Thanks ASA and Sarah Chen!

As I mentioned a few months ago, I'm one of the quarter finalists of the American Screenwriters Association's Screenplay Contest.
As part of being selected between the quarters I received a free critique of my screenplay by Sarah Chen, a pro in the business.
Honestly, I was expecting a one page, brief commentary. That was OK for me.
However, what I received from her was a 3 pages length, detailed and professional work that amazed me.
She actually read the whole screenplay, not only the first 20 pages, the whole.
Her critique was so neatly done -in a format that you can clearly get why she mentions this, what is working or not, where are the holes, etc-, that really helps your work.
She even mentioned the typos, grammar errors and in which pages they were!
That's a A+ Contest and Critique.
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A nice subjective discussion about subjectivity

There's been a great discussion about screenwriting and "subjectivity" in Matt Hader's blog.
I'll recommend any in our tribe to drop by his blog to give it a check.
For me, to talk about subjectivity, in any matter, is almost like bar talk.
I had discussions about this topic with anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists, politicians, and of course, drunks.
However, the discussion in Matt's blog is of different caliber. Not all the comments are worthy, of course, as in any discussion.
But for this craft, I think it have some angles and POVs that are very instructive, as usually we don't realize that our craft has its own, particular rules.
Like in Quantum Physics, the number of realities are more than what we think they are (they're talking about 12 and counting.)
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The importance to let sleep an screenplay

I sent last year one screenplay to a couple of contests.
They did good, actually, surprisingly good for a screenplay that took me from the idea to the final draft only 3 months.
Between the top ten finalist of one good contest and still having a chance to go to semi-finals and finals of another biggie.
After that I forgot about it, letting it sleep in my hard drive.
Then, a few days ago I decided to make a printout and give it a read.
While doing it I recalled the voice of one of my art teachers in a Costa Rica University when asked "when a painting is finished?" and her answer was "when you have a good friend who smash a log on your head to stop you from keep making retouches."
The screenplay is not awful, actually, is very good.
But with just a few months of more checking, rewriting... it could be great.
So, now, while I'm working on new stuff I'm taking some time to "retouch" the screenplay.
If I only would let it sleep a few weeks before sending it to the contest...
Let's look forward... and hope to have the good friend around to knock me out when the time come.
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ASA Screenwriters Conventiont - San Diego

I'll be at the 2007 American Screenwriters Association Annual Convention in San Diego, September.
This will be my first trip to the East Coast, and of course, to San Diego.
I have been looking for lodging (hotels, B&B, etc.)
Any useful tips?
Info from past attendees about how the convention works, etc will be most welcome.
By the way, I live in New York so, New yorkers going to the convention... let's make them feel our force!
If you're going, see you there!
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Of Writing and Industry

My last post was about that book, "How Hollywood Works", and I was in the middle of the shock of getting inside details about the cinema industry.
Well, after reading the book some thoughts came.
Hollywood's machine seems like a bloody one, the survivor of the toughest arena.
But what about not having a cinema industry?
I came from a country where there's none.
Yes, in Peru some people do the effort and make some movies every year. But "quality cinema"?, that's other issue.
From the less than a dozen of movies that are made per year there, maybe ONE can be called "good" or perhaps "nice".
The rest, to be honest, is mostly B.S.
I had an experience there, some years ago, when a script was commissioned to me.
It was a TV miniseries, 8 chapters of 30 minutes each one, with social content, a good idea.
I did my best. Each chapter had a very good beginning, middle and end, leaving enough suspense at each end to make the audience wanting for more.
I was proud of the final drafts.
Then came the surprise.
The Director assigned for the project (a middle age, local guy with a couple of bad movies in his resume) came to me saying "I don't have enough material for each chapter. In the 'format' that you're using (he was very sarcastic when mentioning the word 'format') I simply don't have enough, you need to write at least the double for each one."
However I insisted that he had enough, that each page was a minute on screen, and more pages will make each chapter too long, he insisted.
Well, he was the director, so I did it.
The result: Each chapter was so long that in the end he had to cut each chapter in a point where there was no suspense at all. He simply shoot and, like a bad tailor, cut the chapter when he reached the half hour limit.
The final result was like a bad soap opera directed by Ed Wood.
What happened? THE GUY, A "LOCAL FILMS DIRECTOR", SIMPLY DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO WRITE OR READ AN SCRIPT WROTE IN THE STANDARD FORMAT!
That bad memory-experience came back to me when thinking about the book that I just read.
If there's no Cinema Industry, if you don't have all the tools, "formats", and all that stuff that decades of experience has created, then you have what I had: Improvised people, doing improvised stuff and finally a bad product.
Yes, a finished film or TV series or miniseries is a product.
You can complain about many things of the Hollywood machine, there's a lot to complain about.
But it is an industry, and that, no matter the negative aspects, is a pro, not a con.
Life is tough, screenwriting is tough, broke your back trying to get your material into the industry is tough, but that's how it is... like life.
Let's leave the complains behind and go to our stuff: write, write, pitch, get rejected, write again, write more, pitch again...
Maybe in the end you could finally get some of your beloved material produced.
If not, then you have the experience. And that makes you stronger to write more.
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