Dear Shakespear: Part 2

That punch in the face I wrote about? Yeah, that one. It turned out to be a gentle tussling of the hair. A week after my post I received an e-mail from Greg Beal. Not a personal one asking me, in teary prose, why I hate America, but a form letter that is sent out to the Nicholl entrants who were in the top percentages but missed the cut.

I'm not super needy (maybe just plain needy), but it was nice to get some external validation that I was at least heading in the right direction. My script was in the top 15%. That means that it graded anywhere from 506th to 757th out of 5050 scripts. Since I have no way of knowing where my script actually fell, I'll just assume the higher end of the spectrum*.

While I won't be screaming "I'm, at best, 506th!" from the top of the tallest midget in the circus, I will take this bit of encouragement, put it in my pocket and move on. When I'm down and convinced I can't write a cogent sentence, I'll take it out and remind myself that I'm on my way to better things.


*Higher meaning closer to 506 then 757.