I made it to the Quarter Semi-Finals!

I survived the first cut in the Titan Screenwriting Competition, and barely anyone knows, not even my family. I mean, sure, I don't think I'll actually win--I definitely want to make it to the semi finals, at least, before the next 'Amadeus' nut checks me and leaves my uppity ass wheezing in the dust--but I made it, y'all!

It's still so surreal; I'm just a mouthy sperg who pushes a mop for a living, and yet, out of thousands of scripts, my disgruntled quartet of knuckle-dusting rednecks--my baby bois--defied the odds, and...and actually might make it to the semis, and maybe (dare I to dream?) the actual fucking finals!

That is if the feedback from the professional reader who qualified me has any bearing at all:

"Each [Williams] brother feels uniquely drawn and has a sensibility each his own, clashing in incendiary ways even as they all need each other ( though Lee might beg to differ ) to make it through this. But the character that works the best, which is really saying something, is the topography of Virginia itself, which plays as much of a role in the story as any person. It is so essential to the atmospherics of the plot that no analysis of this story can overlook the fact that while Virginia may be for lovers, in this script Virginia is for survivors."

"The script has a distinct beginning, middle, and end without falling into the traps of formula or cliche that survive-at-all-costs movies can tend to do. The brothers are so well drawn on a character level that the shape of the narrative is fit to follow them wherever their journey leads..."

"There is an authenticity and sharpness to the speech that shows true dynamics between the brothers which make them feel like they are truly alive. "

"This is more of a human psychological character study than it even is a post apocalyptic flesh eating zombie flick..."

I realize that I could eeeasily be mistaken for self-satisfied or smug here, buuut, nnno: the honest-to-God truth is I am inextricable terrified. I want to pump my fist and roar, 'Hell the fuck yeah, boi!', but the truth is...I went from film school, where I was put through an emotional meat grinder-- where I had to pad and couch and qualify everything I said or did--to competing in something being sponsored by (among others) the producer to 'Breaking Bad'; for money and the prospect of seeing my work broadcasted over the fuckin' world. It's just the quarter finals, sure, but...it felt like everyone hated me in film school, like I was predestined never to survive in the world I was training to join; and, now, in a competition where my appearance as a white man, where I stand on the political spectrum, isn't on display, only my skill (or the lack thereof) and nothing else, I'm finding out how simultaneously able and inadequate I am, and it's a lot to process.

 I'm not even sure, in the best case scenario, I could even bear the gifts and opportunities on offer; because, to do that, I'd not only have to wade into an ideologically-incestuous cesspit by the name of Hollywood, I'd have to tread water in the goddamn deep end.  I tried to explain it to my sister like this, 'Okay, let's say I win the competition, and I get an offer and private career training, I don't know anyone in L.A.! I've never even interned for or mingled with anyone seriously in the business; if I went there, I'd be eaten alive! I'd would be like some guy poor poduck bastard who actually gets the winning ticket in the lottery. I'd wouldn't have any of the discipline, knowledge or experience to do anything but hurt myself with it!'

 (I mean, I'm broke as hell, I don't even own a car! How would I even get around!)

For now, though? In this very moment? I feel like Bojack on the last day of shooting 'Secretariat':

 More than anything else,  pushing aside all my maudlin impulses and self-effacing noises, I am so proud of my boys. I worked so long and hard to make them speak for themselves, to make the Williams brothers people you know, people you've met, and someone (I can't say it any other way) got to finally talk to them, and hear what they had to say. I don't feel like I did anything more than what they did, my characters; because they're a part of me, they told the story more than I did. Maybe that's pretentious, maybe that's just early onset "imposter syndrome", I don't know; I do know that I love my boys, and I hope that, more than enjoyment, that the next person to review my story is touched by the Williams brothers, in some small but nevertheless indelible way, for the better. So all their suffering has meaning in the end.