Accolades

At work today, I got a phone call informing me that I had won the American Accolades Screenwriting Contest. Yeah, won it outright. Grand prize winner. It's pretty exciting.

And it's not just about the money. Sure, I win $2500, which will basically quadruple my take-home for the month of August. I can finally try some of that "lunch" I've heard so much about...

But it's more than that. I get to have some meetings with actual agents and managers and producers, to try and convince some poor schlub out there to give me even more money just for writing stuff. I mean, are they fools? I'm already doing that on here for free, baby!

But please don't tell them that...I'm hoping some of these people are willing to pay through the nose, because I have expensive tastes.

More than anything else, this feels a little bit like validation. I've been writing scripts since the age of 17, and writing other, brief plays, stories and comedy bits well before that. Once, right after I graduated college, a family friend paid me to adapt a novel he had purchased the rights to, which never went up going anywhere.

But other than that lovely bit of recompense, I have never really found a warm reception for my screenwriting. I find people tend to praise my work in a certain way, letting me know that they liked it but they don't think I'll ever be able to sell it.

That's fair enough. The type of movies that tend to get made in Hollywood aren't particularly well-written most of the time, so I don't really see the fact that my scripts don't read like traditional popular films to be a negative. But winning this Hollywood screenwriting contest, even if it's not a guarantee of any future success in "the business," does kind of let me know that I'm on the right track, that there are people out there who read what I do and appreciate it on some level.

So, just couldn't really contain my excitement and had to let everyone in Bloggerland know about my recent success. Don't worry...later on tonight, we'll get back to arguing about whether Wedding Crashers is racist and insulting Rick Santorum.

[Oh, and in case my parents or grandparents are reading this, I'm just kidding...I always have enough money for lunch. Now, dinner on the other hand...]