People say that they like my writing...

But then they turn around and change it. A script I thought was done (and the guy I wrote it for was happy with it) turns out to have been completely reworked. Not one page was untouched...meaning every page had typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. I corrected it and sent it back to him and said I was done with it, but I'm now depressed.

Because of top of this, I learned two other scripts I'd worked very hard on are being rewritten -- yet again, this time by people I do not know, all to suit the notes of other people who have no intention of buying them -- and this is being directed by friends of mine who say they think I'm a good writer. And I have no input, anymore, because they own them and I like the scripts as they were.

Y'know, one of these scripts reached Second Place in one competition and was a Finalist in another. In fact, ten of my screenplays have won awards or placed well in nearly two dozen different competitions. Meaning twenty-two groups of individuals who do not know me think I did a damn good job telling those stories. One script I wrote even got into the Top Ten at Triggerstreet several times...though that site does have a number of what I call "Assassination Reviewers" who go out of their way to destroy any script that is not written in the way they would write it. "5 Dates" got hit by one of them not long after I entered it into The Screenwriting Expo. This woman's scoring dumped it from a listing of #700 to #2950, and her comments were deliriously idiotic, but by this point I knew the drill so could just blow her off. And "5 Dates" wound up as a Finalist for Suzanne's Prize...indicating to me that I was right and she had no idea what she's talking about.

But how do you handle it when it's people you know and trust who tell you they love your work but apparently don't believe in it enough to back it up? To protect it? To take it out and say to those who demand it be "made funnier" or "focused differently" or "changed to suit my preferences" that the script is fine the way it is and this is how it will be made, come hell or high water? I've come to realize I only have one person like that in my life, and he's not a producer. Those I thought would be like that...looks like I was wrong in placing my trust with them. And that hurts.

That really fucking hurts.