Monthly Archives: October 2007

someone paid me dollars for words.

It actually broke down to like, .003 cents per word, but still! I got to go to the Battlestar Galactica offices and have lunch with one of my heroes and interview the president of the Writer’s Guild! My first article as the new TV Writer Writer for www.mediabistro.com hit computer screens today.
Breaking in to TV Writing

TV writers dish on how they got their start writing for the small screen

By Andrea Wachner – October 22, 2007

Most people who’ve ever watched television think they can write for it. Most
people who’ve never watched television think they can write for it. The guy
who just sold me my television thinks he has a screenplay. From their
overstuffed couches, viewers assume that being able to predict the next line
of dialogue before it’s spoken entitles them to be in the My Name is Earl
writers’ room, when what it actually signals is just how hard the task
really is — so hard that experienced writers often fail. “A lot of people
think TV is a thing you do from your home in your spare time,” says Jane
Espenson, a writer on Battlestar Galactica. “It seems like a career you can
get into if you’ve already got a job. But it’s not.”

How can you get in? According to my research, there are four ways, no ways,
and also an infinite number of ever-changing ways to get work writing for
television, and being a good writer is only half the battle. Maybe less.
Getting a job writing for television can be harder than dating, and just as
serendipitous. So whenever I meet someone who’s been successful in
TV-writing, I get them to tell me how. While there is no equivalent to JDate
for hungry writers, stories I’ve heard of how people got their start run the
gamut from infuriating to inspiring.

you can read the rest of the article here.