Happy 10th anniversary to me! Lessons learned from the last decade.

Ten years, man! TEN YEARS!

If you told me when I started this that I'd still be making (irregular) updates to this blog ten years later, I'd have thought you were nuts.

I'm trying to think how much I'd have believed if you told me this blog would eventually lead to some of the best friendships of my life, several jobs, my first manager, my first pitch, and professional connections beyond anything I would have achieved on my own. It all probably would have sounded pretty good then.

It's funny to look at the last ten years with that perspective. I've come a long way, but with so many goals still unfulfilled, it's easy to miss and appreciate so many other professional milestones. I've come tantalizingly close to some of the others - my first script assignment, chief among them - and sometimes it's easy to get lost in the misses rather than appreciating the hits.

That's good general advice for all of you. You don't have to have a blog in order to take stock of how far you've come on your journey.

Ten years ago I thought I was ready to break in. Now I look at some of what I wrote then and cringe at how much better it could be if I wrote it today. Then I reflect on how I'd probably never write something like that today because I've grown beyond the subject matter itself. Five years from now, I'll probably look back at my latest scripts today and go, "Ugh."

That is EXACTLY the way it should be.

Ten years ago I couldn't have imagined the ways that this blog and especially Twitter would open a line of communication between me and once-untouchable professionals, as well as give me insight into other struggling amateurs. I already knew you could learn a lot from bad scripts - I just didn't realize how much you could learn from bad script WRITERS.

The Hack sees no room for improvement. They value quantity over quality. If you offered to read something of theirs, they'd present you with ten scripts - unable to choose a sample from that pile because they're ALL good. The Hack is terrible at accepting notes. They seek affirmation of their brilliance, not mentorship. Introspection is not something they're capable of.

The Hack cultivates access but not relationships. To them, the people they know in the business are resources to be exploited, not emotional touchstones to be maintained. When they meet you, their first thought is, "What can you do for me and why are you not already doing it?" They will never see past themselves and their own goals. Every achievement someone else gets is something that they feel entitled to.

I've seen the Hack so many times in the last decade. They're the person who won't take no for an answer when you decline to read their script, the Jekyll and Hyde who go from praising your blog or Twitter as genius, to saying "What the fuck do you know anyway?" the moment you offer a critical thought.

There's a Hack inside each of us and your eventual success will depend on how good you are at resisting its impulses. This isn't limited to just the poor social skills of a Hack, but also their ability to separate criticism of the work from personal criticism. One thing putting yourself out there on a blog does is that it makes you vulnerable to criticism. Every day you're putting something out into the world and there's a chance it'll make you look stupid.

That's the Fear. To be a good writer, you have to overcome the Fear. You cannot self-censor out of fear of someone not liking something. There's a moment in ED WOOD where the eponymous is told that his film is the worst that someone has ever seen. Without missing a beat, he cheerfully responds, "Well, my next one will be better."

To be a good writer, you need that attitude while also NOT being dismissive of criticism. "My next one will be better." And it will be better only if you MAKE it better. Seek out reaction. Learn from it. Adapt. Every reaction is a valid reaction. No one's making you respond to every critique. I've ignore entire write-ups that my friends have given me on scripts because I've felt they came at the writing from the wrong angle. Despite that, my blood pressure didn't race as I heard any of these "It's not for me" speeches.

If someone's telling you something doesn't work, your impulse is going to be to stop the flow of criticism. Resist that impulse. Keep asking questions: "Why didn't it work? What specifically provoked this reaction? Do you know what specifically provoked you?" Dig into the reactions. It's as close as you'll get to an unbiased read.

This isn't the only lesson of the last ten years, but it's an important one - you've gotta grow beyond your pond. Take chances. Write something that scares you. Ignore the voice in your head that says you'll make a fool of yourself writing a particular script and just write it. You can't know the confines of your comfort zone until you've actively pushed against it.

Sure, know the craft. Read everything you can about the three act structure. Be aware of the tropes inherent to the genre you're writing in and see which you can ignore, which you can use and which you want to subvert. The last month's sampler platter of writing is entirely made up of insight that can help you. Filling your head with the nonsense and insight of others is only part of it, though.

And know yourself. You have to understand the machine you're operating to get those words on the page. I leveled up numerous times in the last ten years, but the one that really left an impression was my 16 Great TV Shows series. With age and insight, I was better able to see why specific shows fed my imagination the way they did. Without the pressure to pump out new content, I might never have done something like that.

I can't really say what the next ten years hold. Looking back demonstrated to me I'd lost the zest for quick, basic tips. I enjoy doing the deeper dives, talking about what a film or a TV show means to me. If nothing else, it often makes for more interesting conversation than debating if sluglines should be bolded and how to use "we see." Engaging the substance of the work is so much more rewarding. Taking an unusual point of view, as I did with MICHAEL F-ING BAY, and exploring it fully was a similarly high-risk, high-return experiment.

I've always said I didn't want this blog to become so consuming that it was impeding my work as a writer. I'm not here to be a blogger, I'm here to be a TV and film writer. For a long time, my mistake was thinking that there was a clear line of demarcation between the two. "Bitter" gave this writer access to people he'd never have met otherwise. It allowed me to befriend several professional writers and other non-pros at about my level and led to numerous instances of them evaluating my work. It raised the bar for me, being out in a much larger pond. "Bitter" taught me as much about my own work and he hopefully taught you about yours.

So thank all of you. Thank you for coming back here for ten years. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you to those who took a chance on me, as a writer, a client, an employee. I had two hopes when I started this blog: that I'd be able to help other developing writers and that I might build my own calling card. On my better days, I'd like to think I've achieved both.

Thank you, Bitter. And thank you all.