DIE TRYING 007

In case you forgot, I’m a plucky writer trying to sell my latest screenplay, publish it as a novel or die trying.

In DIE TRYING, you will get an unvarnished look at a bitterly honest writer struggling to make it. No name-dropping or Hollywood phoniness. Just the facts ma’am on what the media landscape really is like behind the curtain.

In TODAY’S ISSUE, we explore whether you have to live in Los Angeles or New York City to make it as a screenwriter.

Years ago, I traded being invisible to A-listers lunching at The Ivy for the lower cost of living in ruby red Florida where golf carts roam the suburban streets, flying MAGA flags.

Culture clash, indeed…

With Los Angeles and New York City consistently ranking as some of the most expensive cities to live in the country, I am not alone in fleeing the “cultural elite” coasts as a dirt-poor refugee.

The question becomes: do you have to live in NYC or LA to make it as a screenwriter?

Not according to Founder/CEO Franklin Leonard of The Black List, an entertainment organization that releases an annual list of the best unproduced screenplays and holds an online marketplace for writers.

As Franklin told Arc Studio’s Head of Writing Micah Cratty last December, the website acts as a “rudimentary crude metal detector for finding good material” and “third-party validator that the industry does trust”.

Since 2007, Black List scripts that have gone on to be produced have earned 300 nominations and 11 screenwriting Oscars, according to Leonard.

Harvard Business School did a study on The Black List before the pandemic. Scripts on the list are twice as likely to get made as those that are not. Furthermore, Black List scripts that are produced generate 90% more revenue than those produced screenplays that are not on this Hollywood honor roll.

Leonard lays out an either-or scenario in advising writers that living in New York or LA aren’t the only options.

“I would say if I was an aspiring professional writer and I was choosing between coming to Los Angeles and making not a lot of money in a very expensive city,” he said, or “going somewhere where I could keep my costs low and get a job that would not occupy most of my time and mental energy and becoming the best damn writer that I could.”

You decide.

But even in Dubuque, you can get high scores on The Black List and get discovered.

I count this as good news for those of us who fled the coasts or never set foot in them in the first place.

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