Screenwriting : How did you get your first screenplay sold? by Johnny Lancaster

It's different for every single person, guaranteed.

Here's a link to Ashley Scott Meyer's site. He created a table that shows the % of how each person he's interviewed got their big break. http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/how-to-sell-your-screenplay/how-to-...

The second one: There was an actress in my home town area who was a friend of a friend and I wanted to go out with her, so I gave her a script and said "There's a role in here that would be perfect for you." Instead of going out with me, she promptly moved to Los Angles... where she ended up in a low budget horror movie as Victim #3, who takes off her top and is then killed by the monster. She gave my script to a guy on set (not the producer), who read it and thought it was a million times better than the low budget horror movie. So that guy gave it to his best contact, who gave it to his best contact, who gave it to his best contact, who gave it to his best contact... until 3 years later I'm getting ready to go to work at my day job when the phone rings and this guy claims he's with a production company at Paramount and wants to option my script. I know this is a practical joke, so I tell the guy to give me his phone number and I'll call him back. He gives me a 213 area code, and I'm thinking by practical joker buddy did some research... and hang up on the guy. Call the number expecting to get a gas station or something... but it's actually a production company at Paramount. Yikes! "Um, I was talking to Daniel and got disconnected..." They asked if they could fly me to L.A. and put me up in a hotel and buy my script... um, that sounds good to me. They never made the film. They paid me enough to quit my day job and move to Los Angeles. Here's the lesson: Screenwriting is a terrible way to hook up. The other lesson: Everyone thinks it's who they know, but really it's all about the script. You want a screenplay that opens doors for you. You want to write screenplays that get passed around by strangers, and can get into places where they'd never open the door to you. The first one: a rescue page one rewrite on a low budget drive in movie made in my home town. I had 12 days to write a completely new screenplay using the cast that had already been hired and the locations which had already been rented. It was a terrible movie.

Cool story, haha. Are you still writing movies?