I think I wrote about this on a prior blog, but I spent the month of February in LA. I wasn't working, so I was able to make writing and testing out LA a priority. I suspected I would really like it, and I did really like it.
I also took 2 writing classes out there, attended panel discussions on writing, was very nicely able to attend a pitch meeting (matt craig is a very generous soul) and also went to the hollywood retirement center (lovely Jen Clymer) twice!
Anywho, I had 3 goals:
1) See how it feels to live in LA vs just visit. Drive a lot, walk a lot, etc
2) Take this writing class seriously, do the work each week and make it a priority
3) To meet up with someone every day. Someone who I knew in Chicago or college, and try to find out how they carve up a life for themselves in Cali. Not trying to get them to do anything for me---but truly, just seeing what it means to live and work in SoCal. It was lovely---I got to re-connect with a ton of friends who have long since left Chicago for LA, and all of them were so nice, and often insisted on paying for the meal.
I realize I should have made this more about writing a pilot---but that was the prior blog.
Anyway, for anyone who was writing or aspiring to be a sitcom writer, the general advice was to write a pilot. It used to be to write a spec script, but now it seems pilot was the general consensus.
So, I wrote both. And I'm planning to move to LA in January, too.
A spec script means (speculative) is one you write for an existing show (I believe). Meaning, if you were writing in the 90s, you'd probably write for Roseanne or Seinfeld. You'd take on the voice and tone and feeling of the show, and write your own situation. It's typical that you'd write a spec script for a show you love and know well. And, I think, back in the day, say you wanted to write for 30 Rock---you might write a spec script for Parks and Recreation, so you can give that to anyone on 30 Rock. Why? They can't read an unsolicited script for 30 rock---because if they do, then if those writers soak up any ideas from that spec script of 30 rock and they show up in an actual show, everyone involved would lose their shit and start slinging around accusations of stealing ideas, etc. So, instead, an aspiring writer would write a spec script for another show, and send that off to the 30 Rock crew.
Though, as I write this, I'm sure there are other reasons for a spec, and those writers probably can't even read anything unsolicited, even if it's not for their show? (Unsolicited means you send it in an envelope or over email, but you don't have any kind of representation or agent or that legal shit so that writer or pa probably won't even read it). Anyway, my point is this: if you want to write for sitcoms, you have to start writing sitcoms.
I do want to be a writer for sitcoms (I think!) so my goal in the first half of 2017 was to write 2 first drafts--a pilot and a spec.
When it came time to pick the show I wanted to write my spec for I--I had no trouble at all. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I came up with a few story ideas, but quickly landed on one that I liked. I wrote this script to exist in Season 2---and after I wrote it, Season 3 came out and some of the stuff I referenced was resolved a bit. So, I was happy about that---I understood the show well enough to head in the same direction as the writers.
Anyway, I have sitting, on my hard drive, a draft of a spec script for "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt".
I keep saying I'm not interested in writing sitcoms for rich people who say they are middle class (I'm looking at you Modern Family, though that show totally cracks me up). I mean, I don't want to write Oliver Twist or anything, but I like it when people on tv are more like the people I know in my life. They have ok houses, maybe not houses, maybe apartments. They have normal jobs, live in normal neighborhoods where everyone isn't lilly-white or perfectly "ethnic" and maybe, god forbid, aren't 100% liberal but live in a world somewhere between "My name is Earl"'s trailer park and Modern Family's california upper middle class life.
So, anywho, that's what I know and grew up around so that's what I'm trying to write and why I love Kimmy Schmidt so much.
She lives in a closet! In a basement apartment! She has like, 4 outfits, and drives an uber for money. That's pretty amazing and real and I love love love it.
I know have a spec script for Kimmy and an original Pilot. I have to pause around that, because I am proud of myself. I guess that's bragging, but I am.
Everyone I talked to in LA got work or were seeking work as a writer had all kind of different paths to a job in the writer's room working on a tv (or streaming) show.
Some got in with plays or short stories they had written. Others had worked with so and so star years ago, and now so and so needed someone to work in the writing room and wanted to work with their old colleague, who was funny, smart, and "got them". Others were doing sitcom contests--where you submit your sitcom, and if you end up winning you get to meet an agent, or get a development exec to read your work. Others take classes, and then make pals and then go from there. Others get an agent or manager or both, and go from there.
For me, I decided I needed to be brave. Everything I did in LA for the month of February was about being brave and pushing past my own fears of being a super-shitty coward and acting like I don't belong in a room with a bunch of more-talented writers than me. Or, being brave about re-connecting with old friends who have gotten to work, and I didn't want to seem like I was kissing up to them because of their awesome success and be a user. Even friends that I was pretty close with back in the pre-LA days! I am so afraid of seeming like I'm only talking to them because of their success, that I just stop talking to them! That's so unkind, and so selfish and what kind of friend does that make me?
A coward. So, in the sense of being brave, I'm back to these blogs, and saying, the thing I want to do is
And, I also re-mounted a favorite old show, Montgomery and Cooke, with my pal, Jamie Buell in May. We wrote a bunch of new material and that was super-fun, too. I also started a new temp job at Rodale, and did a shit ton of awesome Mind Gym gigs. Went on a few awful first dates (Hope spring eternal) and thought about Aldi a lot.
If anyone wants to weigh in on specs, and writing packets and such, feel free! Or, you know, being brave?
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