There are many approaches to become a TV writer.
But some approaches are better than others.
Unlike becoming a novelist, becoming a TV show requires skills besides writing. You need to know:
My first internship was at Maxim Magazine.
I line edited Heineken advertorial copy, pitched Keystone “insert” ideas, and sorted the magazine’s archive. The entire semester I thought I did a terrific job.
You’re ready to move to LA.
You’ve dreamed of getting into the entertainment business. You’re an actor, a writer, a director. You’re obsessed with working on the screen.
Or you long for the sunny west coast, and you know that the sun-kissed LA streets and the beaches (Santa Monica, Manhattan, Hermosa!) fit the bill.
Or perhaps none of the above. It’s just time for a change, and Los Angeles calls to you.
Los Angeles is sprawling. LA county is over 4,000 square miles and includes many cities you know by name: Venice, Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, to name a few.
I turned 32 last week.
Every year, I love looking back and realizing how much I didn’t know the year before. To that end, here are 12 things I got wrong (or have been getting wrong for a while) and how I changed my mind.
In 2009, my mother and I were watching some procedural alphabet soup show, CSI or NCIS or one of those lot. A Korean spy wanted to blow up the Pentagon made of duct tape and Kleenex.
“This is awful. I could write something better than this.”
My mother looked at me. “If you think you can do it better, do it better.”
Here’s how to get a driver’s license in California. Follow these steps and save HOURS of your time at the DMV.
Let’s dig into each step.
I asked a group of 3,000 smart, ambitious millennials: “What are the best email newsletters right now — the ones you open every time?” Here’s what they’re reading:
Cable television, we had a good run.
The “Third Golden Age of Television” — the influx of creator-driven dramas on cable and premium channels — was spectacular. Men (it was mostly men) changed the television landscape with shows like The Wire, The Shield, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Game Of Thrones. These were some of the best TV series to watch.
I think my friend Bevin introduced the idea of sympathy vs. feedback idea to me:
When someone complains to her about something, first she lets them get it all out
Then she asks (I’m paraphrasing), “Okay. What are you looking: sympathy or feedback?”
A few months ago, a colleague sent this message:
“I was just painfully reminded by my friend had I held my initial $1K investment in ETH, today would be the day it was worth $1M.”