“Hurry up and wait!”

That is one of the unfortunate mantras of screenwriting. Your agent calls and tells you that Disney is looking for a movie idea to match up Hannah Montana and Bruce Willis…

“But you gotta hurry!”

A producer says they can get the script you’re writing for them to Jennifer Garner…

“Hurry up with the draft!”

The studios exec tells you another studio bought a pitch just like the project you’re working on…

“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”

It’s ironic, but whenever a working screenwriter is supposed to be doing creative work, that’s when you get the most pressure to hurry up the process.

So you push and rush and you knock out pages and you edit like mad and you race the script over to your agents and then after all that…

Nothing.

The script goes in there…
And you wait here… by the phone… and it doesn’t ring for days, even weeks…

Welcome to the screenwriter’s world of hurry up and wait.

What can they possibly be doing, you wonder.
A rational mind would conjure this scenario.
First, they get the script covered by a story analyst.
That coverage goes to the studio exec directly in charge of the project.
The producers have to read the script, too.
Perhaps they get their own coverage…
And the studio’s coverage.
Then there’s a meeting about the script at the studio…
After they can find a time when everybody’s schedule works.
Some back and forth about the script’s merits.
Maybe other execs read the script.
Another confab.
This time with the producers.
Again have to work around everybody’s schedules.
And finally they get back to your agent…
Who depending upon the reaction to the script may or may not get back to you ASAP.

The cynical screenwriter might hypothesize another scenario.
You drop off the script.
And as soon as you exit the agency and you’re out of sight, everybody starts to laugh.
They toss your script about, one assistant to another to another…
Finally locking it away in a freezer and setting a time code…
2 weeks…
3 weeks…
4 weeks if they really want to screw with you.
And there you script sits until the requisite ‘cooling’ time passes, then everybody gives the script’s coverage a quick read, and you’re called into a story meeting where nobody’s actually read the script, but they all have opinions about what’s wrong with it.

Now you know at least one reason why all screenwriters drink.

How to handle “hurry up and wait?”
Two words: Stack projects.
While you’re in the page-writing process for Script #1, you spend a few days a week brainstorming Script #2 and polishing the rewrite for Script #3.
If you and your agents all do your job right, each one of those scripts is a paying gig.
You just stagger when the various projects are due.
So when you hand in Script #1, you go right into Script #2 or Script #3.
The point is, you’re always writing.

And if you’ve only got the one project set up, you work on a new spec.
Or a pitch.
But you never do nothing during “hurry up and wait” times.
Because. The. Silence. Will. Drive. You…
CRAAAAAZZZYYYY!!!

So as you prepare yourself for all the rigors of being a professional screenwriter, get ready for this most insidious reality: Hurry up and wait.