nicolegomezfisher

Are you kidding me? No. Only sober.

(actually just kidding, I'm married)

Yes, I do! I have several. So the first thing I would say is - be patient with yourself, when you find that writers block hits, because at the end of the day we all experience it, and we all need to sit back and find out what our story is.

Next thing: write a treatment. At least have an outline. Otherwise, you're going to hit page 30 and stop. Everyone always gives up at the end of act 1, because they don't know where they're going. I've had this happen to me, it's inevitable when you don't have an outline - I've written things where I didn't have time to write an outline, and there is no time for character development or thinking about where you want to go with the story - structure is incredibly important, balanced with character development. You can have the best structure, but if the characters are boring, no one is going to care.

The last thing I would say is to make sure that you have at least 1-3 friends whom you really trust their opinions to really read your work. Avoid your mom and dad, but find someone with a good eye, who understands what it takes to put a story together, and whose opinion you value - they can help you really determine what you want to say and help you put the story together. It's incredibly helpful.

Last thing: don't give up. I've been in many situations where I've started writing and then had breakdowns where I decided I wanted to start over, and started over with an idea that was less strong than the previous one. By page 30, everyone stops. I have 5 scripts where I got to page 32 and had to stop - I keep them because I might go back and find something there where it wasn't there before. It's better to write and get it on paper than lose it. But don't give up on it. You never know when you might have this amazing idea.

And buy a good book on screenwriting. I would recommend Blake Snyder's book SAVE THE CAT - it's the best.

Glad you got it done! Again, show it to 3 people that you trust. Then once you feel it's in a good position, and it's worth putting it out there, don't try to get an agent/ manager off of one pilot.

Submit it to some screenwriting competitions. If you make it to semi-finals or finals - not only is it exhilerating to experience, but you can also win money and within a year's time, they will help push and promote your stuff to agents and managers FOR You. these are the ones I would highly recommend - if you don't have friends to show it to, you can pay for services to have a professional reader read your work, and the feedback is incredibly helpful.

• The Page International
• ScriptAPalooza
• Creative World Awards
• Final Draft - they just started a TV division
• Tracking B

Sometimes you have to pay a fee to enter, and if you don't have the money, you can be hesitant - if there are times when I don't have the funds, I'll do one every few months, and be selective - know which ones are going to push for you. Do your research and be selective. But hopefully this helps!

Absolutely. One of my biggest issues while I was shooting was - my concern was that the resolve for the main character came too easily. It wasn't high-stakes. The whole time we were shooting, i was trying to think of ways that we could re-do this that everyone would be looking for - every time we would go back in, they would say to me that I didn't need to add this, it wasn't a commercial film. I kept trying to re-write in scenes that were high risk and high-action - very commercial moments - and it finally hit me one day when I was sitting on a dark day on my computer, I sat there and re-read one of those scenes where I would want that big moment to happen and something hit me, where I realized "It is what it is - why am I trying to force my hand to make this film something it's not? It's a slice of life, it's a 2 day peek into this girls' world and hopefully you like her enough to stay involved." I had to stay true to her story.

Stressful! With my film premiering tonight, I've been running around like crazy. I honestly can't wait until tomorrow so my brain can shut down. But I'm super-excited too. I've been getting the artwork to the film festival; dealing with press; and just confirming talent showing up. There's going to be a step-and-repeat tonight, so we'll have Gina Rodriguez, Priscilla Lopez, Tibor Feldman, John Cariani, Orfeh...lots of awesome people who were involved with the project.