Hilary, I noticed you have some posts on the topic way back in 2008.
I do?

I don't see a 2008 thread...I'm probably missing something. Wouldn't be the first time,

.
No, not 5 years at all Nidhi! Let me see if I can remember. It really began when I started playing with the idea of a serialized, digital first novel for middle-grade. The agents I pitched liked the story concept but not the format. So I suppose I had already been practicing with episodic storytelling but I don't think I really began to research screenwriting seriously until November of last year...maybe October...and pitched my first pilot to Amazon Studios at the end of January.
My experience was that it took a bit to wrap my brain around how to build/pace the story and to get a feel for the formatting (i.e., slug line, action, do I insert camera angles?) but once I got the basics down, the rest felt fairly intuitive. It's a comfort thing. At first it feels like you've landed on an alien planet

but I think if you have an instinct for it, and my guess is if you're interested enough to learn screenwriting you're probably drawn to it for a reason, it becomes second nature pretty quick.
The best book I read by far, the one that REALLY made me "get" how storytelling works in television, was Writing the Pilot by William Rabkin. Also, read a ton of scripts. That helped me enormously.
I'm going to PM you my email address -- and I'm happy to do the same for anyone who has questions you don't want to ask in this thread. Subbing to Amazon Studios really was fun and learning screenwriting has made me a better writer. I am more than happy to help in any way I can!
I have subbed Borislav elsewhere and am about to pitch another pilot, so

!