Finding the Target

I remember being in graduate school at NYU with a lot of bravado thinking I was going to take over the world. I was in my 20s and taking over the world meant exactly what Madonna said on American Bandstand in 1984. She was also in her 20s and then she took over the world. For me success meant that I was going to be rich, famous, respected, universally loved, admired, married, perpetually thin, more hung and therefore happy.

There's a song in the original version of Stephen Sondheim's musical Merrily We Roll Along called "Rich and Happy." 

Skies are beaming,

Future bright and prospects gleaming,

Best of all, I don't stop dreaming

Just because I'm rich

And famous

And therefore

Happy, too!

That's the idea I had about success. All of those things would make me happy.

And on the covers of magazines

And in the columns and on the screens

And giving interviews,

Being photographed,

Making all the important scenes,

And at the parties cutting capers

And on the talk shows and in the papers

And unbelievably

Happy, too!

It's like this desperate need to have these things that will validate all the choices and make you happy. I lived that life for five years as a part of a couple. And I was miserable. I was lonely. I wasn't doing my own thing. It wasn't time wasted because I experienced real heartbreak that made me evolve as a person and start to define what I wanted. 

I knew I didn't want to just be the Weezy Jefferson of the operation. 

And then I got in another relationship and realized that the things about me that everyone appreciates, this person felt threatened by. It made him feel like his life experience was invalidated. Then we broke up and my life changed. I suddenly had all the things I wanted in my life. I didn't have all the money I wanted. But I had the first wave of outward success. And I do feel fulfilled. I do feel confident in talking about myself as a writer. It has brought about great things. 

But I still confront my computer every day and I still have to overcome my internal saboteur. I still read my Steven Pressfield books about "turning pro" and "overcoming Resistance." The fight is not over because I have success that is clear and noticeable to everyone. I still have a brother who says, "Well, this year was good. But what about next year?" I still look at my year and only see the things I haven't done instead of the great strides I have made. I still downplay.

So I know that being "rich and famous" doesn't mean I will therefore be "happy, too!" I know that being recognized as successful doesn't mean that all of my problems go away. So, as I said to my friend Carrie yesterday, I'll choose to have more money than less because I know it doesn't validate me. And I'd rather be as anxiety ridden as I always am with the ability to get out of town for a week without freaking out about money.

And right now, I'm at a crossroads. I have many things I've always wanted. I'm teaching at San Diego State for the fourth semester in a row. And I got that opportunity just by making myself available as a substitute. I have two years on our show under my belt. I'm running a theatre company where I have a production coming up and possibly another production as a director coming up. I run the Writers Group. I have a really full life with things that excite me as well as support me financially.

So what's next?

My friend Elizabeth said to me on Saturday, "You need to take it to the next level." There's a moment of time right now where diverse writers are the rage and I need to capitalize on that moment. It's a very pragmatic point of view. She also said to me once that if I want a career writing in network TV, I can do that based on my demeanor and personality. I've got the constitution for it, she believes. And she should know, she has been working in network TV for over thirteen years.

In other words, it's time to pick a lane. I need to decide on a target and head there. I need to have a clear vision. To quote Sondheim again -

A vision's just a vision

if it's only in your head.

It's with that target in mind that I'm working on a revamp of a pilot I've been working on for a minute that I haven't sent out. I've been working on this pilot for a while. I usually don't like to be working on things this long because I also know that if I sold a pilot, I wouldn't have this long. But it's a writing sample and it has to do the right things. It has to suggest story. It's a document that has to suggest that there's more story to be told based on the seeds planted in this pilot. It can be beautifully told, it can have a great plot, but if it doesn't do that thing it's not doing its job as a technical document that shows skill.

If I hadn't spent two years, but especially this last year, on the show I wouldn't have known how to do that.  If I hadn't written a play that caught Elizabeth's attention to the point where she feels like she wants to help me out, I wouldn't have gotten some real practical nuts and bolts advice on how to take my career to the next place. I now have the support of some gay Latino writer brethren. I've got all of the ingredients laid out. The mise en place is ready. Now what am I going to make?

But if my goal is to make the leap to a cable or broadcast show and to utilize this moment, I have to work fast. And fortunately, I only have the summer to get this work done. I've got real time constraints here. I have the opportunity to use my ability to work fast and efficiently paired with my ability to write interesting characters and situations. This is a real Challenge - to use these three months of "free time" to get my samples done for the year. Then I have the rest of the year to revise and then try to get more work.

The target is to get on a broadcast or cable show.

My intention is to focus.

My intention is to zero in on the target.

My intention is not to miss.

I am grateful for all of the experiences that have lead up to this focusing on my target.

I am grateful for the opportunities that have got me here.

I am grateful for what I know now.

I am grateful for the time it took for me to get here.

I am grateful that I have the confidence to say what I want.

I am grateful that I can see the bigger picture and not the immediate thing in front of me.

Success Is A Dirty Word

I worked a long time to get to a certain place in my career.

I moved to New York. I went to graduate school. I moved back to LA. I worked in an entertainment office for seven years. I produced theatre. I wrote ten spec scripts. I wrote eleven full length plays. I wrote at least twelve spec pilots. I wrote countless drafts of all of those scripts. I wrote 1000 pages one year, then 2000 the next and 1500 the year after that. I took an office. I gave up dates. I gave up a relationship. I worked temp jobs. I worked at agencies. I worked for showrunners. I thought about giving up hundreds of times probably.

Then I got my first job last year. And I had some success. I also started teaching regularly. I finally landed where I wanted to. I joined the WGA. I had some money. I could buy the drinks.

And then this year came and was a complete shock to me. I have been struggling to finish a spec pilot I had intended on rewriting already. Because I started working in January, holding down two jobs, I had to pick up and put down and pick back up the script I had started. And each time I picked it back up, I had to start over and rebreak the outline. I finally finished a rebroken version of the outline today. It has taken me so much longer than I intended. But it is much stronger a story than I had before.

I feel like I have finally incorporated everything I learned from being on staff for the past two years to rebreak this pilot. I am getting better at pinpointing the issue and threading an arc through a pilot story. We rebroke story so much this season on our show that it gave me an incredible amount of practice. And I've discovered that rebreaking on your own is so much harder than it is in a room.

All of that stopping and starting has made me feel like I've hardly gotten anything done this year. It's half way through the year and I feel like I have not accomplished that much. Except for making a triple jump in title and writing/producing two episodes of television. Plus teaching two classes back to back on Thursdays. I'm finding that success makes me doubt myself in much more clever ways. I can accomplish all of these things, I can be living out my dream and the one regret I have is that I haven't finished my spec pilot yet.

Yes, it's true that I need to finish this spec in order to give a sample to my manager so he can go out and get me meetings. But I keep thinking that a few years ago, I wrote five scripts in a year. I have written pilots in a month. I have rewritten pilots in a week. I have moved a lot faster than this. Back when I wasn't making any money. Back when I couldn't pay my bills. Back when I couldn't buy the drinks or had to make excuses why I couldn't make it out for something because I was too broke.

Somehow, I was starting to feel nostalgic for those days. Because I was getting more done. In my mind. The reality is that I did a lot of writing in the first five months of the year. And I spent a lot of time during production working on rebreaking story because we had some big emergencies come up. I was also teaching two classes and grading papers. So there wasn't a lot of time for my own work. I didn't realize that success wouldn't be the instant save or the cure all I thought it would be.

I was talking to my friend Carrie today on the phone about how no one tells you that success has its own set of challenges. And how I feel guilty even having that thought that success would be a challenge. Or how I'd even have guilt saying, "I'm successful" without qualifying it with "but there's a lot more work I still need to do" or "but I'm not as successful as I really want to be." Somehow saying, "I'm successful" means that I think I'm better than other people or I'm bragging. But the truth is that I am successful in crafting my life in the way I want it.

I help run a theatre company and last week I was directing a workshop that culminated in a reading this past weekend that went very well. That's success to me because I worked with great actors on a great play and had a great time. I inspired my team. I exercised my ability to bring people together - a skill that will continue to serve me on future writing staffs. I am successful because I have opportunities to do things I had talked about wanting to do. I'm doing the three things I want to be doing: TV, theatre and teaching.

But that means my year is taking on a different structure than years past. One year I might write 2000 pages of all original material. Another year, I might not writing anything of my own because I'm on staff all year. That might be three or four years. This year, I worked on the show from January to May. And now I have until the end of August - my summer break - to finish this pilot and to write two more. That's my aim for myself. Then I have to take that goal and forget about it. I have to just start working on ideas for both pilots. I have to research and listen to podcasts and read articles and talk to friends about the idea. And whatever I have done by August 28th will be a success to me because I know that I will spend every day of the summer being productive. Just like I spend every day all year working. Not every day is spent physically writing. But every day is spent writing through brainstorming, through watching You Tube videos, through conversations, through journal entries, through rewriting and also through actual writing.

This summer is important. Because when I go back and teach in the Fall, it will be all about that moment. It's honestly hard to get as much done when I'm teaching. But that is helping me get through the rest of the year financially. So this year will look like this:

January - May - working on the show and teaching
June  - August - working on my own work
September - December - teaching

So these three months are vital. And I'm finishing up a script now so I can spent the next two months working on two scripts.

My social life has also increased. I am doing a lot more WGA events to network. I have a Gay Latino Writers Group I am now a part of. I have the theatre company. And I have friends I need to see - usually around some cultural event like seeing a play. So sometimes I do get nostalgic for getting to finish a pilot in a month. But that was before I had the skills I have now. So now because I worked so hard on those scripts to land jobs, I can write more in a shorter amount of time. Those three summer months will be more productive than other chunks of time before this.

I'm learning to manage my good fortune. It's a different experience for me. But this is the one lesson I've learned: Money and Outward Success aren't going to make things easier for me. It's all still difficult. But if I have the option of doing this with money or without, I'm going to choose doing it with. It doesn't change my circumstances, so having it is better than not having it, as long as I don't expect it to solve all of my problems. That frees my mind up in a lot of interesting ways. I can welcome that money without thinking that it's going to make my problems go away. Or my insecurities. Or my anxiety. The money is going to come regardless, so I have to get right within myself so that I don't make a mess of things.

My intention is openness.
My intention is expansion.
My intention is curiosity.
My intention is excitement.
My intention is to move forward.

I am grateful for every experience leading up to this one.
I am grateful for expanding my own social circle and outreach.
I am grateful that the reading went well on Saturday. 
I am grateful that people see me as a director.
I am grateful that people see me as a writer.
I am grateful that I did my friend proud.
I am grateful that I am living the life I have been intending to live.

Balancing Act

I constantly have to remind myself every day of how lucky I am. That sounds crazy. But when you start achieving the things you've always wanted, it's difficult to remember gratitude. My whole life I have been used to not getting things I want and I just expected that I would continue to push myself. And often, the way I would push myself is to let myself know that I'm not good enough. About two or three years ago, I started to get real Zen about how my life and career. I calmed myself down and I started to care less about outward success. I just wanted to live my life, do my work, and let the Universe figure the rest of it out.

Then the Universe did. And I got some of the things I had wanted. Then I found myself with this real tension between letting go - which is how I got here - and then really wanting it again and trying to replicate success - which never worked. I had things and I wanted more and I wanted to grab on to it. I find myself in a space where I'm afraid I won't get the next job, which is natural of course. But I'm trying not to live in that space. Three years ago, when I didn't have any money, I lived in the space of not worrying. And I was really proud of that. I do worry less now than I used to, but I'm worrying more than when I was in that Zen place of "let it go."

I'm also trying to accept that everything has a season. And I don't mean that in some sort of philosophical sense. But every year is different. Some years I write five scripts. Some years I work on a TV show. Some years I teach. Some years I do all of those things. It has been hard to wrap my head around this year so far. Last year was such a game changer for me, that in some ways this year feels anticlimactic. But at the same time, I'm now doing what I've been wanting to do. So this year is a result of all of that hard work and game changing. Now this is my new normal.

So this year means that January through May were about being in production on the TV show I'm a Co-Producer on and teaching two classes. Now through August is about writing scripts, directing a workshop and being in pre-production for a play of mine that I'm producing. Then September through December will be about teaching again. Being so busy makes it hard to stay present sometimes. I'm trying. I'm trying not to be obsessed with the things I'm not getting done and focus on the moment.

We had a great rehearsal last night for this play workshop I'm directing. It's pretty great to sit around a table with actors and with a playwright I respect. It's great to support a friend's vision of his play. It's great to feel creatively fulfilled. And yet, I sit here trying to get work done. I'm feeling pressure to get this pilot rewrite finished that I've been trying to work on for the past several months. I'm antsy about moving on and writing the next two pilot ideas that I have. I feel weird that I haven't written a new play yet this year and most likely, I'm not going to.

But again, everything has a season. Not every year is going to be about working on a show, teaching, writing a new play, getting a bunch of my own stuff done. There will be compromises. That's the thing about having a career. Some years all I'll be doing is writing on someone else's show and banking some coin so that I can have a year where all I do is my own stuff. Some of that will be by choice and some of it will not. But as the past few years have shown, surprises can be amazing. So I'm going to go along for the ride.

My intention is openness.
My intention is to breathe.
My intention is to ride the wave.

I am grateful for the freedom I have to do many things.
I am grateful for fun.
I am grateful for the summer.

The Simple Act of Telling One's Story...

...is the longest journey.

I woke up this morning feeling incredibly vulnerable. This was a shock to me after having a week where I felt empowered. This is a common experience for me. The feeling of invincibility followed by the vulnerability of being exposed. Friends would probably say to me, "Duh. That's what it is to be an artist. Aren't you used to that by now?"

No. I'm not.

And it feels like it's getting worse. The more vulnerable and exposed I get the harder it is to get it up to do the work. Is it supposed to work that way? Shouldn't I be energized and fortified by my journey to my truth? I don't know. I guess it takes more out of me. I guess that's why works of genius don't appear by the same artist year after year after year. That's why people take breaks.

But in this consumer culture - with more product necessary to feed the beast who's never full - that pressure to create and create and create grows more oppressive. I sound like I'm complaining. But I'm mostly grateful for that opportunity to create and grow. But sometimes it's a lot. Last month, I wrote a spec script of a show already on the air - something no one does anymore, according to "common knowledge." That's why I felt I had to do it. I wanted to write an episode of a show that I love. That was the challenge. And I knew I could write it quickly. I needed to write something quickly. So I sent it off to one of the writing fellowships run by the studios. Again, something I've been told I shouldn't have to do because I've already been staffed on a show for two years. I'm coming right off that show. It's not like I haven't worked in five years. I haven't worked in a month or two. But it's the exercise of continuing to create energy around myself. It's a strategic action. I'm turning in a rewrite of a script that I've been working on for awhile to my manager by this weekend (hopefully) - so with the one-two punch of the spec and the spec pilot, I will make an impact.

I already have two ideas for two new pilots - one half hour and one hour long. That's going to be the rest of my summer before I go back and teach in the Fall. I'm trying to get my next staff job. It feels like I'm constantly jumping through hoops. I got off this hamster wheel several years ago and now I find myself right back in the middle of it. Now, I'm on this hamster wheel as someone who has staffed. As someone who now runs a theatre company. As someone who people see as a writer and not someone's lackey. That's a huge step forward. And I have to remind myself of that constantly when I get down on myself.

It's like I make it to the next level of Super Mario Brothers and I feel like I'm starting over again. It doesn't matter that I'm at Level 47, I act as if I'm at Level 1. Now clearly there is something wrong with that way of thinking. That logic comes from the way I was raised. If you keep pushing and keep pushing, you're not going to slow down. You should never feel like you're done. And that's good training for life - you can't ever feel like you've made it. You've got to keep going. But also that way of thinking is soul crushing and exhausting. That way of thinking demands a certain sociopathic mentality - you ignore feelings to achieve. But I also think that's the business I've entered. Somehow my upbringing has perfectly prepared me for this business because I should be an unfeeling automaton who just is an achievement machine.

The kink in that plan is that I'm an emotional being. My writing has only gotten more emotional and more personal as I've gotten older. And it has taken its toll. I have become less social in a lot of ways. I need a lot more time to warm up the car that I used to. Now I think the work is better than it has ever been. But it is more of a struggle. That's not a reason to stop. But I think I need to find a way to be more efficient.

The big struggle currently - in addition to the writing - is that I've got a play I'm trying to produce with my theatre company. It's my most personal play to date. It's hugely exposing. It's doing the thing I've always been afraid to do. That entire play is me. And now I'm looking at spaces to produce it. I'm having to be non-compromising. It's all I'm thinking about when I need to be working on submissions and writing and teaching. But I can't put minimal effort into this. I have to put all of myself into it. I put all of myself into the writing of it. And it's a brilliant play. I can say that because I don't think the brilliance comes from me - it comes through me. It's a play that deserves a lot of attention. Does that mean I deserve a lot of attention? Well, as a person who loves attention, that's a dangerous tango to dance. Since the play is all me, it's hard to separate the work from the person.

And I've been having a lot of art versus commerce thoughts lately. I made this move to apply to the fellowships strictly as a business move. It's a career advancement move - it's a moving up to the next rung on the ladder situation. It's not an art move. The art move is working on this play. And the next two moves are career moves too - I'm writing pieces that are going to get me jobs. I'm looking at it as a different type of writing than the personal writing I do. I see a lot of people working consistently and I want that to be me. There are a lot of opportunities out there - more than ever, they tell us on Deadline. So why can't some of those be mine?

Today's a day where the push is hard. I have to remember that in this time in our nation's history, I have to push. I can't stop. I can't be thrown out by my own worries. Working anywhere in this business as a writer means my voice is accounted for. I have to be in the room, my Latinx brothers and sisters and my gay brothers and sisters and my Asian brothers and sisters have to be in the room. We need strength by numbers. We have to be accounted for in the statistics - we need to grow those numbers. So we need to be everywhere - kids shows, web shows, cable, network, streaming. We'd all love to work in prestige rooms, but the important thing is that we're working. That we're making that money - that we're using our rising influence to say the things that are important. We need to take that white privilege and turn it into brown, queer privilege. And then we need to be okay with continuing to share the wealth. We can't just hoard that power.

We can tell our stories by telling all stories. It's got to be a back and forth. That's why it's important that I tell my most direct story as well as the story of Dev in Master of None or the characters in my pilots. Or the characters on the show I've been working on for the past two years. Because I still exist in all of those stories - the empathy that makes up my character as a person lives in these fictional characters and expands empathy.

Okay, I feel at least a little bit better now. Onward...

My intention is expansion.
My intention is empathy.
My intention is to do as much as I can.
My intention is to expand my circle.

I am grateful for a college friend who has a space that maybe we can use for our play.
I am grateful for a grad school friend who hired me.
I am grateful for my theatre company that continues to push me.
I am grateful for people who are fans of my work.
I am grateful to have a community of people I respect.
I am grateful for the struggle and the ability to overcome the struggle.

Great Advice

I'm at the age now where I'm giving advice as well as getting it.

I had the experience to give and receive today from two people I really respect. My friend, Tom, is an actor who I got to work with on a play workshop of mine. It's a play I LOVE and the experience of working with Tom was incredible. We haven't been in touch a lot in the past year and a half. But I found out today that his father just died in February. To look at him, with his enthusiasm and joy is remarkable. When we met almost two years ago at Priscilla's in Toluca Lake, we instantly got on. He's a kid from a solid family and a background that told him to work hard and he is. He's definitely a guy you meet and you think, "He's a star." He's moving to London soon to study acting. If I couldn't admire him enough already, that just made my admiration soar through the roof. He's going back to learn more about his craft. He's a real actor and he's tired of being told to take his shirt off - he knows that he's more than that.

In the same way that working with my students inspires me because of their optimism and freshness, talking to Tom awakened more optimism and hope within me.

Then I got to talk to my friend Elizabeth, who's a playwright and also a successful TV writer. I've gotten to know her over the past couple of years. First as a member of our writers group, and then as someone interested in me and my work. One of the reasons I admire Elizabeth is that she has managed to make a living as a successful TV writer and Co-Executive Producer and yet she still writes these weird plays. The two worlds are separate and as she explained to me yesterday, "I don't expect to make my living as a playwright. But if I did, I suppose I'd have to write very different plays." That statement was such a revelation. My whole playwriting career I've tried to get acceptance by the O'Neill, the Lark, the Playwrights Center, Sundance, Ojai, Cape Cod, Seven Devils or any number of different theatres or development organizations. I've been a finalist at a few places. But I'm never going to make a living as a playwright - mainly because there's no living to be made as a playwright. However, then I don't have to change the types of plays I write. Would I like to be produced? Yes. And now I have a theatre company that supports me - a company that already existed and has brought me into their fold. Even being a part of this theatre company, I realized that a theatre company's just a group of people who all have the same vision. They're just a group of people. They are not God. They are not even an institution. They're just people who agree - or work to agree. And if they're just people, then I will eventually find the people who agree with me. That releases me from a lot of things. That also means that networks, studios and production companies are just people too. And I can create an entity that agrees with me. But then again, that entity will just be composed of people. Somehow in that way, it makes it less intimidating.

I went off on a tangent, but one that's important to this conversation. I don't have to give my power away anymore to anyone. Even the folks with the big money. Even my manager - that's another conversation. My friend Elizabeth then had a lot of great practical advice for me. I'm writing a spec of a show that I love to get into programs that could help me. "They make it easier," she said. I've applied to these programs before without any luck. I thought that I wouldn't have to apply to them any more because I'm a Co-Producer on our show. But in some people's minds, it's "just a web series." I know that's not true. I know that I'm ready to hop on a show right now as a Story Editor or Executive Story Editor and burn the shit down. But my ego has been saying that I don't need it. What I realize is that we're in a time where diversity is a big buzz word. Unfortunately, it's a trend - which means that the trend cycle will eventually be over. But I need to hop on the trend while the ears are listening and the eyes are watching and reading. "Strike now," she said. She also had other key advice for me.

• Rewrite a pilot I had been working on - she said that I was really close to it being good. That I didn't need to start over and tear everything down. I just needed to fix what I had. That made all of this seem so less intimidating. She told me that I'm so ready to work in network television. And she should know. She has been doing it for thirteen years. That's the other thing about Elizabeth, she is incredibly honest, gracious and pragmatic. None of it's personal to her.
• "You've got three months." She didn't say this as a warning or even as a question to openly wonder if I could get it done in time. She said that in an affirmative way as if to say, "You've been working in TV. This is a doable deadline. Get it done." That wasn't really advice. But the advice was more about getting the work done and going for it.
• "Don't reinvent the wheel. It's television." She told me to steal the story beats from a show that the networks keep trying to replicate. Stealing's not an issue when you're surrounded by thieves. As creative people we tend to over mystify the process. Or here's what we do, we assume writing for television is the same as writing for ourselves. It's called staffing for a reason. You get a temp job and get staffed. So that means there are rules to follow and ways to be more successful or less successful. We get in our own way as creative types because we expect each job to fulfill us creatively.
• "Don't do that." - referring to expecting television to fulfill me creatively. The less personal I can make it the better. That's really why people succeed. They give to it, they do what's expected of them and they play the game. Then they get out. 
• "Have the things that fulfill you creatively so that TV doesn't have to." Yes, there are shows on the air that I consider art: Atlanta, The OA, Sense 8, Master of None, Louie, Baskets.  But even those shows are jobs. I didn't create any of those shows. So if I were lucky to staff on one of prestige shows, I'd still have to fulfill a creator's or a showrunner's vision. And that's okay. But writing a play means something different to me than writing on a TV show. That wasn't always the case. I expected one to satisfy me in the same way the other did. Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book Big Magic, "Support your creativity, don't expect it to support you." My creativity does not support me. My playwriting doesn't support me. I write plays because I love to be in a room with writers talking about my work and their work. I love my writers group. I love my theatre company. I love the companionship and the exchange of ideas. But I am not trying to make a career as a playwright. I actually think that's a mistake. More on that later. But it doesn't pay my bills. And it doesn't have to - as long as TV does.
• "A pilot just needs to show that story is possible." - I'm paraphrasing this one. But she basically said that a pilot needs to indicate that there is more story to be told from that well. And if you understand story, you understand how to lay that in a pilot. Again, an indicator that writing for television isn't writing in the muse-heavy way. It's meeting a deadline. It's figuring out a solution. It's mechanics. And because of that, it's impersonal. And because of that, it should be easy to get specs written quickly. They need to get you jobs. They don't need to win you the Emmy.
• "It has to look like a TV show." The pilot sample has to give the executives and the showrunner an indication that what you write is TV. As Elizabeth said, "The work has to pass through about five or six people before it gets to the showrunner. And they have to get it. The network, the studio, maybe the production company, your agent or manager. If it accomplishes the task of seeming like it's a TV show, then that gives people the confidence that you can do the job.
• "Write the thing that will give you the most chances of getting a TV job." There are a ton of cop, lawyer, medical shows. And there are certain things that people want. There are certain worlds that people are trying to break. Write those to get the meetings to get in the room. Again, there's a road map. Whether or not you choose to follow it is up to you. Now, a lot of this advice, if you don't have the benefit of hearing it directly from the source, sounds cynical maybe. Or it sounds reductive. Well, TV is reductive. Yet there are beautiful works of television that resonate with us. That doesn't exclude truth or authenticity. That doesn't mean that you can't write the passion project. That doesn't mean that you won't revolutionize television. But I don't know if you can set that out as a goal. The Shield, The Sopranos, The Wire (add to this advice, call your show The _________) are accidental revolutions. They were written from a place of honesty and they became something more. But those are all TV shows. Now it sounds like I'm giving advice. But a lot of this advice made sense to me. As I said to Elizabeth yesterday, I didn't know a lot of this stuff before I wrote on a show. I have a strong voice that I want to write in. I have a voice that needs to be kept sharp so that when it's time for me to create my own show, I'm not all rounded edges. But all of those things are true. And I might have heard some version of that from an agent or a manager along the way. When they said it, it insulted me. But knowing my friend, it sounds like a way to get the work done. Again, the job is to get staffed.

What Elizabeth didn't say, but what I got from our conversation was this -

It's up to me. I have the personality to be in a network room. I've worked in television and therefore have proven that I can do it. I have samples that just need to be tweaked. It is within my reach. Fix the problem - don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Every TV script is flawed and has to be repaired, but it can be done. Do the same with your samples. It's within my reach. I'm repeating that because I didn't get it the first time.

It's within my reach. 

If I don't do it, it's because I'm getting in my own way. It's because my ego is saying that my pilot has to be art. It's my ego that wants me to labor over everything to prove my worth. I'm already deserving. That's why you don't need to be a great artist to be a TV writer. That doesn't mean you don't need to be skilled. And that's not pejorative. It's actually hard to be a TV writer. But working hard does not make you an artist. You're an artist first - and that is a stroke of luck. That's the biggest stroke of luck. But where I have gone wrong is that I assumed that meant that I deserved to be a rich, successful, continuously working writer/producer. But you don't have to be an artist to be a TV writer - you do have to work your fucking ass off and you have to be relentless in your pursuit. That's why some people are successful and not talented - they work the system. It doesn't mean they don't deserve to be there, but they understand the code. Creative people don't always understand the code.

I think I take my friend's advice seriously because she's successful, but she's also at the heart of everything an artist. She hasn't sacrificed her art for the paycheck. She understands that they operate completely separately and she gives them each a room of their own. Sometimes I see playwrights whose work changes as a result of writing for TV. They've essentially forced these siblings to share a room.

Everything needs to be demystified. But that's difficult because we've mythologized the work of being an artist and confused that with the work of being a commercial writer. So we make it precious. Just like you have to be less precious with the writing itself, you have to be less precious with how you think about the writing. I'm learning that lesson.

I will say this. If I hadn't stuck to my vision, I wouldn't have written samples that are close to TV shows. I had to pull myself through the writing. I had to write all of those pilots. Otherwise, it's all formula. If I had just followed this advice, I wouldn't have written the play that has broken me open. I have a real voice - and real voices matter in TV. Yes, there are Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, FX, HBO and all of these prestige places to work and to sell work. And there's TV that's not TV. It doesn't mean that every sample has to fit the formula. But I have a leap I want to make. And in order to make that leap and then to have the freedom to look at my career from that vantage point and make the next move, I need to follow this advice. 

I also have to remember the refrain that my friend Adam used to repeat over and over again when we were coming up:

It's not called show friends, it's called show business.

Steven Pressfield put it differently. You can't be You to do business, you have to be You, Inc.

This will continue to sink in, but it was one of the most helpful business conversations I had. And that's from someone who wants me to succeed. Who thinks I have what it takes. And who has worked enough to know. This is practical knowledge, not just encouragement. 

My intention is to work in network television.

My intention is to not take it personally.

My intention is to be Me, Inc.

My intention is to do the work.

I am grateful for friends and family.

I am grateful that I got to see my godmother in Vegas for the day.

I am grateful that my heart is still open and my mind is still sharp.

I am grateful that I know I am capable of what I want, above all else.

Bad Advice

I have a natural proclivity to going against the grain. It's a natural rebellion. It's an innate sense of "I'm going to do the exact opposite of what people think I should do." It's stubborn. It's probably born in the fact that I am an Aquarian and my ruling planet is Uranus, which rotates on its axis (or in orbit) the opposite direction of all the other ruling planets. I am by nature a contrarian. That has served me and also hurt me at various points in my life. But I can't help but do the thing that my instinct tells me to do.

So where am I going with this?

Well, I have been working since January and haven't had time to work on new writing samples. I have had a pilot that I've been rewriting in fits and starts since the beginning of the year. And I've been working on theatre - when I should be working on new pilots. I now have this theatre company that I help run with a bunch of other people. None of this is for free - we all do it in our spare time because we all have jobs that actually pay us money. So even though I should be laser focused on TV and getting the next job, I'm producing readings and I'm about to direct my first play workshop in June. We're also producing a new play - hopefully in the Fall - that I will be VERY involved with.

But that's not even what I'm talking about. When I first started trying to break into TV, there was a rule: you wrote a spec script of an existing show as a sample. You usually had two or three specs in your arsenal. But the spec has fallen out of favor and now people are writing spec pilots, which are hard to do. But they're original material and any writer would rather write something they personally came up with. But it seems like the hard rule is "no one reads specs anymore." I went to a WGA event where a bunch of showrunners said they'd actually like to read specs because then they know that a writer can write in someone else's voice. I wasn't hired off of a spec script. I was hired from original material - a new play. And I'd rather use my time to write my original ideas.

But spec pilots take a long time. For me, they take longer than plays. So I'm going to do something crazy. I'm going to write a spec of a show I watch and apply with it to some of the studio programs. Even though I've been staffed, it might be a way to make a leap into network TV. And I can do it fast. I'm also thinking that I might write a one hour sample of an existing show as well. Because no one's doing it - and it will seem fresh - and will be easy to do. At least,  hope that will work. The problem with specs is that there are so many shows on the air that many people don't watch the same thing. It was different when there were only three channels on the air.

I'm going to write some specs. And instead of thinking about it like "Ugh, I have to write someone else's show", I'm going to think of it as an opportunity to write an episode of the show. Since I've written five episodes of TV in my short career so far, I know I can write an episode of a show. I'm hoping all of my skill building will translate into this script being super tight in a ridiculously short amount of time with few drafts. I'm hoping that is what I've learned - and that I can apply this knowledge into my sample work.

At the same time, I'm going to be working on new stuff. I'm going to be producing our writers workshops. I'm going to continue to overextend myself. Because I have a vision. I spent seven years learning about production and reading hundreds, if not thousands,  of scripts. I know how to make the thing. I'll continue to be great at production now that I've had production experience. I spent last summer on set learning how to produce instead of finishing a different pilot rewrite. I've done things that have enriched me instead of the things that feel immediately profitable - like getting another TV gig. But this move of writing this spec will be a step in the right direction. It's also giving me time to think about this new pilot I'm writing. It will give me a new script in a short amount of time to go along with the other script I'm rewriting - so I can have two new scripts at the end of the month.

But I'm choosing to have real enthusiasm about it. I'm getting to write an episode of my favorite show. I'm pretending that I got hired to write an episode of my favorite show. This is an adventure for me. The idea for the spec came real quick and I broke the story quickly. So now I'm in the middle of outlining from that break. And then I will have a detailed enough outline to write the script fairly quickly. I'm actually using the real process of breaking an episode to break this spec and write it. I'm also getting to use my experience of writing five episodes into this spec. I also just think I want the experience of writing something quickly and purely for fun without any of my personal investment in it. This spec's purpose is to find me a new TV job. It should do nothing but that. As much as I hated that before I staffed on a show, this feels like a great relief.

In both rooms, but especially in this last season of our show, we collectively with our showrunner created this series. I've had the experience of starting up with two new stories every year. It's impressive how we got so much done in such a short period of time. And now I get to see that skill at work with creating sample episodes of a series. I can now imagine what I would do if I was on the staff of the show because I've been on the staff of a show. It changes my perspective entirely. And I'm going to test out this theory that people are ready to read specs again. It certainly won't be true all of the time, and I'm counting on my manager using my original plays and my experience working on a show as an example that I can write on a TV show and have original thoughts.

But that's an against the grain approach. I also feel that if everyone is going one way, it's leaving a path wide open. So I'm going to try this. It wouldn't be the advice you would give someone. But I can't help but want to do the opposite of what other people are doing.

I'm trying a new approach if the other thing isn't working. It's taking me too long to write and come up with new pilot ideas. I need to churn out more material. And I can write specs quickly. So we'll try this. And if this doesn't work, then we'll try something else. But I need to be flexible in my approach to getting my next staff job.

My intention is flexibility.
My intention is growth.
My intention is to try new things.
My intention is to find the open door.

I am grateful for the skills I've learned being on staff.
I am grateful for the love I have with my friends.
I am grateful for my ability to not stop working.

Challenged

For several years, I've been doing these writing challenges. They started with my playwrights group, The Playwrights Union, doing a February write a play in a month challenge. I've done four of them. And we've also done a Pilot Writing Challenge, which I started. I've done three of those.

I called last year my Year of Challenges and I started out with the goal of performing one challenge a month. I did pretty well, but adjusted my plan when I got staffed on a show. Then I had all sorts of productivity that had nothing to do with self-imposed deadlines. My Challenges had to do with work.

I started this year with a job. I was working on the second year of our show and I was teaching. Actually, I had two jobs. That took up all of my time from January through this month. Now I find myself in a position where I have time again to work on my own stuff. I also have no pay check - so I'd better work on my own stuff.

I want to get the next gig and I have to produce new material. And I have the summer to work before I teach two classes in the Fall. So now I find myself in another position where I need to give myself Challenges.

I am writing a spec script and finishing a pilot this month. I am working on outline for the spec and expect to work on it this week. The other script I will finish as well.

Then in June, I've got a play workshop I'm directing. And I need to outline a new spec pilot I'm working on. I also have another idea for a soapy one hour drama that could be fun to write. I will make time to do some exploratory work on that.

In July, I will write the new spec pilot. And outline the second spec pilot.

In August, I will write the second spec pilot. And then I'll see what else I want to do. I have a new play I also want to write. Then I will start teaching again.

Can I handle four months of writing challenges? Yeah, I can. I've been working on staff for two years and I know how to write fast. I need to plan some get aways and writers retreats to get this work done. Might have a script payment coming in that will help fund this summer of writing. I have plenty of places I can go to. It would be nice to do an extended trip to San Francisco or to Portland. I need to make time to get away and get writing done.

My intention is to be productive.
My intention is to focus.
My intention is to enjoy myself.

I am grateful for the time to write.
I am grateful for the interest in my writing.
I am grateful for friendships.
I am grateful for the people coming back into my life.