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.
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