Anyone can write

As the Baltimore Ravens stand one Steelers beatdown away from another Super Bowl, one player who will have something to fall back on in the offseason (whatever the outcome) is defensive end Trevor Pryce. Turns out he's also a screenwriter. According to the article, he got the idea for a script when his daughter threw a penny in a fountain and then asked what would happen if her wish got mixed up with someone else. From the mouth of babes . . .

As a professional football player, Trevor was in the enviable position of having an agent who could pass the idea along to a producer here in L.A. -- Mike Fleiss (Heidi's brother). Fleiss asked for a treatment, Pryce had to Google what a treatment was, and eventually ended up writing the full script. He says he also wrote a second one and is shopping around a third. Even though his case is obviously not the norm for new screenwriters trying to break into the business, it is a good illustration of the old adage that "concept is king." In the meantime, I'll have to be content with a victory in the championship game and the knowledge that there is at least another playing field on which I actually can compete with Trevor and still keep my head attached to my body.