For me, it's as similar as being a dancer and continuing to take technique classes while you're creating your own original work. The creative impulse will keep me reading books, watching movies, finding sources of inspiration. Right now, I'm learning the craft of writing for television by doing it. I've studied TV writing in grad school and I've written a number of pilots. I've also read hundreds and hundreds of TV scripts - perhaps that number is in the thousands at this point. But until I got in a writer's room and understood how ideas are pitched and bandied about in the room, I don't think I really understood how scripts are made. It's writing by committee, even in the best situations. And I'm so used to writing alone and making decisions before I collaborate with a director and dramaturg.
When you write by committee, you reach consensus - or at least, you have to write what your showrunner ultimately wants you to write. As a playwright, your strength is that you think outside of the norm. You know how to work in collaboration. You have fresh ideas. When you start writing by committee, things naturally get watered down. You have the room - but then you have the network and studio giving you notes as well. So everything gets smoothed out. If that's the only way you write, then preserving your ideas and your identity become of paramount importance as it relates to working in the room, on a show.
As a playwright, you're writing in your own voice all of the time - at least that's the opportunity you have. Your edges are sharp and crisp. Your identity is clear all over the page and you work hard to protect that. The trick is to take the technique of writing in a room and apply it to an original idea in a voice that's purely your own. That seems to be where the magic happens. I'm able to let go of certain things in the room that serve the story, but maybe not my personal voice or agenda, because I know I always have a place where I get to write in that voice. If I give that up, the collective tide will pull me in a certain direction in terms of my own work.
I remember a lesson I had learned a long time ago in regards to people in my life: "Let it go." I find that mantra useful in a writer's room. You fight for something you believe in - if it serves you, then you let it go. As creative people, we want so badly for our voices to be heard. And you'll follow that impulse in whatever outlet you have for your work. If your only outlet is what you do for money - and the opinions of your showrunner and executives - and sometimes your actors - count more than yours, then that voice will get drowned out pretty quickly and effectively. The wave will take you under. Now, if you see the wave coming and duck under and then pop back up when the wave passes, you're still standing strong. That doesn't mean that one should just become a people pleaser and a yes person. It's important to know the dynamic of a writer's room and how to operate within that dynamic. Then it's important to go home and do your own stuff that isn't about being produced or sold. You have to do that solo work that you want to see too - like spec pilots and screenplays. But there should be room for writing that's just for you. Some of that might get produced, but that's not necessarily the goal.
I recently wrote something that's so purely in a voice that's all of my own, but it's also a voice I've never written in before. That play is having a workshop this summer and I just finished it a little over two months ago. I'm going to enjoy that process. I'm going to enjoy the process of being a purely creative person and having the process be all about me. Because that's not what it is in the writer's room. And it can't be until I run my own show - and even then, I have people to answer to. But I want that experience very soon. And it can happen. But I have to understand the cost of creative freedom. Creative freedom often means less money. But in TV, that also is very livable money.
If I have the sort of career where I'm making millions of dollars a year, I have to understand the pros and cons of that kind of career. If it's a position I see out, then most likely I will be writing other people's ideas and I'll be a showrunner for hire. There's a possible scenario where I get all of that financial reward and I get to do my own stuff primarily. But again, that's not the norm and I can't make a plan for that.
I can make a plan to have creative freedom in my professional writing career. I can still take jobs that teach me how to run a room and negotiate ideas. I can still take jobs that are for the money so I can have that creative freedom. I can still take jobs that allow me the financial resources so that I can take a break when I need to and then come back. All of that is a tall order. But that's where I have the most freedom. I can decide how I want my career to go and then act on that accordingly. Every action I make in my career helps me define what I really want because it reveals to me what the options are in a clear and practical way. I no longer want to be on the outside looking in. I want to be on the inside, figuring out what kind of life I want for myself because that's where all of the information is.
I am grateful that both my TV and theatre careers are thriving.
I am grateful that I have the information necessary to make decisions for myself.
I am grateful that I'm constantly evolving and defining what I want.
I am grateful that life is revealing itself to me.
I am grateful that I feel fulfilled and purposeful on a creative level.
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