Dispatch From The Quest: Meet Rob Pilkington

Over the course of the 24 weeks I will be working with the writers in “The Quest,” I will be posting ‘dispatches’ from them to the GITS community. There are several reasons for this, the main one being educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers.

I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.

Today I would like to introduce Rob Pilkington:

White. Male. 26. BU film grad. Born in Rhode Island. Living in Boston. Moving to LA. Watcher of films. Kubrick. Nolan. McDonaugh. The Coens. Also: Reader of comic books. Drinker of whiskey. Viewer of Mad Men. Patron of oyster bars. Loser of sunglasses.

And writer of things. Westerns. Heists. Horrors. Dramas. Sci-fi. Blogs. Articles. Query letters. Loglines. Tweets. Angry letters to cereal companies.

And surprisingly few web bios.

Here is Rob’s first dispatch from his Quest experience:

So, I’m in “the Quest.”

I had nearly forgotten that that I had sent Scott two loglines a few weeks ago and when I caught wind that he had received thousands of entries, I put the whole thing out of my mind. I had bigger fish to fry, you see.

I was planning a move to Los Angeles.

Well, I still am. And it sucks. The physical act of moving sucks. It’s awful. It’s a tedious cataloging of everything you own, everything you need, everything you don’t, everything you’ll ship, and at the end of every day finally concluding “Who the hell bought all this stuff and how do I hurt them?”

So getting Scott’s emails saying I was moving through his initial Quest cuts was a surprise. As was getting selected. I write all the time, but was anticipating a temporary dip in writing time as I transitioned to the other side of the continent. My knee-jerk reaction was “maybe I’m going to be too busy treating my entire life like a snow globe to really do this.”

But agreeing to do it was ultimately a no-brainer. I’ve been reading Go Into the Story for years and have, of course, heard of (and have feverishly read up on) the Black List. Tapping into Scott’s knowledge and guidance, along with being exposed on a “GITS level,” is a tremendous opportunity.

So, I’m in the Quest. And moving. Two quests. One guy.

So many f***ing boxes.

If you have any questions or comments for Rob, feel free to post them in comments.

Monday: Another Dispatch From The Quest.

For background on “Go Into The Story: The Quest,” go here and here.

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