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I had entered Dig Down into multiple screenplay competitions. I had placed as a finalist in the two that had ended, and had a strong sense I’d do well in the third. I was in the processing of submitting my revised draft to more competitions with the goal of getting wins.

This entering contests should’ve been second nature at this point.

Yet somehow, I always find a way.

When I was exploring options for how to enter Dig Down into the Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition, I saw that they offered several different services, including notes and coverage. As I was interested in seeing if there was anything that could still be improved with my script, I ended up going with the general coverage they offered. This would give me a suggested logline (something I didn’t have), coverage (something I didn’t have), feedback (something I did have, but not on this draft), a scoring sheet on several categories, and an industry rating of Recommend or Pass on the script.

I had called up the competition to get clarification on the options they were providing, and the information I received was what made me select the general coverage package. Everything should have been fine.

Except after my submission, when I re-read the services provided, I didn’t see anything that said this coverage would be included in this year’s submissions for the contest. And, because the deadline was fast approaching, I had gone with this option on a Friday…the final Friday before the contest’s deadline. On Monday.

This scenario allowed me the freedom to work myself up into a panic. I was potentially getting even more feedback on my script without getting a full understanding of how it would stack up against all the other spec scripts on the market. This was only exacerbated when I tried to call Scriptapalooza again to get clarification on whether or not I had actually entered the contest. Again, this was a Friday. And even though I’m on the east coast, and they operate on the west coast…it’s a Friday.

In typical me fashion, I did the only thing that made sense. I entered the competition again, with just a regular entry, no notes provided, because all the options with notes and feedback didn’t expressly say this would be considered an entry.

This allowed me to breathe a little easier. I now knew I was entered into the contest. Now the only thing left to do was see if I could remove my multiple entries, if I had in fact entered Dig Down more than once. I emailed the competition to explain the situation to them – keep in mind this is all still on Friday – to ask for clarification, and if I had entered twice, if I could have the general entry removed.

To sum up, I had left a voicemail asking a question after already calling them up with questions yesterday, entered my script into their competition twice, and then sent an email asking if they could not only fix my error by refund me a potential duplicate entry. My goal with these contests was to get a sense of where my script stood in the marketplace, and to present myself well to professionals.

I knew I was tanking this second goal.

Thankfully on Monday, I got a reply to my email that the coverage option I had initially gone with was considered a submission to the contest, and that they would refund me the second entry. But in hindsight, I should have just gone with the coverage option. I had already placed as a finalist twice, and even though I was looking for contests to enter and win, it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had just gotten the feedback on this and not presented myself in a bad light.

With my next screenplay competition targeted, I began to look into the ways to enter Scriptapalooza. Just like with the other contests I had entered, this offered many options – from a general entry, to providing notes/feedback, and even an option offering coverage. And this was very appealing to me, because while I had just gotten comprehensive feedback on my script for Dig Down, and had placed as a finalist in two of the three competitions I had entered, with the third still pending judgment, that had been on my initial submission.

This is where I feel I started to go wrong. I had gotten great notes and advice from all three contests, but that had been on the draft I submitted. I worked really hard to apply the notes, and placed as a finalist…but it wasn’t a win. A win I thought was within reach.

While I was thrilled with my placement, I wondered what it was that I had or hadn’t done for Dig Down to not get the win. And although I had feedback on my initial submission, I didn’t have any on the revisions I’d made, other than placing as a finalist.

For this reason, even though I’d already gotten three sets of feedback, I kept thinking that there might be something my script was still missing, something that was keeping it from being the best version of itself. So, instead of going with the general entry for Scriptapalooza, I began exploring the options available that would provide notes and feedback.

More accurately, that would provide feedback on the feedback.

The coverage option was also something I was interested in. While I now had written Dig Down in two separate mediums, I still felt I was lacking in terms of having a successful way to pitch it to people.

Not all the options were for me. There was a proofreading coverage service, but I figured after all the edits from the manuscript and script itself, it was unlikely I’d get the full value from this, as I expected grammar issues to be minimal. There was also a logline service, and although this was something I felt I could use, plenty of the other options had this included with the rest of the services provided. I also wasn’t as interested in the phone consultations for the script. While I did see the benefit in continuing to talk with a professional about ways to further enhance Dig Down, these conversations were only for a half hour, and I didn’t believe this was enough time to cover what I would want addressed for the script.

Reading through the options, I got the sense they would promote a script to industry professionals if it scored high enough, although when I called them up about that option, they informed me that this rarely the case with screenplays that were submitted.

Even after the call, I was still considering this option. I had just placed as a finalist in two contests, and I was feeling it with my screenplay. I ultimately decided not to go down this path however, because if I placed high enough in the competition, I would get a lot of these services anyway (though not them actively promoting it themselves).

Once I had chosen the coverage option for my entry, all I had to do was actually enter the contest. I had done so multiple times, three times for this script alone. How could any problems arise now?

Well…

Hello.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo most of the last several years. Although there’s been some controversy on their stance regarding the use of AI, I had planned on participating again.

I’ve never actually “won” NaNoWriMo. This is due to my pace when writing, and although I always fall short, I still write approximately 40,000+ words during November. Given that my books I’ve published thus far have been novella length, this event has usually gotten me close to finishing a story in a month.

The closest I’ve gotten was my first year participating, when I was writing I’m Not My Father. I finished the first draft 2 days after the competition ended, and probably could’ve finished on the first of December.

The concept behind this event works for me.

So, I was planning on participating once again this year. Please understand, this does not mean that I agree or disagree with their stance on the use of AI. My decision was purely on the motivation it gives me to write a draft for you, the reader.

Also, this year, I wasn’t planning on writing a novel. For anyone who’s been following my blog, you’ll know that my focus the past two years has been script writing. This is going to be my focus this November, writing a new screenplay.

Despite my intentions to submit a project to work on for NaNoWriMo, I am not participating this year. I tried to sign up for this year’s competition on the first, only to continually cycle back to the same error message “Oops, something went wrong!” It was only after I Googled if there was a problem with the website that I even grasped how far reaching the problem was, which was only reinforced when I talked with other writers at my local writing group.

So, I am not officially participating in NaNoWriMo this year. But I am currently working on a project throughout the month (and hopefully finish before December).

These were new highs in my writing career.

In the span of a week, I had placed as a finalist in not one, but TWO screenplay competitions. While I believed in my writing, my initial goal upon entering was just to get feedback as this was a medium I wasn’t two familiar with.

Not only that, but these were also the only two contests I had gotten results back on. And one of them had had me convinced I wouldn’t place so well.

There was still one more contest, Finish Line Script Competition, that I was waiting on the results for, which wouldn’t occur until much later. They, like the Page Turner Screenplay Contest, allowed me to re-submit my script after I made revisions based on their notes. I had taken their feedback into consideration when I was making my edits based on the script consultation with Page Turner, so I felt the changes I had made would be suitable for re-submission for both contests.

After going through the screenplay one last time before submitting it to Finish Line (after finding the odd italics glitch, I wasn’t leaving anything to chance anymore) I started looking into more contests to enter. Placing as a finalist was great, but wins look better on a resume.

I started looking at upcoming contests with final deadlines fast approaching that would post results shortly thereafter. One in particular caught my attention, one that I had actually entered fifteen years prior. When I saw the name again, I knew I had to enter the Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition.

Riding high from placing as a Finalist in the Page Turner Screenplay Competition, I didn’t want the ride to end. I was wasting no time looking for more contests to enter. I saw that the Scriptapalooza competition had a deadline coming up, and that it too was offering analysis and coverage on submissions as one of its submission options, my head was in full analysis mode of how I was planning on entering.

So when I found an email waiting for me announcing a scoring change for both Dig Down and Lock the Doors, I was caught off guard, because I had already moved on to the next wave of submissions. I was taken even more aback when I saw the result.

I PLACED AS A FINALIST AGAIN!!!

As a reminder, this was the contest that I had disagreed with some of the assumptions they had made when they provided feedback. I had one aspect in particular had been taken so far out of context, and with the Page Turner deadline looming, had decided to abandon revisions and resubmission because I felt it was better to focus on a contest that I saw more eye to eye with. I had just expected to get the standard “we’re sorry, we had so many great entries, its hard to choose, but we didn’t pick yours” types of rejection letters.

When I saw I placed as a finalist, it did help reshape my perspective on the notes. When I read it, I believed they just assumed the worst in me (not as a writer, as a human), so the placement made me rethink that their note was more out of concern about how the diction – this was from a character who just had their jaw broken – might come across to others, and not necessarily what they believed.

What’s more, Lock the Doors placed with an honorable mention, which I felt was fair because this wasn’t a horror specific contest, and I wouldn’t expect the genre to score well in it. The fact that it did gave me a sense of validation. It no longer felt like a fluke that Lock the Doors placed as a finalist in the first contest I entered it into.

Also, with Dig Down, I was now two for two in placing as a finalist in the two contests that had concluded, with one more still to go. And in the case of the Santa Barbara contest, I felt a sense of redemption in the choices I made in telling the story.

I couldn’t wait to enter another contest.

I was sitting at the bar top of one of my local restaurants, checking my email while waiting for my food, when I saw one of the messages in my inbox was from the Page Turner Screenplay Competition. I remember straightening up in my seat and even sucking in my breath when I saw the subject line read that the scoring had changed for my entry.

Two hard weeks of revisions came down to this. I won’t say that I wasn’t a little nervous about seeing the results, though I will say I didn’t have a concern that this would have been a bad result. The nerves came from entertaining the possibility that I had won my first screenplay competition.

I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but at the same time, this competition and the feedback I got gave me the best context of where I stood. And from what I could gauge, this was a reasonable possibility.

Although there were some nerves, just like when I was deciding whether to get this level of feedback and analysis, I felt the best thing to do was believe in myself and dive headfirst into it. I opened up the email and read the result.

Dig Down placed as a finalist.

I was thrilled. Yes, it wasn’t a win, but I felt I had done everything I could to write my story the best way I could for a screenplay, and even though I didn’t win, I got the feeling I was close.

Also, with the placement as finalist, I had now shown that being placed as a finalist for Lock the Doors wasn’t a fluke, and not only had I been placed as a finalist twice, I had two different scripts that had earned a finalist placement, both of which were very different, as the stories are in two different genres.

I had gotten another taste of success, and I wanted more. And I didn’t waste too much time going out to try and get it.