So this is pretty cool.
On November 4th I'll be pitching a new dramatic TV series to a major network. We're actively in the process of getting the presentation done which means working with Optix Digital in Toronto and a team of writers who don't know yet that I'm working with them.
What I mean is, I'm planning a story meeting with them but haven't actually booked anyone yet. I'll get to it. The problem is, there's so much happening right now that I'm well and honestly stuck between the fact of having daily 'tasks' that need taking care of and strategic 'work' that has to be done or else I'll quickly find myself in the place where I don't have any more 'tasks' to take care of.
It's like this each fall.
I call it 'pitch and budget season' 'cause it seems like every October-December involves endless hours at this here keyboard creating concepts and treatments and pitches and the budgets to back them up. We burn the candle at both ends and on the sides right through 'till (typically) the week before Christmas when we find out what next year is going to hold for us production-wise.
My poor wife.
Every year the same thing, this race to an uncertain finish line.
I keep telling her that, even though we barely notice it, every year gets a little better than the last. A little bit more money, a little bit more fun, a little bit less pressure (always the same, and typically more stress) a lot more opportunity, a lot more at stake.
That's why they call life a 'race'.
Anyway, back to the series...
I don't want to give away too much but it'll be pitched as a thirteen part series, loosely based on an idea from a script we optioned last year. It'll follow a 'family' of fallen angels as they go about their task of killing people.
That's right.
They're part of the 'legion', the subgroup of celestial beings tasked with visiting death on the humans.
There's a lot more to it, but not for this blog, at least not yet.
I'm hoping our concept art and the presentation to support it makes a strong impression on the network execs. As you can imagine, getting money from network execs is like (insert your favorite 'blood from a stone' quip here...)
And here's the part that's SFS-worthy...
My executive producing partner and I are spending money to get this pitch ready. Real, actual, not-insignificant money that we worked extremely hard to earn. We're spending the money and a whole bunch of uncompensated time to put this pitch together.
And we have no guarantees that the network will buy it.
But we feel passionate about it and are convinced that it'd make a rockin' series. We LOVE the potential of it and are committed to pursuing it.
And so here we are, in the middle of the fall, getting our balls out one more 'gain, getting ready to hang 'em out there and take our chances with failure.
Because we believe.
And that's the part that might be useful for you today.
What's that thing that you feel passionate about and convinced of to the point that you're willing to risk your life/time/resources/reputation for? What thing in your life is good and glorious enough that you'd court failure to see it live?
Are you doing that thing? Pursuing it? Is every day a day you feel you could've used six more hours to push the thing that one step further ahead? Do you get up at night to write RTF notes to yourself because the ideas just won't stop coming?
If that's you and you're there, good on you, keep at it, push it, pursue it, don't give up.
If you read that and know that you're not there, and if you feel that longing that says you'd love to be, well then, do whatever it takes to put yourself in the situation where that kind of reckless living becomes the norm.
Find the situation where faith is possible.
T
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