This journal documents the author's experiences as a television writer. To read the story from its inception, go to the beginning.

November 27, 2001

Our love is so special
This is my fantasy: I reach down my agents' throats, pull out their intestines, and hang them from the ceiling -- their own entrails choking the life out of them. It is, of late, one of the less violent images to cross my mind, the result of another two weeks at the hands of those-who-know-not-what-they-want. What I want is a crystal ball: the decisions I make in the next few weeks could push my career forward or relegate it to the dustbin.

The teleconference of two weeks ago turned into a funereal march: our agents had lost faith in our Becker spec. Perhaps me and my writing partner were too close to it. Perhaps another draft would be a waste of time. Perhaps we should just start fresh and write a third spec script, this time for another show. As I bit my tongue -- I believe my initial instinct was to shout something about their craniums being located within their hind quarters -- I could hear my writing partner emit a long "errrrrrrrrr" on his end of the phone line. Our agents added that if we really wanted to go ahead and give the Becker another shot, we should feel free as long as we jettison half the script �- one of our two intertwining plots was lacking "sizzle" -- and come up with 26 pages artfully intertwined with what they deemed salvageable from the current draft.

Most agents sign artists based on work submitted for consideration. Revision requests from representatives are almost unheard of. The fact that my partner and I have suffered through three months of unpaid rewrites at the behest of our agents has bordered on the abusive.

Yesterday, after my partner and I spent this last fortnight exploring our rewriting options, I received yet another call from one of my agents. Perhaps we were too hard on you, she said. Perhaps we were too close to the script. Perhaps I have a solution.

Her solution consisted of cutting and pasting together portions of the opening scene's first and fourth drafts. My partner and I rewrote her solution and tomorrow I will fax her our take on it. But whether or not our agents now find our Becker acceptable -- or even sizzling for that matter -- is beside the point. They have not proven themselves to be very savvy about the sitcom writing industry. They have not made very many, if any, efforts to find us writing assignments. And I suspect the only reason they have offered this olive branch of a "solution" to the Becker problem is because they sense our growing dissatisfaction with their efforts.

Our contracts state that on or after December 29 my writing partner and I can prematurely sever our one-year representation agreement if our agents have not secured work for us. While I don't relish the idea of starting an agent search from scratch again, the prospect of sticking with representation that causes more harm than good seems even worse.

previous - next

� 2001 - 2002 tv writer. All rights reserved.