Every year, around this time, as the prestigious television network writing programs, labs and workshops begin to announce their crop of writers selected for participation, the rumor mill starts to bubble and stir. After all, everyone wants to know: Why was someone else selected and not me? If I submitted… read more →
Deanna Shumaker was in no way born into this industry. Like many others who gravitate to it, she came from another state, drawn by everything she learned in her creative writing and television elective courses at the University of Florida. Since those days, Deanna worked as a showrunner’s assistant, was… read more →
With 2017 chugging along, and the first fellowship deadlines (Sundance, Humanitas and HBO to name a few) already behind us, many emerging television writers eager to push their television writing careers to that elusive next level are hard at work preparing their TV specs, original pilots and myriad essays for… read more →
Every new writer seeking to break into television writing hears, sooner or later, about the freelance, that one episode in a seasonal television order assigned to a writer not currently on the show’s writing staff, and for which said writer is credited, earning not only a handsome script fee, but… read more →
When you reach out to your community in search of writers for interviews (as was the case when I shared my enthusiasm about my new BREAKING IN initiative with my own little community), you never know whom you will meet. And scarier yet, what sort of interview subject they will… read more →
My seven-year-old daughter is a fledgling gymnast. Ahead of her first meet, she asked me, “Mamma, what if I fall off the beam?” I told her the same thing I always tell my writers, “If you don’t fall, you don’t learn.” The truth is that nobody likes to make mistakes.… read more →
When, in November of 2016, I told my friends – writers, consultants, experts, and champions of all things screenwriting – about my upcoming Breaking In Initiative, one of the first people to reach out to me and express her enthusiasm was the incomparable Jeanne Bowerman, the talented writer and editor of the ever-popular… read more →
Even though the collective “they” always tell you never to start anything with a flashback (or use any flashbacks for any reason in any screenplay if you can at all avoid it), I’m going to commit my own cardinal sin, and start this particular blog post with a flashback of my… read more →
The very best part of my job is watching new writers break into the industry, go from emerging to working professionals. And in my line of work, because of the talented scribes who have chosen to seek out my services, I get to observe this more often than many. These days,… read more →
(An exploration of writerly behaviors in two parts) Confession: I am sweating. I am squirming. I am shifting in my seat. Writing this blog post has been a pain in the you-know-what. I’ve tried cracking it every which way, and ultimately felt like I never really got my groove with… read more →
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