Some inspirational words on scriptwriting...

Captain Pierce

Captain Pierce

Veteran
...from J. Michael Straczynski, creator/producer/primary writer of Babylon 5, who's recently put out a series of books containing every script he wrote for that show (92 of the 110 produced episodes), and he concluded by discussing his recent emergence as an A-list feature film writer (beginning with his sale of a script called Changeling to Ron Howard's production company, a film that's being directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Angelina Jolie, and going to Cannes), and he had this to say about it and how it didn't become because of (or in spite of) Babylon 5, because (as he put it) "most of the studio heads I met with...hadn't even heard of Babylon 5."

jms said:
The only things that mattered were the words on the page.

Therein lay the message, and that message is hope.

...It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter that you don't have relatives or friends in the business. It doesn't matter that you didn't go to the best schools, or haven't sold anything before, or that you're too tall or too short or too thin or too fat, that you're male or female, twenty-one or fifty-three.

What matters are the words, the stories you tell with them, and the dreams you hold for yourself and for your future.

Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying.

When the hard times come, as they always do, hold on to that.
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It's true, breaking into Hollywood in anything other than writing requires a mystical confluence of talent, connections, and luck. Writing is the one area where talent alone can get you inside the castle.

I've heard it said another way, throw a great script out the window while driving the 405 freeway and within 24 hours a producer will call you.

Too bad is so hard to write a great script.
 
He's always been one of my favorite writers. Always candid and forthcoming too. Check it his book indeed!
 
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