There are people you meet on the way through this creative life lark, some are there for you, some are detractors, some are life-long friends, some are temporary. But how many do you need? How can you tell which are the good ones?
Someone once said that part of the struggle you have with being a scriptwriter is finding the three or four people who will actually get your work and champion it. Because scripts are not the final product in the way that novels are you need people to realise your work, to both get the work conceptually and be proficient (and connected) enough to make that vision into an actual production.
You may think it's enough to get someone interested enough in your work to produce it, but that is just the start of the process. Your script changes all the time, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill, but the way in which it changes depends very much on the people you have on board, so you need to be very secure on your relationship with them before you set them on your work.
So how do you find these people, these long and deep relationships.... well now, there's the trick... Here's some thoughts about this...
Get out more
Meet people. Not just anyone, but people who are in your industry and do your kind of thing. You will not make a movie with 999 out of thousand of the people you meet, but you only need the one person. So obviously industry events have to be important here, and the more industry people you know to call on the more you know to know and follow. Yes this is called networking and yes it is diabolically difficult for some of us, but you need to do it. If you have a fulltime job and a family then you need to figure out other ways to do this online.
Go to University (or Drama School, or film school)
University is not about the courses, it's about the people you meet doing the courses that interest you. Take a look a the genesis of Black Adder, or Monty Pythons - what do you see? Sure you see old school tie and all that bollocks, but the underlying thing is that you see people of a similar age and outlook trying new things. And yes the people you meet at university (and in my case being part of the 'Drama School Mafia') stay with you for a long long time and will provide you with a ridiculously large number of your creative partnerships and invitations to other worlds. Yes, some of this is about clubs, but the entry price into those clubs is not always privilege - it's shared work and experience accumulated over years. If I look back to my class at Drama School of 16 people there was one student who had a bit of a spoilt upbringing and had a theatrical background, the rest of us had families who had nothing at all to do with the arts and where there by force of passion.
I seriously considered doing a screenwriting MA when I first got to London, not so much for the lessons as for the contacts. Had I been (literally) 20 years younger this would have been a good idea.
If you can't do this then you need to take the 'fail more' strategy.
Be real
People like to work with people who are good to work with. And being good to work with means not wasting people's time, being authentic and honest about yourself and your work. This is real work and it's a real honour to call yourself a writer, and there is only one thing you have as a writer - yourself. You are the whole package, so make it count.
Fail a lot
Essential to do and good to do this early. Thinking back on how long it took for me to become a competent actor from when I started it took about 6 years to get something happening - to make the transition from promising to actually being useful. In that 6 years I did a lot of stuff. During my time at university I would often be in four things at once and be in anything from Shakespeare to other students work to being in the Playback troupe. I am pretty sure that a lot of what I did was crap. At drama school we failed a lot (mostly in fact) for two solid years, from 9am to 12pm every day.
I have a stack of journals that it literally as high as I am full to brimming with poetry, play ideas, notes to self, thoughts and confessions. Probably 90% crap.
I figured out pretty early (one of the few things I did work out early) that about 90% of what you did was going to be at best 'good' and that 10% was going to be actually very good. Unfortunately you may not be the best judge of which of your endeavours are going to be in the top 10%, so you need to...
Fail on your feet
By this I mean that it's better to fail actively - by having a play on, a film shot - than it is to fail passively. Failing passively - by wimping out - is very dangerous because it's too easy to build up a false sense of how good you might have been had the thing been made. This is all puff. Until it's on the stage or screen you have NO IDEA how good or not this thing is.
I remember Christopher Hampton saying this at a talk once - that there was no correlation at all between how good the writing process was, how good the making process was and how the piece was received. This is really worth thinking about, it means you cannot second guess the reaction to a peiece and you most certianly cannot say that a great wirting expereicen makes a great final product.
The consequence of this is that you have to go thorough the whole piece, write, make, share, to know how good it is. This is failing on your feet, and it also is called learning.
Failing on your feet also means that you will fail with people, and often it's a great way to see what they (and you) are made of. And relationships (professional and otherwise) are forged in adversity.
Track people
You should track the people you like the work of, those who are ahead of you in the game. And by track I mean look at their careers on IMDB, go and see their shows, follow the news. You can't do this with everyone but you have to imagine two scenarios. Let's say you love the work of Richard Curtis, there are a couple of scenarios where this knowledge will come in handy:
1. You meet Richard Curtis. In this scenario you want to demonstrate depth of knowledge (without being a stalker!) and not bluff your interest.
2. You meet an industry person who you don't know. You can talk ABOUT Richard Curtis and figure out whether this person is going to be for you. And yes they WILL be doing the same thing to you (do I like this person, could I work with them, do I know anyone they might need...)
The Balance and.... having serious fun
Writers have a tough time - they have to spend a lot of time by themselves and yet have to sit in rehearsals or story meetings and play well with others. They must bring fresh ideas into the world and yet have to be able to step into a room of industry people and not freak out - and not hover in the corner!
Sure this is hard but the upside is it's a wonderful thing to be able to do - to be a creative individual who can then engage with the shared process of making a project too, it's great fun. And the people you meet, the good ones, will be friends for life...