Now that the calendar has turned, it’s time to assess 2011 and look forward to 2012. Like any other year, 2011 was certain to have had successes and failures. Hopefully you had more of the former than of the latter. Maybe you started a script and now you need to finish it. Maybe you completed a script and now you need to market it.

Now that we’re a couple of days inot the new year, it’s time to set some goals for 2012.

Finish your script.

It doesn’t matter where you are in the process. Maybe you have the germ of an idea. Maybe you’re outlining and doing character bios. Or maybe you’ve completed several drafts and you’re just tweaking some scenes or dialogue. It doesn’t matter where you are, you have to finish it this year. Understanding that scripts are often not finished, but rather they’re abandoned, get it to a point where you can feel confident about getting a “yes” from producers, executives and agents.

Develop a marketing plan.

There’s no point in finishing a script without some idea of how you’re going to market it. And you need to be open minded about how you’re going to market it. That is to say that it’s unlikely that you’ll actually sell the script. However, it’s entirely possible that your script could land you a job as a writer. Either way, you need to figure out a way to get your script in front of people that can do something tangible with it. That’s marketing, and as a writer, it’s not necassarily something you want to do, but you have to.

Get a professional evaluation of your script.

In order to finish your script, you should get a professional evaluation from a script reading service. Writers groups are nice, and you’ll get good notes there, as well as from friends who are writers. However, script reading services usually have readers who have read professionally for studios and can give you the type of feedback that they would have provided to studio executives or agents. You can in turn use those notes to improve your own script and heighten your chances of selling it or getting writing jobs based on this work. Monument Script Services is just such a service, and choice of services can be reached at the following link:

http://monumentscripts.com/service/

Start writing your next script.

The only thing that’s more important than your current script is your next script. Once you’ve finished writing this script and you’ve started marketing it, move on to the next one. Yes, you’ll have to multitask by marketing one script while writing the next script, but you’re overall goal has to be to create a body of work. If January 31, 2012 rolls around (Mayan predections aside) and you have 2 quality scripts that you’re marketing towards sales or writing jobs, you’ll quite possibly be on your way to a writing career.