Might as well get this out of the way :

Just got back from Writer’s Room class, and it continues to be AWE SOME.

We spent the whole class roughing together a beat sheet for the episode of the new One Day At A Time, and it was a blast.

It feels so very, very good to not have the whole thing on my shoulders for once. All my other school work has been me, all by myself, creating the thing from beginning to end without any input from anyone else.

And while that suits my loner personality – when I am actually writing, I would bite^[1] the head off of anyone who dared to job my elbow or give me unsolicited advice, believe me – that doesn’t mean that I enjoy being the only one responsible for the whole deal.

In the Writer’s Room class, it’s one hundred percent collaborative. Not only am I free of having to carry the whole thing myself, I am sharing the load with seven other students plus my instructor. All that is expected of me is that I contribute.

That’s a massive load off my shoulders. In fact, to be honest, it almost feels like I am getting away with something. Like it can’t possibly be that easy.

And it’s true that it won’t always be that easy. After next class, I will be assigned a scene to write. So like, actual work will have to be done.

BRING IT. After all the writing I have done, writing a single scene, even a long one, seems super easy to me now. It’s the sort of thing I love to write, too, namely sitcom dialogue. I have watched almost all of the series now and I am quite sure I have the various character’s voices down in my head. I could write dialogue for them for hours.

And of course, my scene will be hilariously funny. One thing I have established during my time at VFS is that I write really funny dialogue, and you know what?

Sitcoms are almost entirely funny dialogue.

The real takeaway from this Writer’s Room course for me, at least right now, is that I can totally do the job. Hands down. No problem. I can do this job with both hands tied behind my back, a blindfold over both eyes, and an enraged bull bearing down on me.

Well, maybe not that last part. But you get the idea.

I am not experiencing any serious ego issues. There’s definitely some stuff relating to struggling to be heard going on in the back rooms of my mind and I can foresee a future in which I have to deal with it before it interferes with my work life.

It would revolve around whether or not I thought people were really listening to me or not. As long as I felt like I was being heard, I could put up with a dry spell where none of the ideas I contribute go anywhere. All who are heard contribute, even if they are only contribute by giving other people ideas.

But if I started to feel like people were not even listening, well, that would activate some very large issues for me about being treated like I do not exist. My strongest urge would be to leave and go somewhere where I could be alone.

Because being alone beats being ignored every single time.

Obviously, not a good idea in a work environment. It would behoove me, in such a fix, to be professional about it. Maybe talk to my immediate superior (head writer?) about it, see if they think I am failing to contribute or whatever.

But if they are fine with it, so am I. I am still getting paid and I an doing the amount of work expected of me. I can put up with some bullshit for that.

Besides, I would still have scenes to write! And in those I could demonstrate what fools they are for ignoring me, because I am freaking hilarious.

And quite deep too, when it is called for. One of the millions of wonderful things about working on a script for the new One Day At A Time is that, as a Norman Lear production, it follows my exact formula for a sitcom : funny, gentle, humanist comedy that holds our hand as we visit some very dark – but relatable – places.

We touched on the subject of Penelope (main character) and her history of depression from her PTSD today. I really wanted to go into that deeper, but it would have not have fit into the rest of the episode at all.

But I really want to do it, maybe in a spec I write alone. I really want to tackle the reality of depression as it takes everything away from somebody like her, who is used to being the competent one who holds everything together.

It’s not my own experience, obviously – with me, the center never holds – but it’s the experience of a lot of the people I met in group therapy and I think it is a story that really needs to be told.

People need to know that it happens, that it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, that it is terrible but not the end of the world because you can recover from it. That it is going to be very hard on the depressive’s friends and family, but that it never means that the depressive doesn’t love you any more.

They just can’t feel it properly right now.

Admittedly, that would be a lot to cram into a single episode of a comedy show. I might have to, ya know, prioritize.

But I feel very strongly that, despite many noble attempts, nobody has really captured the experience of depression as I have experienced it, and I would like to correct that.

People like me are out there. People who have had their lives stolen by depression.

They need to know that there is hope for them, too.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.