101. You have not moved to Los Angeles! OR: Be a filmmaker!

I hate to say this, but I don’t see any way around it. Other than winning contests, which is a crap shoot in the dark, blindfolded, there’s no other way to get ahead as a writer. None that I know. You have to live in L.A. The business is in Los Angeles. The people are in Los Angeles. It’s all there. Well, some of it is in New York, but not much. The size of the business in Los Angeles dwarfs that of New York, and then the rest of the country... well, it’s like a flea fart in a hurricane.

The chances of your getting an agent who is going to sell your work while you live in Topeka is mostly delusional. Your work gets sold because you bump into people in parking lots in Los Angeles, and they have a friend with them who is happy to read your script. 

You can make it as a feature writer if you live in Racine, as the feature business is more of a live-somewhere-take-meetings-in-Hollywood sort of financial setup. Selling features from outside L.A. is bloody difficult, like launching the space shuttle from your back yard, but it can be done. You cannot live elsewhere if you want to write for television. Not at all. Don’t consider it. Not for a moment. Television is in Los Angeles, except for a smidgen, which is in New York. Period.

For 99% of folks, if you don’t live in Los Angeles, chances are, you will never get to first base.

Unless, of course, you’re not a writer, but a filmmaker. That small distinction changes everything. Then, hell, live anywhere you want. If you make movies and get them in festivals, they will come to you. They will beat a path to your door to give you stacks of cash.

Make movies. Don’t be just a writer. Be a “filmmaker,” or one better, an auteur.

If you’re a writer, you are reacting. If you’re a producer, you’re taking action. Writers sit around and pray someone will like their screenplay. Producers are out there trying to get money so their movies can get made. Active beats passive.

You can't sit and wait for something to happen to you. You have to make it happen for yourself. With the price of admission to the “let’s make a movie” fraternity getting lower and lower, the world, if you’re a filmmaker, is your oyster. 

The world is not your oyster if you’re just a writer and don’t live in Los Angeles.

So, write scripts you want to see. Write scripts you can raise money for in your own hometown. Write scripts that can be made with a tiny cast in a terribly limited number of locations. No car chases. No special effects. Just a great story that will attract killer actors. Think: Blair Witch Project, Napoleon Dynamite, Juno, Sex, Lies And Videotape, Reservoir Dogs, The Art Of Negative Thinking.

Move to Los Angeles if you want to be a writer, but I would still tell you to be a filmmaker, not a just writer, even if you live in Santa Monica. 

Basically: if you’re a filmmaker, not a writer, you don’t have to sit on your duff and wait for someone to hire you.  How lovely!