Chute 'Em Up

The whole concept of writing spec scripts is pretty queer. It's a writing sample. But not a sample of your own voice so much as your ability to speak with someone else's. It's an exercise in mimicry.

And after you put your all into crafting thirty pages of a show, you really can't do anything with it. It'll never be sold, it will never be made. All you do is show it to people. It's the free sample at the grocery store. Here, try a taste of my 30 Rock. If you liked that, let me whip you up something new. Toothpicks and napkins go over there.

One thing I can do, however, is submit the script to competitions. Before I left New York, I submitted "Going Green" to the WB Writers Workshop. The resulting workshop seems to be a shmooze-fest for WB to find and groom future writers. I recently heard the program cut the number of winning sitcom writers from ten to three. Slim chances just got slimmer.

Yesterday I sent the script off to an internet contest. WriteMovies.com apparently likes to see people write television as well.

They cap each round off at 1000 applicants, with what appears to be around an eighth being television specs. 1 out of 125? I like my script and all, but it seems more like fifty bucks down the paypal poop chute. Pessimism aside, if I managed to place into a semi-final spot, or thereabouts, that'd be a nice resume line-item I think. Or at the very least, a fancy feather for my cap.

Next up: I start writing a Dexter.