Doing more

Being bored by my current job has a silver lining. It helps remind me what I really care about and why I'm here.

Last night I had a meeting of my spec pilot workshop, and as I was making helpful suggestions on the other people's pilot ideas I really enjoyed myself. I like writing in the room.

Work is work. I'm not going to be here forever. I'm good in the room, and that's what I want to do, so the fact that I'm kinda meh about my current job reminds me that it's okay to make writing my top priority. This was not something I was able to do when I was getting broken in as a new assistant and driving from Los Feliz to Santa Monica and back every day.

So I don't feel guilty for reading pilots as research at work and devoting my weekends to my own projects. I have 3 nights a week locked up with writing projects every week, and I'm being a lot better about maintaining contacts with people that are also in my position, or people that were in my position once upon a time and might have some good advice for me. My off time is spent more often than not watching TV episodes and movies. Watching what works and what doesn't is helpful. When I watch a show that could have been more I analyze it and diagnose what I believe the problems to be (i.e for Studio 60: the best moment of the show happened in the teaser of the pilot and then that character disappeared for the rest of the series).

Someone on my tracking board just posted looking for writers and producers for a side project web series she's working on, so I emailed her that I was interested. Hopefully the show will be a worthwhile thing to work on if she's interested in my writing.

I'm just trying to churn out more volume, because I enjoy it and if I write enough stuff eventually some of it will get noticed and lead to a job in TV someday.