Why I Do What I Do

I think I’ve finally made it. This week, one of my students started a Facebook group, Screenwriting 101 - Greeny Gone Wild, for former students of mine or anyone who is interested in what I might have to say about screenwriting.

Classes are over. The semester is history. At current count, I have read thirty screenplays and have thirty more to read by Monday. I am beat after fifteen weeks of lesson planning, lecturing and reviewing student work but now the end is in sight.

This week, a guy whom I taught two years ago asked me to read a feature length screenplay he wrote. As a break from grading, I read his work and returned it with extensive notes.

Then a couple of days ago, I heard from another former student, someone I had for two courses three or four years ago:

“You put forth dedication, heart and effort while looking over every one of your students' screenplays. I always appreciated that as a student of yours. This is why we keep in touch and I left that school knowing that I had ONE teacher that gave a shit.... you're the voice in the back in my head when I write anything from a press release to a 300 page EHR manual. 'Fewest best words.' You're incredible David Greenberg.”

When I finish grading student stuff, I get back to work on my own projects: a second draft of a documentary and an intensive rewrite of a screenplay by someone else.

I might not ever become a wildly successful screenwriter in the conventional sense and, at least once or twice a semester, I tell myself I can’t do it anymore. This is it. I’m done teaching. But every now and then, something comes along to remind me why I do what I do.