About Hollyweird
Hi there, I’m Colby Day. I wrote the Netflix film Spaceman (Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Paul Dano — premiered Berlinale 2024), and In the Blink of an Eye for Searchlight, directed by Andrew Stanton. I'm also, depending on the week, a director, an occasional producer, and someone who still doesn't fully understand how any of this works.
Here's the thing about trying to work in Hollywood: there's no manual. There’s no right way to do it. And when you’re new to it, there’s rarely anyone to turn to for insight on the heck it all works (or, more often than not, doesn’t work).
I’ve learned all of this the hard way, which is partly why my annual posts — My Year as a Working Screenwriter — have been pulling in new readers since 2021. People want the real breakdown, in real time, not the panel-discussion career retrospective telling people to just “fax their resume over.”
So I started Hollyweird: a weekly, unfiltered look at what it's actually like to make a living as a writer in this industry. The process, the pitches, the outlines, the packaging headaches — in real time, as they’re happening. Plus, the things I’m learning along the way, so that you can hopefully avoid some of the rookie mistakes I’ve made.
How does Hollyweird work?
Well… nobody knows how Hollywood works, and that’s kind of the point of the endeavor. Hollyweird is a weekly blow-by-blow of the writing life. What I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and whether any of it actually works. Expect posts on packaging a feature as a first time director, trying to package and sell an original TV series, landing (and losing) Open Writing Assignments, and developing original material.
These (free!) posts will hit your inbox once a week, every Friday.
This is a place to be candid about the realities of the business and provide tools and insight into what you as a writer need to know to make it in Hollyweird.
Which, isn’t that much, because, as famous screenwriter William Goldman once wrote (over and over and over)…
“Nobody knows anything.”
Want to sample some posts? Here are a few of Hollyweird’s most popular!
How much is this going to cost me?
Nothing! Hollyweird is free to read, and always will be. I don’t believe any of the information here should be behind a paywall.
But if you want a little more personalized guidance — once a month I get on a live Zoom Q&A with paid subscribers of the newsletter and answer whatever’s on your mind. Notes from managers and producers, querying agents and production companies, festival strategy, craft questions… you name it, we talk it through!
The Hollyweird Hangs are live the first Wednesday of every month, and recordings stay up for anyone who can’t make it.
To join — monthly access to me, a real-life working writer, plus a paid subscribers only chat — it’s $10/mo, or $100/year.
Wait, who are you exactly?
Well I’m just a guy who grew up in the suburbs of Northern California with no Hollywood connections, and no idea how movies got made. I went to NYU, fell into writing and producing theater, all while making weird little sketches with friends, and hoping to someday make it out to Los Angeles.
My original screenplay for In the Blink of an Eye was featured on The Black List 2016, and got me a bunch of jobs, some of which I can talk about, some of which I can’t. Since then I’ve written for film and television (for major studios and streamers), directed and produced short films, and I’m currently putting together my directorial debut.
Despite being named one of MovieMaker Magazine’s 25 Screenwriters to Watch, and writing a weekly newsletter detailing everything I’m up to, I am actually quite shy.
You can follow along with me here, as well as on instagram and bluesky.
