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It’s past midnight on Sunday here in the UK, and I’ve just been counting the votes, and re-reading the quite exceptional comments that have been pouring in on this blog over the last month.

There has been so much fine conversation going on that it simply has to continue. I’ve set up a forum at http://www.screenwritinggoldmine.com/forum and I’ll be running a monthly scaled back version of this contest over there for the indefinite future. There’s details in the forum welcome message so make sure you have a look.

OK. Get to the point.

So although there were many many people who came along, had great conversations, and added so much of interest to this blog, there were two who had an overwhelming number of comments.

That’ll be… AMZ, and Deirdre!

Both very close to each other, with about 100 comments each, way more than their nearest competitor - and all highly relevant and on the ball.

They will be receiving their fully boxed up copy of Final Draft just as soon as the post office can deliver.

With regard to the prize for the best comment, well, there have been so many good things said, for a time it seemed like a very, very hard choice.

In the end it was simple.

Success at screenwriting is all about opening yourself up, taking risks, and taking action.

Both actually daring to write from the heart, and getting that writing out into the world.

With that in mind, I’m going to award the prize for the best comment to Gary, for his comment that kicked off the story scratchpad - that group writing project that so far has turned into 30 very readable pages of real screenplay.

Not only was he brave enough to step forward and expose himself by actually WRITING the very first - very striking - image, he also proposed a few of simple rules which, I think, have provided great parameters for the whole thing and helped make it such a great success.

So well done Gary. You don’t get anywhere unless you actually write. And your Final Draft is in the post.

Thanks to everyone who joined in, and let’s keep this community going. I can see writing relationships forming already, and, remember, this business is all about networking (That is, making friends in the business.)

Come to the forum and talk, and meet people, and exchange ideas. You never know where it might lead.