The Long and Winding Path

to becoming a Working Screenwriter

This might be the first part of many, or not. Let me know if you’re interested in more!

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I love industry advice content. Podcasts, blogs, substacks: I pretty much learnt how to write scripts by listening to the entire back catalog of Scriptnotes (it’s worth the subscription) and reading old scripts¹.

There are, of course, a multitude of different writing advice columns and shows out there. I tend to prefer those helmed by working professionals, folks like showrunner of Chernobyl and The Last of Us Craig Mazin, or the most recent showrunner for Poker Face, Tony Tost. But I’ll be honest. Listening to the ways you could break in to film and TV ten to twenty years ago is often a disheartening experience, because things have changed so significantly. The industry is contracting, the opportunities for outsiders are fewer, and the pathways that many of today’s successful showrunners took are no longer available.

But we move, right?

In ‘The Script I Would Write If I Was Trying To Break In Right Now’, Tony Tost is honest about this reality. He reflects on how the script that got him his first Hollywood break might not be suited to this moment, but then gives great practical advice on what kind of script might be. But reading his pieces got me thinking. If I were to break it down, what does a path into screenwriting look like today?

My route will not be everyone’s path in, but I find it can be helpful to hear the steps someone took along the way. So, here’s a potted history of my journey (so far, inshallah)!

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As many of you know, I did not begin my professional life in the arts. I studied mechanical engineering, was obsessed with building cars (that went fast) and spent most of my time around dirty, greasy, loud equipment (and men). I loved it.

from that time i did a photoshoot with ferraris… lol

During the early 2010s, as Tony Tost was beginning his career in Hollywood, I was blogging away - first, on Sudan, then, about life on the rigs. I wanted a place to share the weird and wonderful experiences I was having…and that blog eventually led to my first published essay (in 2013), then a published book (2016).

The book precipitated a fork in the road. The engineering company I worked for didn’t want a writer on their hands, but I didn’t like being told what to do, especially since I was quite good at my job (and my boss agreed!). Push came to shove, and I was asked to choose. Engineering, or writing.

I still can’t believe I chose to write. Subhanallah.

I didn’t really know that I was choosing writing. I think I was really choosing to not be controlled, because the thought of having my voice stifled felt unbearable. I was 24 years old, walking away from the industry and sector I had adored and pedestalled my whole life, but the choice felt clear: I would not let a corporation dictate my future.

Anyway. I pottered about for a few years; broadcasting, causing national scandals, writing fiction for younger readers, feeling my way through the world.

I moved to London in late 2017. About a year later, a friend and I co-created a dramedy TV series titled SAME SAME. At the time, I wasn’t thinking of myself as a writer: I was on-screen talent. We storylined the show together, but my friend did the heavy lifting on the scripts.

tania safi and i - we had a load of fun on the photoshoot. tan is now doing some amazing direct action work for palestine - check them out here.

This was 2018/2019. In 2020, the show was optioned. We were in paid development for a while, took it to a streamer, but COVID intervened. The project was put on ice.

That could have been the end of my screenwriting journey. We’d had a lot of hype and excitement (an option! a streamer! great talent! etc!) but in the end, we weren’t able to pull it off. It just so happened though that at the same time, I was learning to write plays…

me as the dame, ha!

It’s now mid-2019. I’m trawling twitter for a new hobby. I find a part time acting course - CASPA Arts - that I can afford in both time and money. I perform in my first ever panto. The director of the show, Christa Harris, is working on another production at the time and one of their writers drops out at the last minute.

She asks if I would be interesting in the co-writing role. I say no, I’m not a playwright, I know nothing! She persists. I eventually agree, and end up being part of United Queendom, a sold-out immersive theatre production at Kensington Palace.

The show got mixed reviews (life!) but it was a whole heap of fun to work on, and most importantly, it introduced me to the woman who would then become my agent, Jess Cooper. A few months into the COVID lockdowns, once I’d licked my wounds about SAME SAME and felt ready to tackle a new adventure, Jess asked what I would really like to do. For the first time, I entertained the notion I’d always considered mere fantasy: write television.

the writing was whatever but the costumes were EPIC!

It would be almost five years between me writing my first pilot script in late 2020 and my first ‘transmission’, i.e. my first episode appearing on TV. There were many times I genuinely didn’t know if I would make it to my first credit².

But! One thing that did help me break in, that Tony Tost talks about in his piece, is this: leaning in to my voice.

My first spec script, RIGGED, was about a murder set on an oil rig. We unfortunately sent it out just before Amazon announced their show THE RIG, so there was no chance of mine getting made after that. However, the script was a calling card. It showed producers I had a unique voice, could use it in an interesting but genre-familiar way, and that I had a fascinating personal story.

That was enough to get me into meetings with producers, begin to develop relationships, and kickstart the long, arduous but ultimately joyful journey towards a professional screenwriting career.

(Let me know if you want to know more…? Drop a comment or reply to the email :D)

1. If you want to write action dramas, read ALIEN.

2. It didn’t help I was trying to break in to the industry during a period of multiple crises - COVID, strikes, cost-of-living, etc.