NOTE: Have a terrific holidays, folks. Heading to the Big Apple to see the family, I’ll return January 1, refreshed and re-energized, ready for year 3 at Script Gods. I’ll have some news for you then about a pair of movies in the works. In the meantime, stay positive, and stay vigilant (see below). See ya in 2012….

10 ESSENTIAL steps of HIGHLY-SUCCESSFUL screenwriters!

Killer Loglines! 30 seconds to CHA-CHING!

10 BLOCKBUSTER Story Techniques!

10 Techniques you MUST know to be a pro!

20 Screenwriting Success Secrets that will enable you to EFFORTLESSLY sell your screenplays, become magnetic to agents and managers, and help you become ‘the next great voice’ in Hollywood even if you live nowhere near Los Angeles!

• Those who can’t write, teach seminars.

This one will be tricky.

Yeah, I’m a teacher, and a screenwriting consultant, one of THEM. How the fuck can I throw rocks at glass houses? The stones on this guy!

Let’s find some context, ok? Long ago I said I would pack up this blog before I ever tried to bullshit you folks. Of course I shouldn’t say this, but fuck it…the money I make on this site beats digging ditches but it’s not freeing me for retirement in Costa Rica any time soon. I created Script Gods to pass along some knowledge, fight the good fight, make a few gherkins, but not free myself. How many people you hear make millions from blogging? Doesn’t happen, not here anyhow. When this gets old, I’ll pack it up, end of story.

Until then, let me say: There are some slick operators out there feeding you misinformation. And not just some. Take a moment to punch in Screenwriting Consultants into Google. How many pages do you see?  Scroll all the way down.

87 pages! Multiplied by 10 entries per page= A shitload of screenwriting experts!

What does that tell you? Tells me there’s money in the game. Tells me you don’t need a diploma or credentials or even to had a movie made to call yourself a screenwriting consultant.

Tells me that you folks need to watch your asses, because you’re vulnerable. You want it to happen. You believe in your projects. Writing isn’t tiling a bathroom. This script is a piece of you, almost like a child. You want the best for it. You might be willing to pay an expert for advise. Of course you’ll check the screenwriting message boards, check sites for recommendations, maybe even look to Creative Screenwriting for their Best Of series.

Better than I have already commented on this subject. Craig Mazon at artfulwriter.com talked about wasting people’s time. Chad Gerivch at scriptmag.com discussed not using a script service. The King of all bloggers, John August, outright told you those who can’t write teach seminars.

Before I give my $60 or $250 notes to people, I make sure they understand that I’m only one opinion. They won’t agree with everything I say, that’s a given. The question is how many of the notes can actually be used. If the writer takes 5 of 10 of my notes, I’d consider that money well spent.

Here’s another tidbit you won’t not hear from the Script Gurus: Who the hell are we, anyhow? Self-appointed experts commenting on someone else’s creativity.

Punch my name in on Google search and I do ok, but go to IMDB and the output ain’t exactly epic. What qualifies me to judge you AT ALL?

First thing I’d do in your shoes—go to IMDB to check the consultant’s credits. Have you ever noticed: The slicker the website, the fewer writing credits the guru seems to have. When you go to a site like Inktip or ScriptShark or any of the other thousand sites, do due diligence. When Inktip directs you to their Facebook page where 100+ movies they developed have been made, go to the page. Ever heard of even ONE of them? Not sayin’ they all suck, I’m just sayin’…

Get past the slick site and promises, see if there’s any substance or accountability. Here at Script Gods, when you send me an email I answer it, usually the same day. You know who’s reviewing your script. When we talk on the telephone, there’s a one-on-one connection.

I would love to watch each self-proclaimed expert stand before an audience of beginning writers to answer why, with all these years in the biz, they find themselves telling others how to make a living in movies instead of making that living themselves.

Let the credit-quoting and name-dropping commence.

And now, without further ado, your trombone lesson…

Thanks to Julian Grant from Columbia College for this list of Themes that movie-makers have drawn upon from the Silent Era until today.

1. TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY

• 2. FAMILY IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

• 3.DIFFERENCE IS UNIVERSAL

• 4.OPEN YOUR HEART: TOLERANCE WILL TEACH US ALL

• 5.BE YOURSELF, FIND YOURSELF: DON’T COMPROMISE YOUR INTEGRITY

• 6. JUST DO IT: TAKE ACTION, MOVE ON, MAKE THE TOUGH CHOICE

• 7.DREAM THE DREAM: DON’T SETTLE, RAISE THE BAR, AIM HIGH

• 8. BUILD IT, AND THEY WILL COME

• 9.WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS: LIFE IS HARD, BUT WE CAN GET THROUGH IT…

• 10.DON’T MESS WITH MOTHER NATURE

• 11.THERE’S HOPE, BUT NOT WHERE YOU THINK IT IS

• 12.LOVE HURTS, LOVE SAVES, LOVE TRANSFORMS

• 13.REVENGE IS ALL CONSUMING

• 14.ABSOLUTELY POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY

When do you give up on a screenplay?

When is your belief in the script optimism?

When is it delusion?

You’ve been working on this…THING..for weeks, months, shit, maybe even years. You do what the experts recommend: Gather critiques, rewrite, send it out, rejection, more rewriting, send it out again, more rejection. It’s sitting there on your computer and you know you need to make changes but…it’s reached the point where you can’t even look at the damn script. You are utterly and totally exhausted! And not one scintilla closer to getting the thing made, that’s the crusher. The WGA, the 6-figure sale, launching the successful career you told your dad about as he wrote those $20,000 checks for Columbia Film & Video school–ain’t happening.

You want to hang it up. Not just the one script, but maybe the whole mess. I mean, how many screenwriters actually make a living at it anyhow?

You tried, you really did. You bang away at the front door of the Country Club but  nobody takes notice. There’s a sign: DO NOT ENTER- THIS MEANS YOU, JACK! You recall Dorothy Parker: I hate writing. I love having written. Or maybe Tom Petty: The waiting is the hardest part. Time is passing, nothing happens.

Worse than nothing…you’ve heard back from the world at large through screenwriting contests, query letters, manager inquiries, the responses kinda suck. Cryptic reader notes from Page or Austin, generic rejection slips from boutique agencies, no response at all from the bigger joints. Perfection is the sound of Hollywood rejection: Silence.

Maybe you’ve done ok…got Quarters at Nicholl, pitched a concept at Pitchfest and got some response from an agent. You’ve given it to friends and got excellent feedback, ran it through your screenwriting group, vetted it and rewrote, sent it out again and made the Finalist round at the SouthWest Panhandle State Screenwriting Competition, all of which has lead you…nowhere. Not one scintilla closer…

And the years are passing…

Is it worth it? How can you know?

If I’ve depressed you so far, let me just say this: Contrary to what the Country Club gatekeepers would tell you…your time does have value. And here’s another tidbit: There are some things you can control in the process.

I have endeavored here at Script Gods to show multiple paths toward seeing your vision made. Overly simplistic as it might be, there are other paths beside beating your head to a bloody pulp against the front door. You need to be a student of how other people are getting their screenplays read, and their movies made.

I’ve had excellent students who worked for months on a script, submitted it to Nicholl, didn’t make it past the first round and never recovered from the rejection. Two points here: 1-If you pack your writing tent that quickly after a single rejection, well, it might be for the best. You were never a writer in the first place. Screenwriting demands discipline. If you’re writing for the screen you will be critiqued and you will rewrite, perpetually, endlessly, and not always paid for your efforts. This is not a poem, it’s not a play. Unless you’re writing the check to make the movie, you don’t get to decide when the script is done. Deal with it.

2-What strikes me as delusional, or downright ABSURD, is that you would let some person you’ve never met, whose qualifications cannot be verified–a screenplay contest reader, an agent’s assistant, a manager’s just-out-of-college gopher–pronounce judgement over whether the script you just worked eight months on, is GOOD or BAD? What does that mean? Pure subjective opinion, end of story. Why would you let a single person, or even a hundred people, stop you? Don’t toss in. Instead, think about alternatives to the front door of the Country Club. You want in, period. Is there a back door to the joint?

This discussion, at bottom, is pointless. If you want to pack up your script, or even your attempt at a career as a writer, do it. No one but yourself should decide that. Put the script on the shelf and let it sit there. Come back to it later, or never come back to it. The decision is yours.

Don’t ever let the bastards tell you no.