Time now for a question I’ve been pondering quite a bit lately:

When talking about yourself and your accomplishments, how much is too much?

Yes, you should be very proud of whatever success you’ve achieved. You want to have confidence in your writing and your abilities, but you also have to be careful about overdoing it.

It’s a fine line between “My script made it to the Nicholl semis! Yay!” and “My script made it to the Nicholl semis. Am I not amazing?”

Then there are the writers who continuously mention their success (“That reminds me of when I was working on my PAGE Silver-winning script…”), or even worse, exaggerate. I’ve read of a writer who touts having won a prestigious contest, when the truth is they won for their genre, not the overall grand prize. Two very different things.

Some people tend to forget that claims can easily be verified on the internet. So don’t lie, unless you enjoy the truth coming back to bite you on the ass.

I’ve had dealings with writers and directors who would rattle off their accomplishments without any prompting whatsoever, including one filmmaker who, during a 45-minute conversation, mentioned at least three times the fact he’d made three films and two mentions of how an A-list actor was interested in one of his scripts (a claim now several years old, and as far as I know, nothing has yet to come from it).

Counter to that, I’ve read updates from writers who, despite their success, remain relatively tight-lipped (“Sold a script today. Looking forward to working with ____ on it.” And that’s it.). I can appreciate that. You’ve said what you wanted to say, left it at that, and moved on.

Speaking for myself, I opt to keep quiet. If somebody asks, I’ll mention having some moderate contest success, but prefer to not be the instigator. I don’t mind tooting my own horn, but I don’t want it to drown out the rest of the conversation.