The year is 2011

This year began, like others before it on January 1st but for me at least this was probably the only thing about 2011 that would be the same as all of the years that preceded it. The following flow of words will describe the highs and lows and even the in betweens of the year for me, Dave the Screenwriter and optimistic dreamer.

If you've gotten this far then you must be interested in how an "aspiring" screenwriter spends his 12 months and so I will try to enlighten you and entertain a little as we go but I must warn you at this point that there may be many many swear words, tasteless jokes, lots of bitching and some self appreciation along the way. Also the word aspiring is stupid, you either are a screenwriter or you aren't as my hero Kevin Smith was once told by his sister "stop aspiring to be a writer and just be a fucking writer".

The start of the story that is 2011 actually begins in November 2010, I was fortunate enough to be at a pro series event in Hollywood where along with 20 other writers I was brought to Warner Bros, Universal and Paramount to listen to producers, writers, directors and waitresses who all work in the Hollywood system. At the end of the trip we all got to pitch ONE script that we had been prepping for months ... I went instead with an outline for a page 1 rewrite and gave it my best shot. The great thing about not having 100 pages written at that point where I was pitching producers was that I could change my pitch mid sentence to engage the producers, I could make my script fit them because it wasn't written yet (they didn't know that but one producer did say to me that he knew I was still only 90% finished the script!).

At the event I had my script requested four times, which was a great result and thought me that I'm good at pitching, and that having an Irish accent can help you pitch to LA producers who love Irish people! The greatest breakthrough I had though on the whole trip was in my hotel room while speaking to my roommate Gary. We spoke about what kind of scripts we wanted to write and what kind of writers we are, while I was telling Gary that I like dark humor but I'm more of a thriller writer who laces scenes with a light layer of humor a voice in my head started screaming at me "YOU"RE A FRICKIN' COMEDY WRITER ASSHOLE" and so the choice was made, I would be a comedy writer forevermore.

When I got home to Ireland I let December pass me by, I decided that I was going to be a comedy writer and the first comedy script I'd write would be the dark comedy Hit-man script that I had pitched in LA, but I wouldn't write it until I got a copy of Final Draft (that's write I was writing on CeltX up until then, something I regret now that I'm an FD stalwart). Final Draft did arrive shortly after the turn of the year, so did a brand new notebook and a shiny new pen... time to be the writer I was born to be.

So I set about writing and completed the script within a week, read it, liked it, sent it to friends who also liked it for the most part and only suggested minor changes (all of which were made because they were brilliant suggestions *Gardner Grout's in particular had been on my mind before he said anything) Then I sent out the requested copies, pitched some more people and got some more requests... I was certain that this was going to be my year.

As happens with any script you submit in this business it was quite a while before I heard back from anyone but when the comments came back they were pretty much all the same (mostly from managers) they read "This is a great script, really funny at parts with great dialogue, great character and evidence of a very talented writer, BUT the story is too dark for us but please come back to us again with anything else that you have" and there was the problem, I didn't really have ANYTHING else. Sure I had some scripts but they were not what I wanted to send out, they were practices! So I made a decision that I wouldn't pitch for the remainder of the year and for that year I would write like a  mofo and round out the year with three new comedy scripts that I could present whenever any said "so, what else you got?" So I began to write what would become a mountainous library of 2011 work (slight exaggeration!).

The first script I decided to write (which was the second I wrote in the year, keep up will you) was an American Pie inspired comedy which I'll describe like this: The three hottest girls in school decide to make a fortune selling their dates to the prom, they get the three nerdiest guys in school to set up an auction site to sell their dates but don't expect the guys to set up their own site selling access to hidden cameras in the girl's rooms. I loved writing that script because I had such a blast writing funny scenes between two polar opposite groups: Hot popular girls and nerdy loser guys. I loved developing the romance between the lead girl and the lead guy and how the fallout of their relationship ruined both plans and how I got to use writing this movie as a excuse to watch REVENGE OF THE NERDS 1&2 as "research". And there it was, I had begun to be the comedy writer that the world needed me to be but although I was happy with the script, really happy with it in fact I was barred from pitching it to anyone until Jan 1st 2012 so I better keep writing.

Next up came a short film, I'd already made two (NEEDS & FATE) and really enjoyed them, I loved working with the actors and I needed to do it again, so I wrote what I felt was a short homage to Reservoir Dogs, called it "Honor Of Thieves" and it was a pretty good shoot but I was not completely happy with the final product so I did not send it out, maybe I'll pst it on YouTube someday.

After that distraction I had to get back to writing and I was still in love with filming, so I bought a camera, a good camera, it cost me $1,000 it better be frickin' good! I spoke with my brother about making a movie, not a short, not a half our special a full length movie film. We decided to give it a shot and I decided that I had just the story to tell, the script is called WALK ON and is about John, a soccer obsessed dude who loves his team more than his girlfriend until she makes him choose. The script is pretty good, I sent it to my actors, I even auditioned some new people I cast some people I was ready to go and then the person I cast in my lead actress role pulled out just days before the shoot was to begin ... best advice I can give is NEVER WORK WITH YOUR FRIENDS. That collapse of the shoot set me back a small amount of cash and a lot of time, but like I learned in LA, "go with the flow" and you'll be fine.

So I got right into a new script, one that I'd been thinking about for a while, one that I knew there would be a lot of me in, one that I thought was going to be AMAZING. I called it THE WINNER and it's about a writer who is obsessed with Slash from guns n roses and has been working on a biography of the axe man for years (Stop laughing, it's pure coincidence that I'm a huge Slash fan, honest, okay maybe I wrote that part of the character just so that I could meet Slash when he does his cameo at the end!), Anyway Simon (the writer) gets ditched by his girlfriend as he proposes and the next day wins the lottery. Simon is upset but his friend Eddie drives him to forget the bitch by hiring a hot assistant, who he does indeed fall in love with... Clare tries to win him back but he now knows what true love is and there's also a whole thing about a store called Guitars and Strippers which is pretty funny! I did get coverage on this from a few sources, my favorite quote from the coverage was "The Winner is a very funny script, if it was just about being funny then this script would be really successful..." I've ready that quote a million times since I got that coverage back and I've been rewriting that script for a while to the point where I know that in January that it will be the one script I lead with because it's a very funny read apparently and the "characters are great, the dialogue is great and the writing is very very good" (that's another quote! and yes I'm showing it off because I can!)

Sometime around the writing of THE WINNER the Page awards were handing out condolences to losers but I got myself a birth into the second round for THE HIT-MAN which was so cool because I have only ever entered 2 contests, The Nichols fellowship a couple years ago and this years Page awards, I was so happy to make the second round that I started planning what I would do with the prize money, but I didn't make the next cut ... However making the second round was AWESOME!

I should also say at this point that I had taken THE HIT-MAN and submitted it to Amazon Studios early in the year, it was not a comedy script (kinda dark comedy but it appears to be too dark for anyone in Hollywood to take on) and that meant that it is there's until 2013, anyway only about seven people have read it and most have said nice things about it, check it out if you like. http://studios.amazon.com/scripts/8013

After THE WINNER came back with such good reviews I tried to get WALK ON back up and running but again I was halted by people not being available or not wanting to do it anymore and stuff of that nature. So I wrote another script (if you've been counting then you should be on FIVE for the year so far) This one is called MY TWO INTERNET GIRLFRIENDS and is pretty much what you think it is, a guy from Dublin has two girls online that think he's a wealthy doctor who is going to be their knight in shining armour. Of course he isn't a wealthy doctor at all, he's a loser who works in a video store (not that all people who work video store's are losers, just this guy!) His world is thrown in to turmoil when both of his online honeys come to Dublin for a weekend, the same weekend ... he learns the difference between love and lust and how being yourself is better than pretending to be something that you're not.

Good coverage on that script too and the great thing about it is that it could be made on a small budget or a big one, so I have though about us making it ourselves, I have a list of potential actors and actresses who could play the part and all I need is about $100,000 ...

I had been discovering lots of cool film stuff throughout the year and the most interesting to me was the idea of shooting a real time movie, ie the whole thing takes place in one location for an hour and a half and you shoot one big long take, maybe two takes if you want to be fancy! So I thought about it and came up with an idea for a 24 hour shoot, a movie about a guy and a girl who are one a date watching movies at his house when she chokes on a peanut M&M and dies but rather than call an ambulance the guy calls his friend, who convinces him that they have to dispose of the body or spend the rest of their lives in prison. A night of crazy goings on follows and the script is fun, if a little gross out - I'm planning to get everyone together in early Jan 2012 and shoot it, we'll also sell the crap out of it online in order to raise funds for a really good attempt at making MY TWO INTERNET GIRLFRIENDS.

So that was my writing year, more or less. It contained SIX new scripts that did not exist on Jan 1st, it contained TWO failed attempts at making a movie, it contained one short film and a lot of notebooks, it was a great year and now it's almost over my thoughts have turned to the future.

2012 will start with submitting scripts again, calling producers again with my heart beating out of my chest again hoping that I have just what they're looking for at that particular moment. I can't wait! Undoubtably 2012 will bring new scripts into my life, new characters and witty dialogue, maybe even a nude scene or two but whatever it does bring, I'm ready. My year of writing and not submitting is finally nearly over, I've proved to myself that I am the comedy writer I was always fighting against being and I am a good writer, now I just need to find my manager and a producer who wants to work with a good writer. It'll happen in 2012, I 'll have movies out in 2012, I'll write better than ever in 2012, I'll sell in 2012, I'll be ready everyday of 2012, I'll be proactive in my career in 2012 but most importantly in 2012 I'll be turning 30... scary!

Write on and happy holidays guys