding if they want to work with this person or if they think the writer is nothing more than a fruit loop who got lucky on one script).
But weirdly -- strangest of all -- I just have no angst. Maybe having such low expectations is the way to function in that business. I don't know, but at least I'm sleeping instead of wishing and hoping and fretting. (I do that enough already for the construction business -- I have no angst left over.)
Meanwhile, I'm trying to write the novel and I have a thriller script I'm playing with -- I alternate between the two, depending on my mood. More on the actual writing aspect of those two later.
Posted by toni at February 2, 2004 01:26 AM