Monday Check In

It's only late because I had a flat tire this morning

Hey Everyone,

Last week my writing partner and I spent two days in a brainstorm room at [REDACTED STUDIO] for [REDACTED PROJECT] and it was [REDACTED]. Maybe I can talk about it four years from now if and when it becomes real and the NDA doesn’t apply anymore. But all I’ll (legally) say is that I was honored to be a room full of people who are much smarter than me as we all spitballed ways to develop a really special project from a director that I love. After those days, I went to a 16.5 year anniversary screening of Mystery Team, which I hadn’t watched since film school, and was reminded of how energizing and fun it is to bite off more than you can chew and make film/tv/comedy with friends. I can’t say it’s been an easy path, but I’m really grateful for the full-circle moment as I felt the aspiration of my youth catch up to the work I get to do now. I wonder where I’ll be in another 16.5 years…

And now it’s a new week, and a great week to work on your writing habit here with all of us.

Weekly Writing Goals

I know what you’re probably thinking: “This is a terrible week to try to write. My car is in the shop, I’m getting sick, the stock market is crashing, democracy is burning, every single person I know is out of work and no one knows when it will get better!”

Those are all of my thoughts, at least. But I’ll say is… maybe that’s exactly why you should take some time to write something for yourself this week?

So much is out of our control. On top of everything else, the entertainment industry is in another crisis and nobody knows how to fix it. In these times, people are afraid of risk. They want safe, they want IP, they want sure things. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a sure thing. Everyone’s trying to figure out how it all works right now, and no one knows.

But the one thing that we know is still true in this business (because it has always been true) is that people need new ideas and they need new scripts. They need new tv shows to program, and new features to premiere. The business doesn’t run on talking, it runs on writing.

That’s something you can do this week.

So let’s do that.

Head over to the Residuals Discord server right now. Go to the Weekly Goals thread. Share what your goal is this week, and then get to it. Maybe it’s to wake up early every morning to sneak in some time (I’m struggling with that one, so maybe we’ll do a big morning push soon), or maybe it’s to spend some time in an outline or character breakdown before the weekend. We’re all here to make things, and making things is a marathon. In 16.5 years from now, I want you to look back at what you finished, not what you couldn’t find the time to start.

Thanks for reading. If you like these weekly check ins, make sure you subscribe. And if you want even more structure to work off of, check out some of the online writing courses I teach on gumroad, like Screenwriting Structure, Scene Writing (where you write a 3 page scene while diving deep into the writing process), or Concept to TV Pitch in 7 Weeks (where you’ll develop your tv pitch step by step).