As has been written about many a time on this platform, I’m a huge supporter of helping writers out when I can, especially when it comes to promoting their own material.
Which is why a few years ago I created The Maximum Z Script Showcase; a twice-a-year post that lists film and television spec scripts writers have sent in with the intention of letting the rest of the world know about them. Each listing includes the basic information about each script (genre, logline, awards, etc.), as well as the writer’s email in case it piques your interest and you’d like to contact them about reading it.
So I’m proud to announce that the door is now open to submit your script to the Summer ’22 edition, slated to post on Friday, June 24th.
Interested in having yours included? Here’s all you need to do:
Email the following info about your script with the subject “Maximum Z Summer ’22 Script Showcase” here:
-Film or TV?
-Title
-Author(s)
-Genre(s)
-Logline
-Awards (if applicable) – 5 at the most
-your email
And that’s it.
Two VERY important details to keep in mind:
-DO NOT SEND THE SCRIPT!!!
Just the info listed above. Nothing else.
-and-
ONLY ONE SCRIPT PER PERSON. No exceptions.
New scripts are highly encouraged, but it’s still okay to send in one that’s been featured in a previous edition.
Submissions will be accepted until Thursday, June 23rd. After that and you’re out of luck.
It contains 42 interviews with script consultants, and offers a wide variety of helpful advice that could benefit any screenwriter, no matter how much or how little experience they have, as well as each person’s contact info (where applicable), and of course, their favorite kind of pie.
And as the title indicates, this is the first volume. The second and third, featuring interviews with not only more consultants, but also screenwriters, filmmakers, and writers in other mediums, are slated for release in the late June/early July and mid-September timeframes, respectively.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll be interested enough in wanting to take a look at this one.
Thanks for reading, enjoy the book, and have a piece of pie with my compliments.
Coming soon to a trillion-dollar online retailer near you!
This one’s been a long time in development, and I’m quite thrilled to be able to finally discuss it.
Over the past few years, I’ve done over 100 interviews with script consultants, screenwriters, television writers, filmmakers, and writers across several mediums on this blog, and my intent for quite a long time was to collect them all in a book.
Turns out all of those interviews in print form would have resulted in a book approximately 700-750 pages long, so the book then became two.
After some additional editing and formatting, along with a little more re-evaluating, it was decided that the two would actually work better as three.
So…
My 3-book GO AHEAD AND ASK! series will be coming out over the next few months.
Volume 1 collects the original set of interviews that kicked the whole thing off, and will be available in paperback on Amazon starting on 22 April.
(All three books will only be available in paperback. Sorry, e-readers.)
Volumes 2 and 3 contain the interviews that have come out since then, with Volume 2 slated for release in either late June or early July, and Volume 3 wrapping things up in September.
I am truly elated to finally be able to offer these books to the screenwriting community, and hope they prove to be both informative and entertaining, as well as inspire you to enjoy a piece of pie while you read them, because what else would match so perfectly with something I wrote?
Who doesn’t like hearing that somebody liked something you wrote? Great feeling, isn’t it? You’ve put all that time and effort into it, and this is the response?
Now look at it from the other side – you read something and really liked it. Did you like it enough to let the writer know?
Go ahead and do that. It doesn’t even have to be somebody you know, or who asked you for a read.
It could be somebody with a script you read after hearing good things about it, or who wrote a book or a movie you really enjoyed.
Since so many creative types have an online presence, it’s becoming easier and easier to drop them a line and tell them what a great job they did.
I’ve done this a few times over the past few weeks. One was a veteran comic book writer, one was the creative team behind a show on Netflix, and another was the writer of a great low-budget horror-comedy. The latter two let me know how much they really appreciated it, while the former never responded, which is also a possibility. I just file it under “one of those things” and move on.
This isn’t saying you need to send a gushing lovefest of an email or tweet; just a few lines telling them you liked it. Probably take you all of a minute or two.
It can’t be stressed enough how much of a positive impact this sort of thing can have on a creator. Maybe they were having a rough day, and then your email or tweet pops up. Mood lifted.
It’s tough enough to succeed as a writer, so getting this little bit of encouragement out of the blue could go a long way in feeling like all the work you put in was worth it.
Maximum Z 