Blog: I'm Considering A Move To L.A.

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Last year (as mentioned previously) my script 6 Billion To One got into the final 3 of the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. This was VERY gratifying and has since turned out to be a bit of a Big Deal. Usually when I've "placed" in these competitions that's your lot, but this time around there's been additional STUFF.

For instance, last week I got to take part in a WEBINAR with the screenwriting COACH Lee Jessop. This was a bit of a LUCKY HAPPENSTANCE, as it was seeing Lee talk at the London Screenwriting Festival in 2014 that made me START sending scripts out to these competitions. She said then that they were a way of getting "pedigree" i.e. telling Hollywood TYPES that you are good at The Writing without having to live in Hollywood or anything. THUS I spent a year doing exactly that, doing quite well at it, but never seeming to GET anywhere further. One day whilst MOPING around thinking "But where is MY big Hollywood deal?" I realised that I hadn't written down what to do NEXT i.e. AFTER getting placed in these competitions. I considered paying out for a PRIVATE online chat with Lee but then The Cash In My Account asked if she had a BOOK or anything I could buy instead. She did, I bought it, and saved approx £195!

ANYWAY, it was only a few days after FINISHING the book (Getting it Write: An Insider's Guide to a Screenwriting Career - highly recommended, it was ACE) that I found out I'd got on this webinar, so you can imagine my MONEY SAVING DELIGHT! In the book she'd said that the Actual Next Thing To Do was to try and get a LITERARY MANAGER, and to contact ones you liked to see if they'd read your STUFF. She didn't actually say how to FIND literary managers you liked, but DID say so in the Webinar - listen to PODCASTS. There's LOADS of these, where all sorts of Hollywood types talk about their careers and what they're looking for, so I've spent the past week or so listening to American people telling me, repeatedly, that I need to move to LA.

That really is the BIG ADVICE that they keeping coming out with - apparently it IS possible to make a career in The Writing if you don't live over there, but you do have to be, as Lee Jessop said, "LA Forward" i.e. happy to hop on a plane a couple of times a year to go to meetings. I must say it does sound very tempting - I've been BROWSING air travel websites at slow moments each day, and it IS lovely and warm over there, but I'm a bit worried about how I'd get anywhere, lacking a driving licence as I do. Also, it costs LOADS!

While all that was going on I also got an INVITE to go to the Final Draft AWARDS ceremony next week in ACTUAL HOLLYWOOD. Unfortunately it's on Thursday 11th, right between the final Hey Hey 16K in Leicester on the 10th (LOTS of tickets still available!) and The Validators in Glasgow on the Saturday, so I can't go - though let's be honest, it's also quite fortunate in that it lets me off the hook from having to PANIC about whether I really should or not!! Still, it's nice to know that it's not ENTIRELY KRAZY that I COULD do something like that and, who knows, if I get anywhere again I might end up going!

The only problem is I need to get going on writing the NEXT Hollywood script. Quick! To the TYPEWRITER!

posted 3/2/2016 by MJ Hibbett

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