A good day's work

This is the view from my desk chair right now. It's Monday evening and I've been sitting here off and on for over 12 hours. But it's been a good 12 hours, a productive 12 hours. And my tally board proves it.

I made the decision about a month ago that this was do or die time. It was time to kick this screenwriting career into high gear. I've been screenwriting full-time for almost four years now. I have 3 feature-length movie scripts, 10 television scripts, and a novel to show for it. I'm happy with my portfolio, I'm happy with my resume, and I've gathered a lot of invaluable information that I believe has prepared me to move forward.

For the last 2 weeks I've been culling lists of films, TV shows and webseries that are either in production or will be soon that might be looking to hire someone like me. Someone who's ready to be a script coordinator, a writers' assistant, even a staff writer. And today I started sending out resumes to the people and places on that list. 23 resumes. 23 personalized cover lists. And this is only the beginning.

Last year I did a round of a few hundred query letters to agents and managers and my results weren't good. I ended up working with a management company for months but chose not to sign with them when asked. This year, I'm hoping for better.

And so far?

My hope is being lifted by the hour. Of the 23 resumes I sent out today, only 2 were bounced back with bad email addresses (not bad since I found all of the addresses second-hand on the internet). And I received 2 responses.

Now, this might not seem like much but to me and my heavy heart, it was a lot. More than a lot. One response was simply a form email saying my resume would be routed to the correct department (which I did appreciate) but the other response? A phone call I missed while exercising and a follow-up email that resulted in a 10-minute phone conversation. And a potential meeting and another call tomorrow.

Hope.

I'm not getting too excited. It's day 1. I have a lot of feelers out in a lot of different places. I've called in favors and been approached for some really interesting things lately. I really believe that when the time and the project is right, it will happen. But can I just say, that looking at the view from my desk chair today has made me smile more than once.

And oh yeah, got a rewrite on that baseball pilot done today too and started a new script -- a sitcom. All in all? A good day's work.