Bustin' In: The Fiery Bottomless Chasm

Okay, I guess by definition "chasms" aren't bottomless, but work with me here.

Are you a spec writer planning your assault on the studio gates by modeling your strategy after a successful route taken by another writer?

Do you say to yourself, Diablo Cody was a stripper who kept a cool blog, so I'll do that.

Or, I heard Antwone Fisher worked as a guard at Sony and he handed Denzel his script, so I'll do that.

Or, Robert Rodriguez shot his movie for a few thousand dollars and edited it on a VCR, so I'll do that.

Well, stop it. Shift your thinking a bit and picture it more like this...

Imagine you're standing at the edge of a ragged, fiery, bottomless chasm. And standing on each side of you, shoulder to shoulder, for as far as you can see, are your fellow spec writers.

On the other side of the chasm are the studios. And spanning the chasm are millions of rickety rope bridges. The wind's howling and it's real nasty and you get it.

Then, every now and then, one of your writing brethren lets out a banshee scream and goes charging across one of the wispy bridges. Most of the time they get halfway over the chasm and the bridge collapses and they disappear into shrieking fiery anguish.

But every once in a while...

Someone makes it to the other side. The angels sing, the gates part, and it's free hookers and blow for everyone.

But what most of the writers still standing across the chasm don't notice is that just as the lucky writer made it to solid land, the bridge that writer chose disappeared in a phit (made up word, but it works.)

What I'm saying is that each writer I know who has even gotten on the free water circuit took a slightly different bridge over the chasm. And once a bridge has been used, it's no longer available for anyone else.

It's like each bridge has it's own fingerprint of a snowflake on the cornea of its DNA. Only not as cliched and bludgeoned to death.

The routes are unique, but there is a crucial common denominator. Each writer told a great story that exhibited both professionalism and a unique personality.