TV or not TV

So I went to the TV writing seminar last weekend, and it was both incredibly encouraging and incredibly discouraging.

Encouraging because I'd really love to have a job on a TV series. The panelists were all friendly people, and the picture they drew of the writing-staff life just sounded better and better, long hours and all. It's something that I know I could do, and do well.

The discouraging part? I wish I were 15 years younger.

In the first panel, someone asked a question referencing their experienced TV writer friends in their 40s, who were having trouble getting work. One of the panelists responded that this wasn't true, that shows need experienced writers to blend with the young to work well.

Of course the implication is that if you are inexperienced and in your 40s, you don't really fit in that paradigm.

I actually wrote a version of this question on an index card to be addressed on a later panel: what are the odds of breaking into the business if you are in your 40s?

Unsurprisingly, it wasn't brought up. One suspects that its something that no one there really wanted to talk about.

(While I blew my own audience microphone question on wondering how long one should wait before following up with an agent who has your script. Yeah, that was me. The pathetic guy in the back of the room).

There were plenty of people in the audience who were my age, as well as a few who were older. But most had the bloom of youth.

I hate them.

Otherwise, I learned that most of the TV people there would rather read something original than another spec of "House" or "The Office" (a comment which elicited some soft, sad moans from the audience).

I learned that confidence and likability are key; if you get an interview with someone, they already know you can write, they want to know if they want to spend a lot of time in a room with you.

The four 90-minute panels were all riveting, particularly the dream team panel of creators/co-creators: Shawn Ryan (The Shield), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Peter Casey (Frasier), Ian Biederman (Shark) and Brannon Braga (Threshold/assorted recent Star Trek stuff).

So I'm going to bang some TV stuff into shape. I now know that I need to hammer my pilot down to an hour (because a two hour pilot for a newbie is death) while I have an out-of-the-box TV spec episode idea I'm working on (I debuted a raw first 25 pages at my writing group this past Monday, to largely-good effect).

Staffing season is pretty much over for this year, but there's always next year. I'll be another year older, but another year wiser as well.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to keep writing.