THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Psst! You hear that? No? Listen closely... you hear it, right? It's called "silence", screenwriters get very familiar with it. We usually crave it, especially when we're writing, or in a thought, it can be our best friend. Many of us seek it out, venturing to the basement, backyard, a shady hotel down the road -- anywhere we can get the peace and quiet to start tapping out "INT." and "EXT." in black fonts over white pages.

Then it turns into our worst enemy.

The last sound we hear is the "thud" of query letters dropping into the black hole of a mailbox. From that moment on, silence is no longer our friend. We check the mail everyday, keep looking at our cell phone, have friends call us back to see if it's working, email ourselves -- we're trying to watch a pot come to boil, and as we watch, it never will.

We can't avoid the madness.

In between, we delve into the next script, rewrite, or blog post like this, keeping one eye on the mail truck as it pulls up and stuffs the box with junk mail, bills, and anything else except a response from Hollywood.

The silent killer -- silence.