1. The Blogger

“Toxic & Elitist”, were the words circling within my head in November 2013. I’d found myself at the door of Stage 32 an artistic refugee, spiritually exhausted after a stint on screenwriting forums and a certain website that evaluates your scripts with a score. The former exposed me to trolls who’d convinced me I didn’t have what it takes to break in, while the latter had done nothing but send me in circles. While a script of mine had been selected by Amazon Studios as a “Notable Project”, I’d become convinced I couldn’t write.

Back then, Stage 32 was a relative unknown, but for the most part, free. Who turns their nose up at free? Not this guy from an old mining town in England. This felt like an opportunity, and I quickly found a community that was both friendly and authentic. Here people used real names and acted civilized, with no bravado or BS, and I ate it up in spades.

The man in charge, RB, upon learning I’d had a short script made, asked if I wanted to blog about it. Although a little scared, I ran with the suggestion, and the response was an outpouring of positivity connecting me to an actress who wanted a web series written. The Skype meeting I had would be the first time I’d see Hollywood live, through her window from the angle of the hills. I’ll never forget the view.

I wrote, shared advice, and reflected in further blogs. It was emotionally tough because I was still trying to break in, but I now had a family of peers and mentors cheering me on. It was via wise writer-producer Laurie Ashbourne in the Screenwriting Lounge that I learned Amazon Studios were promoting me on social media, and I got to chat with my first studio exec, Regina Lee, who took time out to share what she’d learned from working on the X-Men and Fast and the Furious movies.

I had no quibble with being at the “bottom” because I now saw a path forward. I optioned shorts like crazy and while few got made, I learned critical lessons when the stakes were low. I said “I’m a screenwriter” aloud for the first time in a Stage 32 success stories montage, I got regular shoutouts on On-Stage With RB, and everything came together when I attended Raindance in London to go to the Stage 32 meetup, where I got to hug RB and the wonderful Amanda in person and feel the kinship that comes from being around fellow creatives.

2. The Crusader

Following a series of blogs I’d penned on Stage 32 that had drawn many wonderful people into my orbit, RB reached out to me personally and tipped me off about a new blogging platform that was emerging, Medium, that could potentially widen my audience even further, and even gave his blessing for me to repost my previous blogs on there to help get my presence kickstarted.

And that I did; writing in detail about what I was learning about the craft from my story writing and what I was learning about the industry from networking with its members, predominantly via Stage 32.

All this led to me becoming painfully aware that screenwriters needed to have a place to upload their scripts for free, enter details to help industry members, from big to small, find them, and simply get back to writing, knowing their script was out there getting exposure. They needed that not just for their career prospects but for their mental well-being too. Stage 32 did this to a certain extent with its Loglines section, but I knew there were no plans to develop things further and take the site off-track from its greater overall purpose. So, long story short, inspired by RB building Stage 32 off the back of seeing a need when he visited the Austin Film Festival and witnessing all those writers walking away without hope, I built my own little corner of the internet I called Script Revolution which, when it needed support at launch, was lauded by RB himself in his weekend blog and found most of its early adopters in the Stage 32 Screenwriting Lounge. Stage 32 was there again, when it mattered, giving support and looking at the bigger picture when other communities were either ignoring me, laughing at me, or calling me plain crazy.

Not long later, five years into writing, I signed my first feature option for a script called Blueberry Special that I’d written in a wave of passion that all the above had nurtured, and while that would sadly go nowhere, like most script options do, I was about to watch everything come together in the most unexpected way.

3. The Screenwriter

The message was somewhat ominous at first. A multi-Emmy-award-winning director-producer with credits that included the blockbuster Gridiron Gang by the name of Shane Stanley reached out to me via email to compliment me on a script of mine called For Your Dreams. He had a book out (What You Don't Learn in Film School: A Complete Guide to [Independent] Filmmaking), so I assumed he was greasing me up to read it, which I offered to do. After I reported back that I loved what I’d read, and admired his attitude to filmmaking, we chatted on Skype in what I thought was a meeting to discuss more about the book - Shane instead wanted to talk about my script, which he desperately wanted to make.

I’d appeared on Shane’s radar thanks to all that blogging over the years. It had caused me to stand out above all those writers keeping their heads down while they endlessly queried anyone who might listen and threw everything they had at the rapidly ballooning world of meaningless screenwriting competitions. He liked my attitude, my iconoclastic view of the Hollywood studio system, and most importantly my views on the craft of screenwriting. He’d read a script of mine to see if I walked-the-walk, so to speak, and thankfully he felt I did, and wanted me to write for him. For Your Dreams wasn’t ideal for his needs at the time, so we agreed to work together on a new project we’d come to name Break Even.

If you’ve ever heard of the film Break Even, it’s most likely because I returned back to Stage 32 with a series of blogs titled “Breaking in with Break Even”, which detailed my experience traveling to LA and watching a feature film being made from my script. A big part of that experience, and a personal pilgrimage for me, was visiting the Stage 32 offices in Manhattan Beach, where I got to hug my friends RB and Amanda once again and meet further members of the team. It was one of the most special moments in a trip packed with special moments, and to me physical confirmation that I’d finally made it.

Funnily enough, I would be wrapping my arms around them only six months later, when they flew to London to attend Raindance and I took the train down for drinks. Shortly after, Script Revolution and Stage 32 would form a business alliance that continues to flourish to this day.

4. The Producer

Once Break Even was out of the edit bay, Shane and I started talking about what was next for us, but this was the year that the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and things were tough to get moving, especially with the threat of filming restrictions. We figured we could maybe do something small, really small, micro-budget by SAG standard, that would be safe to shoot and hopefully punch above its weight, and we became producing partners on our next project Double Threat.

Shane had gotten close to Stage 32 himself, becoming a popular host in the Next Level Webinars section of the site where he was doling out advice to actors, writers, directors, and producers on everything from pre-production to getting acting work. Through this, he’d developed a productive working relationship with Stage 32 Community Manager, Karen “Kay” Ross, who was in the process of changing her career projection toward creative producing - and we needed a second assistant director.

I can’t tell you how utterly insane it feels to join a platform in 2013 as a complete nobody, advance within it, and have one of its employees play a key role in a movie you’re producing nearly ten years later. It is just as wonderful as it is insane too, and it gets even crazier when you think she came back a second time, a year later, on our next project Night Train, this time as our production manager (and more than occasional extra too).

My only regret is that, due to the travel ban over those two years, I couldn’t fly over to be on set for either movie’s production. Thus the closest I’ve ever gotten to Kay has been a few Zoom production meetings, and a rather charming virtual tea party she hosted for her birthday. I instead spent that time at home working on my book “Turn & Burn: The Scriptwriter’s Guide to Writing Better Screenplays Faster”, an extension of a free craft guide I’d been developing for some time, itself a distillation of all those blogs and all those forum discussions I’d had over the years. Needless to say, RB and Amanda were some of the first choices to thank in the opening acknowledgments, because it was the platform they built and managed that gave me the belief I needed to keep trying and the space I needed to keep growing.

5. The Educator

Double Threat, that tiny little movie written in a few days and shot on a dusty hill in Santa Clarita for less than most features spend on catering, hit #4 on Amazon Prime US, making it one of the best-performing low-budget films on the platform that year. My book on craft, Turn & Burn, went to #1 within the screenwriting books section of Amazon upon launch, while Script Revolution carried on growing to over 15,000 members with over 13,000 scripts.

However, what was particularly life-affirming at the end of all of this was a Stage 32 Writer’s Room Watch Party and Coverage Report for Night Train, which had gone to #1 on Hulu for three weeks. Here were Stage 32’s most dedicated aspiring writers watching a film I’d co-produced and studying not just a script I’d written, but the development notes showing how I built the story too. Due to the timezone differences, I couldn’t attend live, but I got to see the delighted reactions of participants and read through the reflections in organizer Kay’s blog documenting what she learned.

While I don’t consider myself a hero in any way at all, this is, in many ways, my writing equivalent of the hero’s journey; from a lost wannabe screenwriter desperately looking for hope and advice to a three-times credited writer-producer being used as an example of someone who’s seeing success, all while educating others through my work.

Stage 32 has always been a constant for me; there to pick me up during the low times and there to pat me on the back during the good times. It’s helped me catch the elevator up when I didn’t have a penny to my name and do the right thing by sending it back down when times are good. I’ll always be thankful for that.

Coming back to post here a decade later is emotional and understandably brings a tear to the corner of my eye. We’ve all come a long way. But mostly I feel warmth in my heart because I know at least one of you reading this will be in the headspace I was in November 2013, and I can only hope my ramblings reassure you that you are in the right place to grow and, providing you keep that creative energy up, have plenty to get excited about in the next ten years.

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