1. baking tray incident + tv writing lessons

I had an unforgettable experience when I burned my fingerprints while handling a scorching baking tray without any protection... through this mishap, I'm sharing insider tips into TV writing, the importance of professional boundaries, and how overthinking may burn your.... well, fingerprints! 

If you're an aspiring filmmaker, screenwriter, or actor, or if you dream about working in the entertainment world, this podcast exposes the reality of what that really means. No BS here! 

Join me as I reflect on unexpected lessons I learned throughout my career in Los Angeles as a screenwriter! 

Transcript

Hello, welcome to the first episode of this podcast. I’m a screenwriter in hollywood, and guys, it’s not all unicorns and glamour over here, OK? I know we all fantasize about it, but no, things are pretty normal here. If not, they are very brutal. So let's get to the normal world of Hollywood that's filled with struggles of real people. I’m tired of these screenwriting advice podcasts, or advice podcasts, or like what’s happening in Hollywood… the tea. I love them. But hey, why not make a little relatable corner of the Internet where you can listen to your fellow artist, screenwriter, filmmaker best friend's life? I will be honest with you. I will reflect on what happened to me that day, that week, that month, and actually spill some real tea, OK? So every episode is going to be a reflection of what's going on in my professional life as a screenwriter based in Hollywood, and I’ve been doing this for 6 years. Not the Reflection Podcast part but the screenwriting part. And this episode is going to be about what happened to me yesterday, which was pretty crazy. It's going to be a great start. First, let's listen to this clip I recorded yesterday in the midst of action. 

I just burned my fingerprints. I no longer have fingerprints. Umm, yeah, I just burned my fingerprints… it was insane. I can’t believe I forgot that I was baking and I took the baking tray out of the oven with my bare hands. I almost dropped the food. Like it happens on this TV show called the girl across the street from the girl across the window or whatever it’s called. It’s starring Kristen Bell. I cannot believe it happened to me and it happened because I was overthinking. Now I burned my fingers. It hurts like hell. I probably lost some of my fingerprints. And it was for nothing… 

So here I was, just rambling in pain, obviously, in this recording. My hands are OK now, but they were burning all day. But why was I overthinking so much with what happened with a client? And to be clear, this was a screenwriting client. It’s been like 2-3 weeks I’ve been working on this TV show, and there was a lot of misunderstanding. Some messages or emails sent that were… that sounds a little bit rude. I’m sure the client was not trying to do that but it did sound a little bit rude and it did sound like I was being rushed. And it was almost like. I felt like someone was telling me i paid you, now you have to do this. And it was so, i don’t know, it was such a weird experience. I know this client is a good person, so I'm not trying to undermine them. I'm not giving any names, obviously, but you know how miscommunication sometimes causes issues and you’re here alone reading an e-mail or a message. And you feel like they are undermining either your potential or they act like they paid you enough to do a certain work. But here’s the thing guys, in hollywood, umm, no, they never pay you enough to do a certain work. It's a lot of work to do something and usually, especially if you’re in the indie world, they are not paying you enough so you’re just there wasting your weeks for, i don’t know, like 500 bucks. 500 dollars, let's say, and you are working on this project for three weeks. And the thing is, it takes so much mental, um, mental space. That you cannot focus on any other work, You cannot focus on any other To-Do List that you have… well, I focus on other to-do lists, but I'm half a**ing them. And then I'm trying to focus on this main project, but it's paying me $500. Let's be honest, to live in Los Angeles, you need at least $4000 a month to actually afford rent, afford groceries. But that's minimum. If you want a normal life. Like if you wanna grab some coffee with friends, go to brunches, maybe order in because you don't have time to cook, then you need at least $6000 to $8000 a month here in LA with this economy out there. So with a client paying 500 bucks for the development of a full story, full TV show, and then on top of that, requesting me to outline every single episode of seasons. That's not realistic, and throughout this, gig, let’s say, it’s a freelance gig. Throughout this gig, I did communicate with the client saying that I cannot possibly do this. They also kept saying “you need to request extra, I will pay you extra,” but there is no extra I can request from you, and especially on this platform. This platform I'm working on, by the way, cuts 20% of what I get. So imagine that $500. 20 percent is going to be cut. That's $400. So this client is telling me I I can pay you just request more and uh, you can do this here. No, I will not do this on this platform. We have to connect outside if you want me to do further development of your story because I basically have clients that I work in Hollywood or. Like some producers or some writers. And I write for them. On the other hand, I have a small gig where smaller clients hire me like fellow writers just starting out. They want some advice. They send me their TV Bible, pitch deck, or whatever, and I give them notes. Or they want me to make their TV bible. Or their pitch deck, so I do that for them. This was basically a bigger client who found me on the smaller client gig website, let's say that. So it was just not working out. I kept saying we will do this after this order is done. We have to connect outside of this platform once this order is done. Anyways, things were just getting lost and I guess I was just overthinking… my delivery, too. Like I put weeks of work into this, but I still felt like I was not being appreciated, at least through messages. Um, whenever they sent me like a voice message because sometimes we have to communicate through voice message. Things were getting lost in messaging. In these voice messages, they were sounding very, very nice, very kind and very appreciative. But I feel like the messages were. I don’t know. They were not good at messaging. I don't blame anyone. But basically, that's what's been going on. That's why I burned my hands. It's not like… that's why I burned my hands, but I burned my hand because I was just overthinking about this client. I wanted them to like me, which is a normal reaction, you know? I want to work with them. Of course. Why not? Like, it's a great idea. I love the genre. I’m mainly that genre writer, so I just wanted to prove myself. But I kept getting, I don’t know, the messages just kept making me feel like this is not going to be possible. And I felt like I was not enough for this, which is, they are valid feelings we all struggle with. 

This is interesting. I want to touch base on this important issue of these clients requesting all episodes of TV shows because I feel like this is gonna help a lot of fellow writers.I had this with another client. This was a very small client from my hometown and he has never written anything, but he was writing this TV show. But he was writing every single episode of this TV show, and he was making it oddly close to another TV show, so I feel like he was just very influenced by it. And I tried my best to explain to this guy that he shouldn't write all of the episodes of the TV show. It's a waste of time unless you're working with small production companies, you don’t have to write episodes. Pilot (episode 1 script) and TV Bible and maybe a pitch deck will go a long way for you to sell your show. You do not need to write episode 2, episode 3, or any other episodes. You do have to figure out the seasons arc. What's gonna happen in season one? Just an overview of it. What's gonna happen in season 2, season 3, and one of my TV bibles, I even went till like season 6 because I had ideas, and I wanted to show the executives, the producers, and whoever is going to view my TV Bible that I know where the story is going, so they feel more secure. But you cannot write all the episodes. Because here's the thing. There's something called writers room in Hollywood. If you're here, you know If you go education in a film school, you might know this, but you sell a TV show with a pilot script and a TV Bible and maybe a pitch deck, maybe a lookbook. You sell this TV show, and they want to make it.That's when they write. They hire other writers, and they build their writers room. In the writers room, you exchange ideas about season one. Like your entire TV Bible might change, Your seasons overview plans might be completely trashed, and they might go a totally different way. Yes, you are the creator, but no one cares. 

I'm sorry. Just no one cares unless you are a bery powerful creator. Like Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, if you're not one of those names or a very big show creator, usually producer will wanna do what they wanna do, and the producer will influence the writers room to do what they want to be done. So that's how it works, and that's why I got very overwhelmed when the client was asking me to outline every single episode through out the entire 1 2 3 seasons because that is not possible. That's the job of writers room. And I'm not saying it's not possible in that sense. I wrote an audio drama show. I had eight characters, and I had to outline every single characters arc throughout the series, what’s going to happen in each episode, and then I wrote the entire season one on my own. That was hard. That was not impossible. But when it's a TV show, it’s not necessary for you to do all that work. That's all I'm saying. It's not necessary for you to invest this time, invest this money and energy to make someone, or you do it yourself, like you shouldn’t be outlining every single episode. That's… that's a lot of work, especially in an hour-long show at least. I don't know about half-hour, but. Again, they're gonna make a writers room, and everything you built already is gonna change. So, you shouldn't waste your time unless you're gonna write books about your, like every single episode is going to be a chapter in a book, then you can outline, then you can write the book, that's for sure. But I'm just, I'm advocating for efficiency here, so you don't need to do all of this. So I was just being a little bit stressed because the client was offering 1 less money for the amount of work that this is going to take, guys, in a writers room, I worked in some some writers room. I've been a part of simulated Hollywood writers room and stuff like that. So what they do is, they have. so each hour-long episode has A B C D stories and each half-hour TV show episode has A B C Storylines or A B C D. It’s the choice of the writer. And in a writers room, each person is assigned A or B or C or D storyline. At the beginning, each person is assigned a character or two, three characters, and they break the character down. Then they break down their season journey, and then the entire writers room brainstorms about what's going to happen in the entire season.Then we put it into episode format. Then each episode is assigned to a writer. Then the writer, on their own time, outlines, comes back to the writers room, gets feedback and notes from other writers, especially the creator is very involved in this process. So they can be like, no, this outline is not working. You have to change this, this, this… oh, I don't like this storyline, let's do this. But of course, if they have time, if they don't have time, sometimes networks rush them or the streaming platform rushes them because they only have one month to write the entire season one and shoot it, and yeah, basically characters, outlines, A B C D storylines. They're all figured out by different, different writers, and it takes a village. It really takes a village to make a TV show or write the TV show, there's a lot of writers involved, and there's a lot of people involved in the process of developing the storyline and make it make sense. Now this guy is offering to pay me 500 more for me to outline each episode. So now, do you guys understand my frustration? One, it takes a village to do that. Two, it takes time to do that. Like for me to write that season one of the show all by myself took five months. So, no, I'd rather focus on my own work like, if I’m being honest with you guys, I'm being very vulnerable, but I'd rather focus on my own work than outline episodes because I know they're not gonna be used unless you are the producer. Unless you are the network yourself. Unless you're going to shoot the entire season one and then sell it, which is… Which is not the best if I'm being honest with you. If you are the only one investing everything into this. Then there's a lot of stakes there, and there's only one writer writing the entire season one… Then I can already tell that it's not gonna be a good show. I can already say that, I'm sorry, But based on this information, let's talk about why the WGA was rallying against streaming networks this past summer. It's because they were basically keeping the writers room small and only for one month, as I said, especially with premium treaming networks. Netflix and things like that. They wanna save money, so only for one month, they hire maybe 5 writers to write an entire season one, then the rest of the year, writers are not paid at all. So, that was the background information about the WGA strike. If you were curious about what was going on. I hope that makes sense. 

Overall, I want each episode to have themes and messages for you guys to learn from my mistakes, my experiences here, and not just you. Let's learn together. So the first lesson I want you to take is, if you have a TV show idea and you want to start from somewhere, start with making your character list. And one big mistake that I always see in my newer clients is making a character list of all the characters that they're going to have in the entire show, even if it's like the smallest. character that's only gonna appear one time and then gonna die. They try to put that in the TV Bible… Girl, I tried to do that too. Believe me, it's not going to work out because those people that you are going to pitch your TV show to, they are really not going to care about those smaller characters. You need to make your character list in a way that you only feature the main characters, and side characters and the characters that are gonna have an arc throughout the seasons, throughout the series. You don't have to put every single little guy that's going to appear, every single extra in the background that's going to appear. That's a mistake. But if you want to do that, if you are like, I have to do that, I need to see it, then make a separate character list where it’s just for you. You’re not going to send this to the executives. You are not going to pitch this to the producers. Nobody is gonna see it. Nobody's gonna see it until the show is sold, and then you can show it to the writers room. It would be helpful. But make a character list and make sure you dive really deep, umm this is gonna be a full episode about characters and the world, but basically, make a character lis, figure out your world, even if it is present time New York, present time, Los Angeles. You have to dive deep into your world, and then we have to figure out themes and messages. As I said, every episode is going to have themes and messages for me. Well, TV shows also have themes, so we have to dive deep into that. And then, yeah, slowly, very different, different sections of the TV Bible. If you're interested in resources, I have a YouTube channel you can follow. And send me a message somewhere, and I can make a video about a template you can use for TV shows, which is very timely in Hollywood right now. Like that's the template they all use. I can share that because it's a lot of, um, it's a lot to talk about in this episode, so I’m not getting into that. And then next, if you have a TV show idea and you figured out your entire TV bible. You have to write your TV pilot script. That's one of the most important things you have to... Your TV pilot script is never done on the first draft. Trust me on that. There is a saying between writers where we're like you need to write it at least 50, maybe 100 times for it to get to a place where you are happy. The TV pilot script keeps changing, and as the script changes, your TV Bible changes. And it's a long, long process, you cannot expect, even if you have millions, if you're a millionnaire listening to me. If you’re a billionaire listening to me. No, don’t do it. Don't just half a** the TV show, a TV pilot, a TV bible and then make it yourself. It’s a lot of… A lot of work that goes into TV show writing and some people look at it like, oh yeah it’s so easy, i can make it. No, you can’t. It takes a village, umm it takes a village to write it, then it takes another more village to actually produce and make every single episode. Even if a TV show sucks, and you’re watching it, there are real people behind it that were involved in this process, and they thought it was good, you know. So be nice to them haha. 

Moving on. Let’s go back to the beginning of how all of this started. I burned my hands. I burned my fingerprints, which made me want to do this podcast, by the way, it’s kinda funny but I totally forgot about the fact that the baking tray was hot as I was taking it out of 400 Fahrenheit oven. That’s like 204 Celsius for my European and other listeners, by the way. And I did that because I was lost in a thought. Iot was crazy, I usually, so I have ADHD. Obviously. As you can see by this episode and the name of the podcast and everything. And I’m always lost in my head, but I’m never that lost to burn myself, like hold a hot baking tray with my bare hands. And guys, I swear to god, it took me at least 3 to 5 seconds to realize my hands were burning. And I screamed, my lungs hurt from screaming because it was actually burning. I held my hands for 3 to 5 seconds. It felt like 20 seconds, but I’m trying to be realistic here. I cannot believe I was that lost over a client, it’s crazy to think that I was so first, desperate about the client’s approval. I feel like his messages were rude, but his voice messages were nice. So I didn’t know what to expect. And as someone who’s been traumatized by clients, by the way, I swear to god, there’s a lot of crazy clients out there. I had a Disney writer client and I’m gonna spill the tea about her very soon without giving her name. There are some really crazy people out there, umm, I would say narcissistic people all over the place. They gaslight you, and do all of that, so I’ve been traumatized. That’s why I’ve been very cautious about this client. And this is not just me, by the way, my friends from camera department, my editor friends, they experience very similar things that I’m experiencing and that’s what I want to say in this episode. I want to make sure I convey the realities of Hollywood. It’s not all unicorns and rainbows and glamour. It’s not oh yeah everyone is nice to each other. No, guys. It’s not like that. So a little bit backstory about why I was so scared. Because I was burned before. Not by an oven tray, but by a client. So that’s why I was being cautious and that’s why I was so lost in my head. So the biggest biggest message of this episode that I also want to take for myself is, don’t kill yourself over trying to explain the client umm, if your client is being uninformed. Guys, you need your hands, you need your fingerprints. No need to lose yourself in the process of overthinking and trying to explain, and trying to overexplain, okay. I explained this client and I explained this other client I told you about, um, I explain to them the process of hollywood. And by the way, this other big client who I’ve been stressed about, I don’t know why he didn’t know the process because he did work on some big TV productions. But I guess not in the writing. I don’t know. I don’t know, guys. But it’s okay. It’s their journey, and you can only do your best. And what they do next after listening to you is their own journey. That has nothing to do with me. That has nothing to do with you. So that’s the biggest lesson. Don’t burn your hands overthinking about something. If you have ADHD, be careful. Okay? Thank you for listening. And I hope we all take something away from today and be a better version of ourselves next time. I would like to say stay tuned for the next messy episode, and let’s see what I burn next time while I’m overthinking something.