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

March 03, 2002

Pursuing the dream and Bedford Falls
This is the first time in six weeks that I've had a moment to breathe. The Scrubs spec is finished and out to our agents; my significant other has made a decision vis-�-vis our relationship; and, in one of the more surreal sideshows to my pursuit of a career in television , I was invited to audition for a job as a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

The only advantage to being this busy was that my agent would have to annoy my writing partner instead of me. On February 19, the day after I delivered our Scrubs manuscript to the FEDEX office, the casting director for The Daily Show called to tell me to pick up some sides (excerpts from actual Daily Show television scripts I would have to perform for my audition). As a result, when our agents called to discuss the Scrubs script, I was unavailable due to the rehearsals I needed to give myself half a chance at securing The Daily Show gig.

Shortly after he spoke with our agents, my writing partner left me a short phone message and then sent me the following email:

Hey [tv writer],

Let me fill in some more of the dots with my conversation with [our agent]. She was very reserved in her comments about our Scrubs. The best thing she said was that it was "solid," but qualified the shit out of it by saying she wanted to watch several more episodes before giving us notes. I took that to mean that there would be a lot of notes, but maybe I am wrong.

She also immediately asked me if we were "kicking around feature ideas," yet.* Yeah, I wanted to say, we're gonna be kicking all right. But I didn't. I stalled, hemmed, and hawed.

I am not expecting to hear anything from her for about a week or two, but this concerns me since staffing season is nigh.

Also told her about [an established tv producer who said he would read our work -- a connection made via an associate of my writing partner's father] and she was down with it. Still, she does not seem to know what my phone number is (leaves messages alternately on my work, cell, and home with no logic to it). Grumble.

Have a good weekend.

Hugs,
[tv writer's writing partner]

*When I last spoke to our agent (to tell her the Scrubs script was on the way), she immediately pushed for us to come up with five or six ideas for feature film scripts, documenting each idea with a one-line pitch (often referred to as a logline) and one or two supporting paragraphs fleshing out each idea. That conversation started with:

Agent: So, what's next?
tv writer: I guess what's next is we'll come out to LA and take some meetings you'll set up for us with producers.
The Agent is silent. Then: Well these things take time. What are you guys going to work on next.
tv writer is silent.

� 2001 - 2002 tv writer. All rights reserved.