a serial you can be part of... write us with a suitable anecdote

TALES from The INDUSTRY

Screenwriter EX (tm), hip pocket client/veteran of the agency wars

Screenmancer Exclusive, Screenwriter EX (tm) tells all (a true-life, ongoing series)

"My First Agent": by Screenwriter EX

Call me Screenwriter Ex, not ex-Screenwriter. I wrote my first incomprehensible, unmakeable masterpiece on a ballsy-but-dying Selectric typewriter

back in 1987. Ten years ago. (Don't remind me.) Ten years later

I'm still waiting to hear from William Morris.

I say this not to discourage you;
just to point out that here it is,
ten years later, and I'm still
looking for my first agent...

well, not exactly my first agent, but the first agent who will sign me.

Along the way I've met and been rejected by some
very famous people. Ivan Reitman's producer offered
to sit on a chair farther away, so as to put me at ease -- since it was clear in this, my first
professional meeting, that a part of my face had become temporarily paralyzed while in
the presence of someone who could green-light a movie.

During my learning curve in the business,
a certain agent had the unfortunate
luck of being paired with an assistant who
"really loved" my work.

When that assistant went to work for Tom Cruise,
the agent call blocked my number.

Of course this was after I faxed his agency
with all my ideas of who to send
my script to. (Don't do that, ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.)

And this was after I called
a certain now-defunct production company
to see if he had been telling me
the truth that they had rejected
my script. (Don't ever EVER do that.

Never go around your agent. You will die on the vine.)

Slit your wrists if you have to,

but never piss off an agent.

CONSIDER THIS YOUR TICKET BEHIND THE SCENES...

the dope, the lowdown, the inside scoop (or first hit)

give us your best/weirdest/most humiliating/inspiring/infuriating we'll run it (unless it's snuff)

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