Welcome to the writersroom blogs
Hello and welcome to our shiny new blogs. This is a slightly belated welcome as our other bloggers have already started posting - but better late than never. Kate Wincup has been blogging about her residency at Ö÷²¥´óÐã Comedy North for a little while, has just joined her and there will be more to come.
Since the writersroom message board was discontinued, our website has missed a sense of interaction with users of the site. So we're hoping the blogs will redress that balance with something new and personal. Writersroom is an open door to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã in terms of the information we provide, our unsolicited script system and the public events we occasionally run. The Ö÷²¥´óÐã can seem like a big, daunting, unassailable place and we try to counter that by making writersroom a more accessible point of contact. We hope the blogs will be an on-going conversation with users.
I'm the Development Manager at writersroom. But don't let that put you off. I won't be a regular blogging personality as such - but I will be around and about. Our website is in line for a much needed overhaul so do keep an eye out for that. For fans of Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt, take a look at the script for the first ever episode of Life on Mars. It's a great piece of scriptwriting and as good a place as any to start if you want to write for TV.
Comments
Paul,
I sincerely appreciate this forum and your willingness to be around for communication.
As an American writer who follows and has recently submitted a work to writersroom, I certainly find the patient waiting and sheer size of the industry particularly daunting, if not outright intimidating.
I was curious as to how often, as the Development Manager, you come across a script that one of the other readers has passed along and you say, "Wow, where did this one come from? This is amazing."
Versus, "Oh, why did they pass this along?"
I hope to one day start writing in this blog. I would like to start writing scripts.
I just wonder if writers on the blog know when to give up submitting a manuscript. Should you spend some time editing, some time writing, or just do one or the other?
Well! you must start writing NOW
what are waiting for
Good luck
Roberto Rizzo
Paul, Just a quick question about age. After researching the writers room there appears to be a well established, talented but realtively young team. What are the chances of a youthful 40 something, getting scripts reviewed? Please understand I'm asking this on behalf of a friend.
It's not clear from your post whether you mean a young team working at writersroom - or an emphasis on younger writers.
We're perhaps not quite so young as you think here at writersroom - and our freelance reading team comprises a range of ages. What's more important is the experience and commitment we collectively bring to our work, which I think is huge and varied and dedicated.
And we don't focus on younger writing talent. New writing talent can necessarily tend to be younger - but not always. It doesn't matter to us how old writers are or what their experience is. Great writers are great writers, full stop. That's the criterion by which we operate.
I think the terms 'young writer' and 'new writer' are used (mistakenly) interchangeably, when often those with more life experience make more exciting writers. There's an opportunity on WR at the moment asking for writers aged 18-30 - personally I think it's discriminatory! But then that's probably because I'm over 30!
I would venture that half of my reading clients are over 30; a quarter over 40. That other quarter -range between approximately 16 and 30 (though they don't always tell me how old they are of course, so this is entirely non-scientific). I always use the phrase "new writer" to describe those people who have only just started writing, regardless of age, but can see Jan's frustration: there does seem an emphasis on competitions, schemes etc aimed at those younger people. However, the beauty of this writing lark is that there needn't be ANY boundaries: many of my older clients have had more success in getting read by the "big" companies, places etc because they are more resourceful than those younger clients... To use a horrible cliche, they "think outside the box". So don't be dispirited, you'll get your stuff read. You just have to get your thinking cap on (eeeurgh, these well-worn phrases are coming with abandon today!!)
It's nice to see the forum back in it's latest incarnation. How well I remember the heyday of the original messageboard. ;o) By the way, the site is 10 years old this year (or possibly next). I'm referring back to it's first incarnation as Write Now with the glorious fluorescent pink page background. Happy days! :o)