I've been asked quite a bit recently for advice on writing/Hollywood and it’s gotten me thinking back. I’ve been working in this industry for 10 years, a paid writer for 8 or 9. Many people have more experience/better advice, but here’s mine: a long thread. /1

On my 23rd birthday I sold a spec pilot script to the CW that became a pilot we shot that became a pilot that was dead 7 years ago this week. It feels weird to talk about it, like I got lucky & I’m bragging that I got to do this cool thing, so I don’t often. But let’s go back. /2

I’m day-drinking White Russians with my roommate ( @thelocolauren) and watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. My phone rings, my agent’s calling, to wish me a happy birthday, I think. Instead she says: “The CW wants to option BLINK.” I pretend I’m sober while we talk. /3

My pilot is a dark half-hour in the vein of Nurse Jackie or The Big C. It focuses on a family whose dad has been in a coma for three months and is presumed brain dead; he is actually awake and aware in his own head. /4

He can hear everything that’s going on around him and “sees” it all in elaborate fantasy scenes. The primary relationship is between him and his dry 16-year-old daughter who is the only one who still believes "Coma-Dad” will wake up. /5

The CW wants to turn it in to a one-hour family dramedy, really focusing on the girl, Ari, and her world. I love this. We attach producers; Sarah Timberman as a non-writing EP and David Marshall Grant as the showrunner. /6

We spend five or six months redeveloping it as a one-hour. The script and story never lose their specialness to me. Some scenes from the original spec stay as they were. The family members and characters largely stay as they were. It is a great collaborative process. /7

In December I meet director Peter Hedges by chance at my alma mater, @uncsa. He is a fellow alum and we were both flown back the same weekend to speak to students. We chat, I send him my pilot for a friendly read. We casually email once or twice over the next month. /8

In January, Peter writes to me: my agent sent me a pilot he says is great & I just HAVE to direct if it gets picked up. It’s yours. Within a few days, we get the call from the CW: we are getting picked up to pilot. We attach Peter. It all feels fated. I am living the dream. /9

We spend the next two-ish months doing rewrites, casting, setting up shop in Vancouver. Somewhere in this madness my grandmother dies. I fly to New York and give a eulogy and fly back into this dream. Life is a whirlwind. /10

We assemble a truly stellar cast. Ari, our old soul brimming with teen angst, is Madeline Carroll. @IMMaddieCarroll /11

Coma-Dad Will is Tony winner John Benjamin Hickey. Elizabeth Marvel breathes life into Helen, our “Atlas in slingbacks” who’s just trying to keep her family together. /12

Dodge, our lost, soulful, romantic 20-something vacuum salesman, is Johnny Simmons. And lastly, the endearing family screw-up Uncle Jamie, @_Michael_Weston. /13

We shot a beautiful pilot. It made people laugh and then it made them cry. For the first time, I got to see things from my head turn into something so much bigger than me. Something greater than the sum of its parts. /14

It’s worth mentioning that most of our key crew was women. Line producer, DP, production designer, 1st AD, editor, costumers, music supervisors, more. This was magic in and of itself. /15

We plotted out the season. We met with writers for a potential room. I wrote story arenas for the first few episodes. We filmed on-camera interviews for the upfronts. And then…we didn’t get picked up. /16

Eight pilots were filmed for five slots and we didn’t fit the direction the CW was going. It was the season of The 100, Reign, bigger shows than our family drama. And this thing that had consumed me for almost a year - more if you count the months writing the spec - was over. /17

The dream was over. But it had been a dream. It was my first failure and it hurt and I was confused and I was enchanted by the process and I knew deeply that I had made something I was proud of and now all those conflicting feelings are precious to me. /18

At some point I was sent a DVD of the pilot that no one would ever see. It wasn’t even burned in the right aspect ratio: it’s in 4:3 & today after all these years I asked my editor husband to convert it to 16:9 so everyone isn't squeezed, even though it makes it a bit grainy. /19

I've since sold pilots that went nowhere. I've sold movies that went nowhere. I've done rewrites on other people’s movies that went nowhere. I've pitched on projects that people I know have ended up getting hired to write instead of me while all my effort went nowhere. /20

This is the gig. The gig is mostly failure. Sometimes it’s your own failure, and sometimes it’s the failure of those around you to recognize or support something great you’ve made. This is a paraphrase of the best advice/perspective I ever got from DMG, my showrunner. /21

(Incidentally, DMG officiated my wedding last year, so another piece of advice is: when you find people in this business you adore, stick with them.) /22

So, given that: all you can do to keep going in this business is to just write things that you love. Make every project a passion project. If you don’t take joy in the writing and imagining and obsessing — well, boy, when it likely fails, you’re not gonna get your joy there. /23

I’ve engaged on projects I didn’t love & when they didn’t go anywhere, I’ve always regretted the time wasted. I hate being sent IP because for me the passion comes from birthing an idea, not from trying to figure out what an exec loves about a book they’ve sent to 10 writers. /24

BLINK was a passion project. It consumed me. I wrote it before work (as a writers’ assistant), after work, on weekends. It was me, a girl whose dad died at 18, writing a world where dads don’t die, they exist in comas you believe they can come out of. (Mine wasn't in a coma.) /25

I wasn’t dreaming of selling the script. I wasn’t trying to make it marketable or fit into any trends. I just had this thing I had to write. I thought it would just be a sample to get me meetings. (It did that too - a few years later it’s what got me a meeting on This Is Us.) /26

No one can give you specific advice for how to sell a script or get reps or get hired on a show. There are so many insane unknowable factors that go into all of it. But what I can tell you is that great, honest, special scripts get passed around. They find their way. /27

Write something that only you can write. And work your ass off writing it. Those are the only things you can control & in my experience, the things that matter most. Hopefully you find success; if you find any form of failure, you’ll at least have something you're proud of. /28

And now I really hope I don’t get in trouble with the studio for screencapping this thing I’m not supposed to ever let anyone see. The end! /29