Henry had to laugh now, looking at some of the somber advice on Reddit from screenwriters. “It’ll take you a year to write your first screenplay. Then put it in a desk drawer and go on to your next, because it will suck.”

Well, maybe yours sucked! Henry smiled with manic energy. But not mine! And as for taking a year, well, he couldn’t imagine how someone could take 365 days to write 120 pages, a two hour script. That was 1/3 of a page a day! Even with revisions, that was a pretty lame productivity level.

He thought of an interview with novelist Garth Greenwell, who’d told the interviewer that he’d written his 300,000 word novel City on Fire in three years. “Wow, you’re a really fast writer,” the interviewer had said. Henry did the math and realized that came out to, with weekends off, about 260 words a day, or… less than one page a day. Good lord, what a snail.

When Henry wasn’t blocked, as he’d been for a while now, he was naturally prolific. He had a friend in college, Alan, who’d envied Henry his ability to put out a good short story in a week or less. And Henry the hare had been baffled by Alan the tortoise, who could spend a whole day, literally all day! tearing his hair out over a single paragraph.

Back then, if anything blocked Henry, it was the demoralizing Great Wall between a would-be screenwriter and those who actually bought and produced scripts. You needed an agent, and that meant you either knew someone in the industry who could connect you, or you sent your work into a slush pile where, if it was rejected, you’d never know, because nobody sent rejection letters.

Now, though, the opportunities were endless. There were screenwriting competitions aplenty, you could post your script on Reddit for critique and visibility, and there were all manner of script hosting sites where you could have your work seen (potentially, anyway) by Hollywood insiders looking for new material. And Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and so many other new outlets were so hungry for content – you could even sub your script online direct to Amazon’s film making wing. The Great Wall had fallen, and access was not a problem anymore.

And now that he had an idea, it was go time. The story outline came flying off his fingers. He felt like one of those Golden Age screenwriters, who’d bang out a movie on their typewriters in no time, and not just because Samuel Goldwyn could see in the window of the writers’ room to check on them.

He thought long and hard about the Love Interest. If he had any sense at all, he’d make it a heteromance. If he made Dallas gay, well, shit. That would eliminate 90% of the industry interest in his script right there.

Fuck it, he thought. Chances were good that his first script would only serve as his “calling card,” proof that he could execute a good idea in 120 pages, with believable dialogue, involving plot, and compelling characters. Something that might “get him a meeting,” where they would ask the real Golden Ticket question: “So what else do you have?” At which time he’d need to have other scripts ready, or at least fully fleshed outlines.

So Dallas’ love interest was now The Nephew of PQM, who we meet at the lawyer’s office. He’s the only family member who’s not just out to get the old man’s money. He…

Hmm. Name time. Henry tapped his lip with his pen. Then burst out laughing.

Callum confronts Dallas, and sparks fly.

As Henry wrote the character, he realized he was modeling him on Colin. For a moment he paused, a troubling thought emerging.

Colin’s an actor. Jesus, what if he sees this!

Then Henry remembered Colin’s crippling stage fright. He’d never even look at a movie script, Henry soothed himself.

The outline kept flowing. Callum is suspicious of Dallas, who of course is sorely tempted to take the $11 million and run, but not before figuring out why PQM would let him.

Hmm. Maybe Dallas has a mother in Alzheimer’s care or something. Write what you know, he laughed, thinking of his own illegal means to a moral end.

And Callum, well… Callum wrote himself, it seemed to Henry. Disturbingly easily, really. Sharp witted, tough, but vulnerable. Definitely only interested in protecting the old man’s best interests, even if like everyone else he hadn’t seen him in ages. Handsome, of course.

And it was only when Henry went back to reread what he’d written did he see what a very compelling love interest he’d written for himself… er, for Dallas.

Yes, he said firmly. Definitely for Dallas.