How This Writer Eventually Laughed off a Blacklist 2, Got Told He Was a “Bad Writer”, Never Made It past the Quarter Finals & Still Optioned a Goddamned Feature Script

CJ Walley
14 min readFeb 24, 2018

I’ve finally optioned a feature script. It’s taken six years to get to this point and it’s been tough, really tough. How does it feel? It feels amazing. It’s a whole new level of validation. It feels like the start of something rather than living in purgatory. But I don’t want to make this about myself. I know many of you are finding it tough too, so I wanted to put something together explaining how I think I got here and what really matters when it comes to screenwriting.

I want to do that because I feel it may help others who have become lost and stuck in a cycle of rewrites, reviews, and rejection.

This is a follow up to my recent The Perks Of Being An Artist blog, in which this story of writing and optioning this script, Blueberry Special, began.

This isn’t a definitive guide. It isn’t a guarantee. A lot of what I talk about may be circumstantial or insightful, and you can decide that for yourselves. Either way, this is the best I can do to send the elevator back down right now and inspire my fellow screenwriters to keep fighting the good fight.

--

--

CJ Walley

Screenwriter | Film Producer | Founder of Script Revolution & Rebelle Rouser | Author of Turn & Burn