When are you a writer?

John Scalzi has a post on his blog in which he answers three questions:

When can you call yourself a writer?
When can you call yourself a professional writer?
When can you call yourself a good writer?

It's a good read, and recommended for anyone concerned about the answers.

Robert Hestand

Last year, Robert Hestand sent ScriptDoctor a note with a glowing recommendation of our services:

I just wanted to say that I was extremely thankful for the quality of your service, as well as the quick turnaround, and I won’t hesitant to recommend you (and your company) to friends and colleagues.

I appreciated the fact that you encourage writers to “own” their rewrite, rather than telling the writer what is “right or wrong” with the story. Personally, it allowed me to approach my next pass with a sense of discovery rather than a sense of correction.

He had significant plans for the script he sent to ScriptDoctor Howard Allen:

With THE N WORD, I utilized your review and synthesized it with additional coverage, in turn combining that with critiques from friends (and we all know how “honest” those are…), and executed a much stronger draft. My primary goal with this spec is to showcase my talent by (hopefully) placing in several contests and securing representation.

We've received word from Robert that his screenplay, The N Word, has placed in several competitions:

- 2nd Place, 2011 MoviePoet annual contest
- Finalist, 2011 WriteMovies contest
- Semi-Finalist, 2011 StoryPros contest
- 2nd Place, 2011 ScriptVamp "Attention Grabber" contest
- Scriptshark Scouting Qualifier

Congratulations, Robert!

John August on First Sale Doctrine

John August has a post on First Sale Doctrine and what it means for screenwriters. There's some excellent information there, especially about how digital rentals are better for the film industry (and everyone who works in it, including screenwriters) than analogue rentals (DVDs, etc.) because digital rentals and streaming generate revenue.

Please read the whole post here.