A Resource For Writers

It amazes me that I have a piece of paper certifying myself as a trained screenwriter, yet there are so many writing resources out there that I have no experience with at all. Sometimes I feel like in the arts community we all make peace with the reality of a lonely uphill struggle that consumes the better part of our twenties and thirties, but the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of people out there who want to make the journey easier and they're providing the tools to do so.

Sellascript.com is one such tool that every screenwriter should get familiar with. It's not the holy grail of screenwriter support sites, but it's a pretty good place to start. What drew me in initially was that it's a place where dozens of screenplay competitions are compiled and sorted by date. This was so refreshing after so many days of searching the shady back alleys of the internet for what usually ends up being the dirty whore of screenplay competitions. Sure some of competitions on sellascript.com are expired by a few years, but there are often links that go to updated competition home pages and there are several up to date competitions already listed on the site. All screenwriters should get familiar with the competition circuit. It's not the glamorous path we all envision, (I thought it sucked when teachers told me to take my beloved thesis and enter it into a competition...no contract?) but for most of us young writers it's the only way anybody is going to give that 100 million dollar historical adventure any attention right now.

Aside from the competition listings sellascript.com also offers basic need to know information for serious writers such as format, different contracts, and being marketable. They also post news of recent screenplay sales in the industry, interviews with writers/filmmakers, and they offer a directory of production companies and talent agencies. Certain features are only open to paying members, but there's more than enough on the site to warrant a few click happy sessions. Who knows, you may find the competition that will put that abandoned horror script to good use, or some of us might even finally understand what an option agreement is.