For the past six months, I’ve been writing a comedy pilot for NBC called DIPLOMACY. Sometimes I would get up early in the morning to work on it and I would grab a coffee from the Starbucks on the corner. Sometimes I would work on it late into the night and I would get a Red Bull from the drugstore down the block. There have been times when I thought I should probably clean off my desk, but that always landed on my to-do list somewhere below “Keep working on script.”
This project has been mostly what I’ve been thinking about for the last six months. I’ve either been working on a draft, or waiting to get notes back on a draft, or feeling anxious that I wasn’t at that exact moment doing something involving a draft. I’ve gone on long walks late at night, talking to myself, like a crazy person. I’ve let emails and voicemails pile up, unacknowledged. I’ve had to unplug my internet and lock my phone in the trunk of my car and park it two blocks away from my apartment so I wouldn’t get distracted. There have been days when I felt like a total complete irredeemable failure and then other days when I’ve felt like a ninja rock star.
Last night I got the call that NBC was passing on the project, and just like that, I’m done.
I’m not too too bummed out left-brain-wise, because honestly I knew it was a long shot, that just being hired to write the script was a tremendous opportunity, and that I shouldn’t get my hopes up ever really because most things in general don’t work out. My manager called me today and he said not getting picked up is “the second best thing that could have possibly happened,” and I think he’s right. I’m not sure what’s next, but I feel good about the work I did and the connections I made.
All the same, it feels very strange to work very hard on something for a while and then all of a sudden not.
But I guess that’s how most things go.
I haven’t talked at all about the whole me writing a network pilot thing in this blog because I don’t know, I guess it felt braggy? Or I didn’t want to jinx it? (All the good you get from not jinxing things, right?) But this has been a wonderful experience that I don’t take for granted. All along the way, I’ve been guided through the process by smart and talented people, generous with their praise and specific with their feedback. I’ve grown as a writer and learned things about myself, and this business, that I look forward to applying to whatever the next thing is.
And that’s what’s really exciting: there will be next things.
As tempting as it is to nurse a wounded ego, there are so many other exciting avenues to explore. There’s something thrilling about cleaning all the empty coffee cups and Red Bull cans off my desk and starting from scratch. It’s the wonder of potential, the joy of not knowing, the beauty and promise of a clean white piece of paper.
