Blowing In The Wind

Okay, so I had those two meetings I mentioned earier. Agent and Major Prodco. They were everything I'd hoped for. No one shot me.

My agents made nice noises while at the same time secretly calculating how much commission my dropping a show was going to cost them. I would guess something like half a secretary. Major Prodco greeted me with the time honoured ' of course our development slate is full right now' before my arse even hit the chair.

Kinda makes you think the meeting is slightly redundant from that point on. But no - this is where you swing into gear. I pitched like a baseball player with tourettes. I was coming at them from all angles.

I recently had a meeting with a head of development at a network. She loved one of my projects but was wavering on the premise. Major prodco had also read it and liked it . I knew HOD knew Major prodco, they had done a couple of things together. So I dropped names and got the two in contact.

I'd also made up something on the way to the meeting and pitched this out of desperation when my other three pitches were as welcomed as a fart in an elevator.

Desperate pitch pushed the buttons. I've just finished writing it up the pitch document and emailed it over. [I also mailed it to three other prodcos's telling them they were getting a sneak peek, well they are kinda - my agent won't be sending it out til tomorrow!]

Gotta work it baby!

Now, the chances of anything happening with it are slim to nil, but that isn't the point. I like it. I'm pretty sure the passion came out in the pitch document so at the very least it keeps me in the loop. And you need to be in the loop. Boy do you need to be in the loop. Time passes quicker than you think.

I had a meeting recently with another major prodco on a possible writing gig. They had also asked me in some time back to possibly write for a different show they'd just had commissioned. That previous one didn't work out as the creator decided he wanted to write all the Eps himself. Anyway - it was the same producer at the recent meeting. Hi says I, we met about six months ago on XXXXXXXX. 'Ahhh, that was 2 years ago' he said.

Yep, it was. But in my mind, the last time I was dealing with original material was six months ago .........surely? Clearly the constant deadline schedule had warped my sense of time.

So, no regrets about dropping a show. [finances excluded] Gotta stay in the loop. The reason you get paid around double for original drama versus episodic TV is the reason you became a writer in the first place. IDEAS, WELL EXECUTED, WITH PASSION.