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John: All right, Stace, you wanna, you wanna kick this thing off? It
Stacy: this is the show runner show. And we'll tell you the things that we know about running a television. Oh, show. Ah, the O didn't work out. The O was supposed to be like a surprise, like, Oh, I hit the rhyme the wrong way.
Oh, you know. Damn it.
John: was great.
Stacy: Oh good, thanks, thanks.
John: was, surprised.
Stacy: Running a television. See, it was supposed to be, you
Drew: Welcome everyone to the Showrunner Show, where every week we demystify some aspect of the job of showrunning for anyone who works in TV, who wants to work in TV, or just wants to know how it's all made. I'm Drew Dowdle.
John: I'm John Eric
Stacy: Shabosky. Greetings! Welcome!
We're glad you're here.
John: Dowdell. this week and next week, we kind of wanted to talk about the cost of a career in writing. And you know, I remember in film school, I had a series of writing professors who like to say like, If you can do anything else besides writing, do it because this career path is so difficult. And I remember, they would say that as kind of a platitude and, you know, it didn't deter anyone.
But nobody ever said
Stacy: Yeah.
John: things that are awesome about it. And I feel like when. Choosing a career path, uh, so often or a career change so often, like it's so rare that you actually get a look into what that, what that entails, like what are the plus what's in the plus column, what's in the minus column.
So this week to talk about, what are the costs of this job? Like, what, what does this job cost you as a lifestyle?
Drew: Yeah, I love this topic. I think this is a really, uh, uh, a really good one to talk about because I think people think you either. You know, a life in writing or, you know, anything in the arts, but writing in particular, because that's what we're talking about. But it's either, you know, struggle, struggle, struggle, and then you make it and it's all easy and great, you know?
And I think that's, you know, not quite accurate. And I think, you know, and we certainly don't want to deter people from this, um, career because, you know, next week we're going to talk about the, the benefits of a career in writing and all the great things too. So keep that in mind as you listen to this episode that, uh, this will be more of the cost side of
Stacy: Yeah.
Drew: Uh,
Stacy: We're doing pros and cons, and these are the cons.
Drew: starting with the cons and uh, um, but I think it's true for most. You know, people you would look at and say, wow, they're successful, that they still struggle and it's still, you know, not like a regular job in the rest of the world where you get make a paycheck every single week and you get paid 12 months a year.
You know, the, the kind of one of the major downsides is, is it's kind of you get paid, you know, in, in. Chunks when you're working you get paid well when you're working, but you're always having to get a new job, you know as soon as You know, we just had one television show end and it's like we're now, you know, immediately we're always looking for a job even when we're Working on something but you kind of never are able to get out of that of being in that hustle and trying to scrounge up another job.
And I think that's, you know, part of the fun of it, honestly, is it keeps, you know, a lot of variety in your life and keeps things interesting and ever changing. So you're never kind of in that, same routine day after day after day. That's, you know, a really nice thing, but it's also cost of this.
I think for me is that that kind of, uh, low level insecurity
Stacy: Hmm.
Drew: your life all the time.
Stacy: Yeah.
It makes it hard to make, um, sound life decisions, especially about finances
of like, you know, when you're on a show, you're making the kind of money that you could think about buying a house, but
then when's the show going to go away? You know? You know? And,
uh, most shows... Will there be another show?
I've heard from so many people that getting the second, being on the second show, getting the second job is harder than getting on the first job,
Drew: That's interesting.
Stacy: you know. We should talk about that. I know we have a whole list here of, of, of cons, but one of them should be just breaking in.
It's a, it's a really, obviously once you're in it's still difficult and challenging and has some downsides, but the breaking in of it can take years and years.
Um,
John: of, uh, to start actually getting paid and that I, you know, you know, collective, like, I guess, collectively, like it, it took us You know, I guess once Drew was full time, things really ramped up, because Drew's a badass,
Drew: Not really. We just...
John: And I was like, he's gonna go away if this doesn't work!
So it put a lot of fuel on the fire for both of us, um,
Drew: But I think...
John: it unless it actually started to... Pay us anything and, it was like, you know, you know, I'll say, you know, for myself, like my twenties real bad, you know, they were,
Stacy: um,
John: it was very, you know, broke all the time. And I would like do odd, you know, odd jobs and like go PA for a couple of weeks and then I'd have enough money for a couple months.
And, um, and I lived like super frugally. Um, it was a real Spartan, Spartan life and, uh, you know, no notifications, you know, using as little gas as possible, you know what I mean? It was like all the like,
Stacy: yeah.
John: like spending no nothing on anything ever. Um, and
Stacy: And working on stuff that's maybe not very meaningful, I mean I think part of the reason people go into writing is to, you know, create meaningful stuff. Um, but then when you have to have day jobs, I mean sometimes some of them are meaningful, I've done some babysitting where I used to love those, you know, the kids I used to, work for, babysit for.
But then, you know, I did a lot. I was the world's worst personal trainer for a while. Like, that
was not
Drew: about that!
Stacy: that was not, all I did was injure older people's shoulders. Sorry, I tried my best, but I guess my best wasn't good enough. You know, it's,
it,
so that can be difficult too when you're like in your 20s and you're searching and you want, um, meaning and you want to like
that can make you feel empty.
John: Yeah, I'll put on the cost. I'll put on the cost list to like all the like extended family Like are you still out in Hollywood trying the trying to be a director like you're still doing that You know, it's a you know, you're 30,
Stacy: Yeah. Oh
John: and it's like, oh, are you still out there doing that?
Oh
Stacy: my God, I hate the word aspiring so much. So I hear you're an aspiring actor like, Oh, just
kill me. You know, and
then you
got to hold up your one credit to be like, no, I, I said one line and something seven years ago. I made it, you know, this is it.
Drew: That's maybe the thing you just have to, uh, be willing to stomach if you're going to pursue any career in Hollywood is, uh, is those conversations with your family from, you know, wherever else in America for at least a decade of that, like, you know, skeptical questions you get at Thanksgiving. And, um, that is just, there's no way around that.
You
Stacy: Mm,
Drew: with that.
John: Drew and I, I
Drew: Yeah.
John: to always say like, got to keep your eyes on the horizon, you know? Cause if you're, if you're looking at the waves, you're going to get seasick from like, like, Oh,
Stacy: mm, hmm.
John: mindful of like where you're going.
okay, e everyone, everyone thinks I, you know, we're being crazy by doing this. Like, everyone thinks this is a really, uh, like, like I remember when Drew moved to, to Hollywood, like I finally, after like picking at him for years, finally like pulled him in and our parents called me and like, what are you doing, dude, you ruined your wife.
Don't ruin his, he's doing great. Like, why, why are you pulling him down with you? Um,
Stacy: Drew is the only person I knew with a 401k, other than like my parents generation, and you
just devoured that 401k like a goblin, slowly picking it.
Drew: did, I
can't help it. Like, you know, the looking back at life saying, what if instead of just spending that 401k, I traded it for like a house in LA in 2004, you know? Oh
Stacy: Oh, sure, sure.
Drew: That would have changed the math of my life pretty
Stacy: Like
Drew: But,
Stacy: have had a craftsman.
Drew: Uh,
John: Yeah,
Drew: problem with the family conversations is like, when I did, you know, before, as John's mentioned before, I fully committed to moving out to L.
A. I was working in finance in New York, and like, great about a job like that is when you talk to your family and they say, how's work going? And you say, good. And that is literally the end of the conversation. Like they, they don't need to know anything more. You're making money. You're doing good.
Whereas when you're doing anything and you know, film and TV and you say, Oh yeah, you know, I'm working on this thing. Oh, tell me all about it. Like. Sometimes when you kind of don't want to talk about it all that much because you are insecure about it, uh, they still wanna know every detail the conversation goes on and on and on.
So it's like a double
Stacy: Yeah.
Drew: can be kind of like hiding from that reality, but they also want to know all about it. And that's, um, challenging.
John: Yeah,
Stacy: That's very funny.
John: thing like when you know, we had the movie Poughkeepsie tapes We made it it was about to go out to theaters and then they shelved it at the last minute It was like this devastating thing and that was in and shelved it for like almost a decade and so for the next decade it was like when is the Poughkeepsie tapes gonna come out like like Every everyone we talked to for 10 years was
Drew: oh
Stacy: Yeah.
John: out?
Why did they shelve it? And it
Drew: Uh
Stacy: like
John: this, like kind of traumatic, like painful thing for us. Just like that. You just have to go over and over
Drew: oh.
John: single person in your life. And, um,
Drew: Yeah, after like 10 years of that, I think we got kind of snippy. Just like, look, we will tell you, you will know it's coming out. Don't
Stacy: ah, yeah.
John: knew drew got sniffy about it. So I could just sit back and let drew like snap,
Drew: Like I know,
John: Like enough, stop it.
Stacy: Um,
Drew: you know, a long struggle for us. It is a different world now. I mean, back what we were trying to do, you know, the TV, industry just was different back then and you were either kind of a film person or a TV person and there wasn't is such a blend of the two worlds as there is now and like that wasn't that didn't feel like an option back Then to us to like just pick up some TV work, you know Like it was we were going for like the moonshot, you know indie films selling at a festival and You know, and make a career that way.
And that's, you know, a great way to go, but it's also, you know, the odds aren't great either, but it was kind of an all or nothing path where I think, you know, a lot of talented writers that are, you know, let's say moving to LA or moving into the industry. Um, even if you don't move to LA, I think it's less, you know, less important, less critical now to do that.
But, um, you know, if you're 22 and wanting to start a career in writing and moving to LA, I, you know, TV is going to be. Yeah. Thank you. Probably what you're looking, the jobs you're going to be looking for right out of the gate and not saying you'll get a job right out of the gate, but get that writer's assistant job and then to move into staff writer like those things.
Can happen a lot faster than a decade of struggle, you know, and I think there is just so much more content being made in TV now than there was 10 years ago and that, you know, contracting a little bit now post strike, but you know, it was still the volume is so much higher than, uh, than it ever was before.
And it's a little less all or nothing mentality and a little bit more like, okay, I can get a day job and it may only last for 20 weeks, but That's 20 weeks and I can start working on the next 20 weeks, you know, at some point during the first 20 weeks and I think it's a little bit, a little bit more stable
John: But I, I'd say the, you know, part of that struggle of, you know, through our 20s and stuff was necessary for the building of craft,
Stacy: yeah.
John: mean? In that time, we were writing and we were writing, we were making movies and we were putting them out there and, um, and learning and frankly, learning to deal with rejection and things failing, things not going like.
Uh, this didn't work. What, what can we try? you know, for example, we had one movie, we submitted it to all the film festivals, got into nothing we retitled it, recut it, send it out the next year and it got into a bunch of film festivals and, and that was a lesson. You know, you know, our, you know, my first movie that I did, uh, without Drew, um, I submitted it to two festivals.
It got denied to both. And I was like, oh, I suck. And I just, you know, sort of curled up and,
Stacy: Yeah.
John: Didn't know what else to do. And, um, and so that was a lesson, just learning to take that rejection and come back at it. And, uh, and I'll say, you know, one of the costs too, like drew and I realized pretty early on, like, the feeling of making it, you know, or getting a career in, in this yeah, we, we kept saying like, Oh, the, the feeling of success is a million little failures, like, for example, like we'd have like a small indie movie, we'd submit it to 20 film festivals and get into one
Stacy: Yeah.
John: and to the outside world. It's like, oh, look, you know, they got into a film festival. But to us, it's like, yeah, we got denied at 19 film festivals. And, you know, that's the feeling for us was like failing 19 times.
Stacy: Yeah.
John: whereas to the outside world, it just looked like a win. And I think that of over and over. It's like you get notes, you get, partners who don't treat you very respectfully at times, or, people talking down to you or, uh, you know, actors who kind of beat you up, uh, here and there.
And like, there's just all these things. That are hard and just building that resilience. I think is really, really important. And it's part of it. It doesn't mean anything. You're doing anything wrong. They're like,
Stacy: Hmm.
John: uh, that's just a part of what this game is.
Stacy: Building resilience and building craft because that is one of the really nice things I'm not supposed to talk about the good stuff right now, but one of the good things is with writing, all you need is like a computer, you know, you can do it. Nobody, you don't have to get together. You know, a whole film crew to write a script.
You can just do it. And I do think that, young writers looking to break in should be writing lots and lots of specs and probably with each one they're getting a little better. Now, maybe it's a, it's not a straight path. It's not like each script becomes the better script. You know, you might discover that some of your good ones were early on or things like that, but your craft, your craft is improving.
You know, and then you have your little arsenal of things that, hey, if you hear they're looking for a writer's assistant on a medical show, maybe you have your medical one or you have your comedy or you have your, you're building up your toolkit, building your craft. That's pretty cool.

Drew: Yeah,
Stacy: And if you don't like doing that, if you're like, ugh, do I have to, then maybe you don't like writing that much.
And maybe that's a good thing to know. And you can go, you know, be a therapist or go to law school or do one of the other, you know, cool things.
Drew: Yeah, and I mean. Going back to, to what you were saying, John, to the million little failures, you know, I think every project we've ever had has, you know, I'll use Waco as an example, Waco season one, like that was one we felt like really good about this, you know. Project about the story about the writing.
We had Michael Shannon and Taylor Kitsch. We felt really good about the package when we were going out to sell it. And like, you know, we only got one buyer. We thought, Oh, this will be, you know, that HBO or it'll be, you know,
some really fancy and, you know, we're finally going to get that like HBO or, you know, Netflix show at the time was like the place to be.
Um, and we got rejected from all of them and we got the one buyer in Paramount. And, you know, at the end of the day, I think the show would be considered a success in every measure. And, you know, You know, got three Emmy nominations like everything about it would be considered a success, but only if you were us and knew that like you know, we got no's from almost everybody except
Stacy: Hmm. Ouch.
John: have,
Drew: we had like 12 or 13
pitches and that means we had
12 no's, you know,
Stacy: Ooh.
Drew: That's you know, you think of that as that that's a lot of rejection but
Stacy: Yeah.
Drew: we've made a whole career on saying, you know, all you need is one and
Stacy: Yeah.
Drew: tapes when we sold it we had buyer, essentially.
We had, you know, MGM bought it, but that was like two weeks after Tribeca, when we'd almost, you know, given up. We had one other offer that was like, for a fraction of what we made the movie for, and was gonna be a loss, you know, and...
Stacy: Hmm. Oh, oh. Remember
John: premiered at Slamdance. get an agent out of it. Didn't get a buyer. Like, we're like, well, we're going to get an agent. We're going to sell this and nothing, nothing. Just crickets. No, no one even wanted a meeting. Like no, nobody even called to say like, Hey, you know, interesting work.
What do you, what else do you have?
Drew: Yeah, yeah, we saw you won a jury award at Slamdance Act. No, zero, none of that
John: Yeah. None of
Drew: None of those calls came in. Yeah
John: Yeah.
Stacy: we used to do that Tony Robbins thing we had done one of those Tony Robbins, like seminars or tapes or something. And he has a thing where you're supposed to like. When something good happens, like you've been rejected 19 times, but then you got a yes, you got an offer. You got the good thing happened to take a moment and to physically pat yourself on the back and to physically give yourself little awards hands.
Yay. That little thing where you shake your fist over your shoulders. Remember we used to
do that all the time. You're supposed to jump up and high five yourself.
I still kind of do it. Sometimes I'll just be like, good job. I'll hug myself, you know?
John: Oh, I do this. I do like these hands, I go, you
Stacy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: and I give myself little F yes throughout the day
Stacy: wait, I gotta go get the FPF. Yeah.
John: took out the dishes and I'm like, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, Oh yeah, I have one of those. I got a brass. F yeah. To sit on my shelf to be like, Oh yeah.
You know, nobody's going to clap for you. If you don't clap for yourself,
Stacy: And there's,
John: mean?
Stacy: no one's ever going to say take a bow in writing. There's no take a bow moment. You're not on stage, you know, you're not a guitar player. Like there's, you don't take a bow. It's just, even if You're walking the red carpet for a premiere, it doesn't feel like it. It feels like shoving on Spanx and like getting your hair done.
It like, it feels lumpy and gross and, and like, Oh God, I got to make small talk, but I'm nervous. I feel gassy, you know, that's so you have to create
your own.
Oh yeah, you'll
get
so nervous about that. And so, yeah, you have to manufacture your own, like, wait a minute, this calls for celebration, even if the celebration is just literally going boop, boop, boop.
John: And I think to celebrate the shots, not celebrate the results necessarily, if that makes sense.
Stacy: Oh, wow.
John: to celebrate, like I sent this script out, I delivered this, you
Stacy: Hmm.
John: Like, as opposed to like, great, they bought it. You know,
Stacy: Yeah.
John: out.
I, you know, I, I did a bang up pitch today. Um,
Stacy: So the bravery or the effort is what you're celebrating
more than the success.
John: More than the success
Stacy: bravery is the success.
Yeah,
Drew: because I think it's, you know, you look at it from the outside and you're like, Oh my God, this, you know, director went to Sundance first movie and now they're doing, you know, the next Marvel movie and like, that's how, that's what making it looks like.
And,
Stacy: Yes.
Drew: I think that's true for so few people out there and it's really amazing when it does happen, but you know, that is just. working people in the industry, you know, like us, have a ton of failures and just, you know, kind of. You almost just get that one success when you really, really need it most.
And then, um, and that'll keep you going. And, uh, you know, just enough to cobble together a life and a career, um, is a success in this industry and is
Stacy: True.
Drew: You know, I think we'll talk more next week about why this is all worth it, but it is so, I, I believe. I feel like in my life it's been so worth it.
And, uh,
Stacy: Yeah.
Drew: you know, and, uh, yeah, but it doesn't often look like that, you know, you make one thing and then everyone, you know, throws you up on their, you know, douses you in a cooler Gatorade And
throws you on their shoulders
and
Stacy: You're financially set, I
remember, you remember the sweetest thing that I don't know whether it's Nancy Pimentel or Nancy Pimentel, I don't know how to pronounce it. I remember reading years ago, she famously sold a spec script for a million dollars. And I remember being like, A million dollars? She literally never has to work again.
I remember thinking that. But it's not true. A million dollars,
uh, buys you jack shit in L. A. Yeah.
Yeah.
John: it's a hundred thousand upfront and then 900, 000 once it makes 10 million at the box office,
Drew: Yeah, that's
Stacy: yeah.
Drew: it.
John: come to pass.
Stacy: Yeah.
John: many of those deals that you read about you're like, Holy crap, that person really made it. Uh, but, but making it like, as you make it, it increases the pressure
Stacy: Yes.
John: And that's, that's something I hadn't fully clocked that it goes, there's more responsibility. There's more pressure. Like, recently I, uh, had the pleasure to hear Tim Grover, uh, speak and he, he was like Michael Jordan's, uh, mindset coach and Kobe Bryant's mindset coach. uh, one of his big things is pressure is a privilege.
Like people doing nothing, have no pressure.
Stacy: Mm.
John: like if you're feeling pressure, that is a privilege and, you know, honor that. And I thought that was a really interesting way of looking at pressure because there there's frankly There's a lot of pressure in the show running sphere. Like once you're at that level There's there's a lot of things that are going wrong a hundred percent of the time, you know what I mean?
There's there's always five houses on fire that you have to figure out how to, how to put out in what order and, and some of that is like, it's so important to build that craft and find that kind of. Be able to find that calm place in yourself that doesn't attach too strongly to each one of those, uh, You know, problems, you
Stacy: Mm.
John: just make you crazy.
Um, so I, I think, you know, the, the rejection and failure and stuff, you know, builds a, builds a strength in internal fortitude that is necessary for this job and, and that's both good and bad, you know, kind of forces you into kind of a stoic or Buddhist mindset of not learning, not to attach too strongly to things exactly as they are, but like being open to change and, to become more flexible with reality and the world around you.
Drew: that's really important. It really is. The mindset of being able to Trust in the universe and trust in the process and trust that things will work out. I mean that was You know, I feel like I've had to exercise that muscle. So extensively and, and throughout to, you know, to this day, um,
that, you know, I don't know exactly how it's going to work out, but it will work out.
And, uh,
John: Mm
Drew: that, that, that kind of faith you have to have in yourself and to just in the, the industry and the universe at large, you think, you know, it really is.
Stacy: Mm.
Drew: to if you were to be a lawyer or a banker or something like that, where it's just like, okay, if I lose my job at this firm, I'll find another one.
I'll, you know, I'll have a regular thing, you know, until I retire. And that's, you know, one path. And it's certainly a lot more secure path. But, I think there's downsides there too.
Stacy: I read something years ago that I liked so much that I wrote it down on a little scrap of paper and it was, I can't remember who came up with it, but it was saying that if you want to succeed, you have to deal with a lot of crap. And it was an acronym for criticism, rejection, assholes, and pressure.
And I literally have trotted those out.
And at different stages of my career, Like, there have been stages of my career where there's very little pressure, but oh, so much rejection, and then things go
a little better. And now there's not that much pressure, but there's a lot of criticism. Like, when you do finally have something out, when you do finally write something that gets made and people can see it, then that means tons of people will immediately write cruel things about it.
You know,
Drew: it.
John: yeah.
Stacy: reviews, mean message boards, you know, I, anytime I, I only do it occasionally, but I'll occasionally peek at like a message board or something. And it's all about how stupid I am, you know,
John: Yeah.
Drew: I
Stacy: but then you're like, wow, 10 years ago,
I wasn't even successful enough for people to, uh, criticize me.
Drew: Yeah, that's it. That's
Stacy: So That's, pretty good.
Drew: Like be careful what you wish for. You finally get something out and then legions of people online telling you how much you suck, you know?
Um,
John: Fi finding
Stacy: Oh,
John: Um,
Stacy: I go so crazy whenever people, friends of mine who aren't in the business, um, will get very like critical of things. We'll be like, Oh, I just saw this show. I watched all the episodes. It was garbage. Let me tell you how it's garbage. I don't always like I've gotten very vocal about like settle down.
People worked really, really hard on it. Everything that gets made is a miracle. Nobody phones in and Anything, unless they're a total jerk. Like everyone is trying their best and cares so much. So if you don't like it, I totally get it, but let's, you know, let's not kick the creator's nuts just
for fun.
Drew: it so much,
why'd you watch all the episodes?
Stacy: Yeah. Yeah,
yeah. I'll put this in the plus and minus column at the same time. It's hard, you know,
It is hard.
John: is writing is hard. Rethinking a script and finding new ways to do a character or new storylines that, you know. Or, you know, just pushing it through pitch, you know, just all the stuff like it's hard.
It's a really hard job and I'll put that in both sides because I, I would, I find in some ways trying to do really hard things is easier than trying to do really easy things because
Stacy: they're boring.
John: things, I get bored, you know what I mean? Like, uh. Right now, you know, I, I was having a hard time like working out every day.
So now I'm doing the 75 hard thing. It's like two workouts every day, 45 minutes. Like, it's like way over the top, but you know what? I can do it because it's hard. And it, it, it gets me into that mindset of like, okay, I'm ready to do a hard thing. and I, I feel like, you know, one of the nice things about writing and kind of one of the difficult things about writing is it's hard, it's hard every day and you show up and.
You have to really think about it and you have to really work through things and you have to, you know, work through, uh, emotional, you know, cause you care so much, know, but then you have to set your emotions aside and look at it like, you know, like a surgeon, you know, just, you know, with a cold calculation and then go back to the emotional place like that, that is hard.
Um, And, you know, just, it's, it's a very hard job, but, why do easy things like, that's just boring.
Stacy: though. I definitely have a lingering fantasy about um, apologies to any postal carriers out there who are like, It is not easy! But I think about like, Oh man, maybe I could just deliver mail. I could walk around and daydream all day. That has been a decades long fantasy of mine. But I'm not a mail carrier, so I guess I, you know, opted for the, for the
writer's life.
Drew: I think being a mail carrier in Los Angeles might be slightly better than being a mail carrier in Minnesota or somewhere, you
Stacy: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
John: tromping through the snow.
Stacy: But it's the thing about it
being hard is like, what if this time, like, I just got a whole bunch of notes yesterday. Right. And, and I'm sick with worry about it because what if this time my talent dries up, what if this time I try my very best and it stinks, what if like I write something and it's okay because I'm pretty good writer, but what if it's boring, like what if, and you see that with people's careers, you know, we've all seen people we really admire.
And they're, who have a string of hits that are so wonderful. And then 20 years later, they're doing something and you're like, Oh dear. I mean, I don't want to name names, but you know, where you're like, Oh my God, you're the person that made that classic movie. And now it's, it's as if you've never written a thing, you know, like talent does sometimes dry up and what if it's this time, you know, and you have to face so much self doubt and so much self judgment.
And, and that takes a lot of bravery for me.
John: I'll say in my, the people I've seen have like kind of talent dry up problems up close seems has seemed to me to be the result of them not listening to the people around them.
Stacy: Mm.
John: like, like they get to this exalt, you know, they rise up and like get more and more successful. And then they're like, I'm brilliant.
Stacy: Yeah.
John: perfect as is whatever, you know, my first draft is perfection. And I think, I think that's, you know, honestly, like we all need, we all have blind spots. We all need, know, as much as like getting notes and stuff is hard. I think it's necessary for everybody. Like, you, you know, especially the people that, you know.
the highest tier of people, like they need more people in their ear,
pushing them, you know, and, uh,
Stacy: I wrote a novel because, uh, well, I wrote a novel just cause I like reading and I thought, wow, this will be fun. And it was fun. It was really, really fun to write it. And it was so great because other than a few notes from my agents, I had no notes. It was just me and it's not, nobody's even going to act it or do anything.
Like the thing is the thing that is the final form is the written word. And then no one published it. And so there's
that too, of like, oh, sometimes working all by yourself, like, sometimes it leads to nothing
too, you know, whereas when you're collaborating with other people, like, it means it's happening, it's, it's actually happening.
John: And there's, you know, connection and relationships that come out of that, which is really fun too.
Stacy: That is true. let's say one last thing, uh, living in LA,
Ooh.
John: when I got out of film school, the only place to have a career was in LA. A lot of the writers rooms are in Los Angeles.
all the productions used to be in Los Angeles. Now they're all over the place. But if you want a career in writing, it's less, absolute that you have to live in LA, but it, it definitely. Would help, you know, to do that for a time and, and that can be very disruptive as a, you know, as a cost, like,
Stacy: Mm.
John: you know, I grew to really love it here, but that it was, it was felt foreign to me for a good number of years when I first moved here.
Stacy: And it's expensive. I mean, it's not expensive compared to like, uh, New York City or San Francisco, but if you're coming from, you know.
Drew: Anywhere else. Yeah,
Stacy: yeah.
Drew: really
Stacy: can be a little sticker shock, but
it's
awesome. LA's so awesome.
Drew: L. A. is awesome, and it's, you know, I don't think it's critical as it used to be, but it's still very helpful, I think, especially In those first few years, you know, if you're staffed on a show and you're going right into a second show, I think, yeah, you can probably skin out of LA and most of these, you know, most all writers rooms are on zoom now and
uh, but there are,
John: have come back
Drew: but some of them have come
Stacy: Hmm.
Drew: You're right. So, I mean, it, it certainly doesn't hurt to be in LA and if you get the job in an in person room, you're not, you know, you know, an Airbnb for six months or something. Um, it, it does still help. Um, but
John: Yeah. We've liked doing zoom, uh, writers rooms because it really opens up a lot of, you know, people from a lot of locales we've, you know, had, you know. People in our writers rooms, you know, Arizona and West Virginia
Drew: mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
John: that's not how everything goes and there'd have to be, you know, if you got staffed on a big show and it's a great show and you really want to do it.
be able to afford a place in LA, you know, a place to rent or something like that, and it would be worth doing that, you know, for the 20 weeks of the writer's room or, you know,
Stacy: point.
John: that, that, but that is a cost. That is a cost.
Stacy: Especially if you've got family and they're coming with you. If you're, if you're free and easy single, that's one thing, but,
John: yeah. And some writers rooms, like, you know, the culture of some writers rooms can be, uh, can be toxic, you know, can be kind of awful. And I would just recommend like. When getting into this industry to see if you can find out the kind of reputation the showrunners have like do they work people? 14 hour days because they're going through a divorce and
Stacy: Yeah.
John: afraid to be home
Stacy: Mm-Hmm.
John: or Do are they people who?
Have a life outside of it and have families and stuff and so only work six hours a day, you know what I mean? Like every writer's room has its own culture. And so that's worth noting too. They're you know, it's not just one thing
So yeah, just in in summary some of the costs of having a career in writing is our you know, pressure rejection and failure and The uncertainty, um, it's really hard.
Uh, you may have to live in LA for a time. Uh, there's a lot of financial ups and downs. There's stress. you know, those are, those are a lot of the costs of it.
Stacy: which, what's our actionable tip of the week, would you say?
John: I don't know that we have one this week.
Stacy: I feel like there was a
lot about resilience and grit.
John: just keep writing. Hey, here's, I'll give an actionable tip of the week. Uh, when Drew and I were coming up, every script that got rejected, we'd write two new ones. we're like, we, we literally can't be beat. If for every script that gets denied, we write two, two fresh scripts.
Like it's like a Hydra. It's just going to eventually the sheer weight of our craft will overwhelm, um, the industry. So the Hydra approach,
Stacy: The sheer
weight of our craft. I love that. That's awesome.
Yeah. The Hydra approach. That's great. All right. So if you like our show, please consider taking a minute to subscribe and to rate us wherever you get your podcasts. And it'd be awesome if you told a friend, we have some metrics we've been seeing like, Oh, more people are watching it.
Oh, that's so delightful. And they
come from all sorts of different countries. It's really fun.
Um, anyway, do all that stuff that helps us a lot. And, uh, and we super appreciate it.
John: Thank you.
Drew: you next
Stacy: See you next week.
Bye.
John: you next week.