2024: A Working Screenwriter's Year in Review

Survive 'til 25?

Dec 27, 2024

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men…?

I’ve seen many jokes on social media recently about yearning for PRECEDENTED times. And I 100% get that impulse: this year was yet another wild one, and next year is poised to be a fucking earthquake.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about our systems and who they serve. About media, about the ruling class, about whether America is a democracy or an oligarchy — and about Hollywood’s place (responsibility?) in it all.

Because stories help us make sense of things. Stories crack us open and make us feel. And equally importantly: stories sway our collective consciousness. (For anybody surprised about who gets lionized in the real world, we’ve had 20+ years celebrating anti-heroes on TV — I mean, what else did we expect?) I said it last year in my 2023 recap, and I believe it now more than ever: Entertainment matters. Joy matters.

I’m not a very revolutionary person. I’m a ‘keep my head down and go about my business’ person. But I’m also a believer in digging deep and learning from mistakes. I’m a believer in the necessity of hope. Despite what awaits us, I remain incredibly hopeful.

Unprecedented times? You bet. But if we refuse to sleepwalk through them, if we recognize the power of the collective (hey! like unions!), if we stop demonizing our peers and instead turn the spotlight firmly on those who benefit from encouraging us to hate each other, these times have the potential for greatness, too.

My word for 2025? Unite.

Soapbox, out! Onto the yearly recap.

JANUARY

I start the year on January 3rd with a studio meeting! They read BUZZY BIOPIC (still paying dividends from 2021!), loved it, and want to discuss me writing a ICON BIOPIC for them. The producer is an Academy Award winner for Best Picture.

2024, coming in hot!

In 2023, my producers and I began pitching ACTION SHOW. We ended the year with Huge Streamer passing — which means the “name” producer has to drop out as he’s exclusive to them. It’s all a bit confusing, since the streamer specifically asked the producer to pitch them a show exactly like this. I am told there are politics behind the scenes. Shrug emoji. The showrunner and other big producer still want to take it wide. We pivot and begin refining the pitch.

We pitch it to a Big Studio. They pass. Meep. We rewrite the pitch.

We pitch it to Other Huge Streamer - the same streamer as my HUGE LITERALLY LIFE CHANGING FANTASY TV SHOW. In fact, I pitch to an executive I’ve worked with before, on another show. I pitch my heart out. I am nailing this pitch.

Just after the pitch climax — the big reveal, the Holy Shit! moment — she jokingly replies with “Womp womp.”

Yikes. Something is not working about this pitch.

Lunch in Beverly Hills at a v.v. fancy restaurant, with the director, producers, and money behind ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE. I commenced late last year and am working hard on the outline (more of a Scriptment), preparing to submit any day.

FEBRUARY

More meetings about ACTION SHOW. More pitch rewrites.

Notes back on the Scriptment (clocking in at 54 pages!) for ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE. They love it, and I have the all-clear to begin writing the script.

I attend the WGA New Member Orientation! When you upgrade from an Associate to Current member, you get paired with a veteran writer, alongside other writers who’ve just joined. My group meets once a month via Zoom, and it’s an awesome collection of writers: mostly features, but everybody has some experience in TV, too.

Things heating up on ICON BIOPIC! I am one of a few writers pitching on it. I come up with a take. Last minute, I decide it’s too vanilla and rewrite it, deciding to go for broke. I come up with a meta, aggressively original, post-modern take that befits the Icon themselves. The producers love it!!

A few days later, I pitch it, in person, directly to the studio head on the lot! Ahhhh!! I am extremely dorky and surreptitiously take lots of photos, feeling immensely grateful and very lucky no matter the outcome.

In person pitching is a completely different beast from Zoom pitching, but luckily I did Speech and Theater in high school and the pitch goes fucking great.

The next day, I get an email from my old BIOPIC REWRITE studio exec: ICON BIOPIC studio called him for due diligence on me! Inching closer and closer to my first studio feature!!!!!

More good news: agent went on sub with GHOSTWRITING OPPORTUNITY proposal — and it sells! For more money than any of my actual books with my actual name on them! This book isn’t mine, per se, but I still feel proud.

MARCH

Last minute pitch rewrite on ACTION SHOW. It kinda feels like we’re building the plane as we’re flying it.

Another pass. More rewrites. Although I love the producers, I am starting to hate this project and want to move on. (The feeling is mutual: we all have a very friendly “hope to work with you again love you mean it!” project breakup soon after.)

Interviews with several of the real-life people ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE is based on. The producers hope to get SEXY A-LIST STAR to play one of them.

What’s up with the ICON BIOPIC job? Oh. So. Turns out the Icon’s manager or producer or whomever wants to 1) read a few writers’ scripts and then 2) hear our takes. So despite rockin’ pitch + due diligence, it seems I’m still in the audition phase. That’s cool, that’s fine. They’ll read BUZZY BIOPIC, and then I’ll pitch them. I believe in my pitch wholeheartedly. I will lock this thing down.

APRIL

Various generals. Still from 2021’s BUZZY BIOPIC! This thing has insane legs!

I desperately need to finish rewriting ACTION FEATURE for my ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE producers (that A-list actress is still interested!), but I’ve been swaaamped with paid work.

Event at the Four Seasons with ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE producer and director, centered around the topic of our script. It’s inspiring. I appreciate getting the chance to write about something so meaningful which could hopefully galvanize social change.

Confession. When I made the switch several years ago from freelance writing, I began a side hustle, transferring my freelance skills into advising wealthy people on travel. That business came in handy during COVID, and became a bigger part of my life last year during the strike, with a few high-net-worth client referrals. Because the clients are such big spenders (I spend a few hours this month researching private yacht charters in Greece!) I can advise on a small handful of trips per year and still contribute to our family coffers. For me, screenwriting has been very feast or famine. A little somethin’-somethin’ in the background helps take the pressure off.

I did not get the ICON BIOPIC job. Hugest of all the bummers. Manager or producer or whomever of said Icon read BUZZY BIOPIC and hated it. Do not pass Go. Do not pitch movie take to Icon. Do not collect first studio feature script fee.

MAY

FINALLY FINALLY submit ACTION FEATURE to my producers. I expect they’ll have many notes, since it’s not perfect, but I think it’s a solid first draft. I pride myself on turning in decent drafts and working quickly, but this has taken me too long because of all the other work. A good problem to have?

As my husband always reminds me, however, competition is fierce. I can’t just be good and fast. I have to work harder than anybody else, and my work needs to be great. There’s always somebody else waiting in the wings (newer! hungrier! cheaper!) and I still don’t have a produced credit. Hustle, hustle, hustle. Capitalism!

The hustle is tiring, though.

Hourlong zoom with an exec for a NAME STUDIO where we really hit it off. We have friends in common, too! We bandy ideas back and forth for a TV show based upon a unique personal experience! I’m very into this! This could be something cool!

I email her after the general and don’t hear back. (I gently follow up twice later in the year. Crickets.) Oh, Hollywood, you silly billy, never change.

JUNE

I perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City with my high school choir alongside my lifelong bestie/maid-of-honor. Random, I know! I’ve been practicing a couple of minutes a day for months, but am still amazed I know all the songs, as if by osmosis. It is, in fact — humblebrag? — my second time performing on stage at Carnegie Hall.

Summer! See family in New Jersey! Unexpectedly have to miss a college-reunion wedding I was desperately looking forward to! Silver lining: we get to spend more time with my husband’s mom in our happy place. She’s…okay. Not doing great. But good enough, especially considering she’s 80.

GHOSTWRITING OPPORTUNITY contract closes, and it’s time for me to get to work. We sold it on partial, so I have until November 30th to write the rest of the book. It’s a very generous, easy breezy pace. I sign up for Pacemaker.Press (highly recommend) and set myself a daily word target.

I set myself a minuscule daily word count for MY FIFTH BOOK, as well — the book I’ve been lazily writing in my spare time since late July. As always, paid projects take priority.

JULY

I submit ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE.

I reach out to my agent and manager. Now that I’m nearly done with ANOTHER BIOPIC WRITE, I’m looking toward my next spec — something new to put me in the mix for rewrites, but also to hopefully sell. I have an idea for a script — let’s call it SEXY CLASS WAR SPEC. Thoughts?

Manager kinda hates it. Agent kinda loves it. I’ll noodle on it.

More summer! Back to my favorite place on planet Earth for the first time since before COVID! Reunited with one of my bestie besties! Incidentally, the setting dovetails nicely with MY FIFTH BOOK, so I get a burst of writing done while there.

Notes back on ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE.

Call about a new potential BASED ON IP TV SHOW! It’s with my director from HUGE LITERALLY LIFE CHANGING TV SHOW + BIOPIC REWRITE. Even though the show didn’t work out for me, we’ve stayed friendly and in touch. She’s a badass director and a wonderful human and I had high hopes we’d work together again. Yay! It’s with a producer I’ve been dying to work with: double yay! (Also, also: this town is small. Don’t burn those bridges.)

There’s…an issue with my health insurance? Something technical involving documents and contributions? It needs to get sorted out by September 30th to keep my health insurance for next year. Gah.

AUGUST

I have coffee with my manager to discuss SEXY CLASS WAR SPEC. My agent has sort of talked him into not hating it, so manager has notes. As always, they’re great notes.

Agent and I chat more about it. I promise him an outline in the next couple of weeks.

While traveling, I write up a 36 page scriptment detailing exactly where I see the spec going. Agent calls, loves it, let’s write this thing. I promise him a first draft by October 15th. Momentum!

School is about to start back up. I’ve been a bit too involved the past few years. Work is ramping up. I resolve to be less involved this year.

I get asked to be Class mom. Oh. Well. Yes, of course.

I get asked to be PTA Vice President. Sigh. Sob. Yes, of course.

SEPTEMBER

Busy busy busy busy busy.

Invited to pitch on COULD NOT BE MORE UP MY ALLEY LIKE LITERALLY I WAS BORN TO WRITE THIS FEATURE -

do not get the job.

Invited to interview for a feature room with HUGE STREAMER. It’s with two Academy Award-winning/nominated screenwriters. I get off the Zoom convinced they hated me.

Apparently they did not hate me? Apparently they have submitted me to Huge Streamer for consideration? —

do not get the job.

:Dusts self off, gets back in the ring:

Last minute final.final.v3.superfinal edits on ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE.

Health insurance gets rectified at the last second.

OCTOBER

Been juggling shit pretty damn well this year, you want something done, give it to a busy person, blah blah. But this month, seemingly every project of 2024 simultaneously converges in DEADLINEPOCALYSPE.

Hey there: almost done with ANOTHER BIOPIC REWRITE? You got it, you got it, it’s done, and SEND.

Receive an email from the GHOSTWRITE agent. Hey. Remember how we said the book was due November 30th? LOL just kidding whoops it’s actually due in two weeks. Can you make that happen k thx bye?

I give myself a day for a furious, self-contained nervous breakdown, then crank the hustle up to 12. Ghostwrite in two weeks, no problemo.

Phone calls and texts and emails from my very excited agent checking in on SEXY CLASS WAR SPEC. How’s it going? It’s going!

Submit SEXY CLASS WAR SPEC to agent and manager. I am naively hoping, like all writers secretly naively hope when submitting a draft, that they will respond in floods of tears. My god! The genius! What brilliance! Your fingers have angels shining through them, blessing the keyboard!, etc etc.

They have notes. So many notes. Will tackle when I have time (2025? 2029?)

We get a call about my husband’s mom. She’s really not doing well. We should consider coming sooner than next summer. Maybe over Christmas. Husband gets bad, stressful news on the work front.

Somehow, I submit all my projects on time.

Baby’s First Deadline!!!

And then I get a phone call, one of those “wait, did my life just change?” phone calls from a producer I’ve worked closely with. He’s literally one of the hottest producers around right now. He reps THE BIGGEST A LIST ACTRESS. He produces ONE OF THE HOTTEST TV SHOWS. He loves my writing from the past three years of working together on TV SHOW FOR A HUGE STREAMER. And he’s calling to offer me a DRAMATIC THRILLER TV SHOW with that same streamer. Same exec. I mean, I’d have to pitch first. But they know me, they like me. Do I want it?

You guys. I think this might be it. The thing. The chance. It feels real. (I know, I know. The other ones felt real, too.) But this is all so bonkers-out-of-order and not at all how stuff is supposed to operate that I think maybe? it just might pan out?

NOVEMBER

I sign up for a class with Carole Kirschner called PITCHING A TV SHOW THAT SELLS. Carole runs the WGA Showrunner Training program and is the Director of the CBS Diversity Writers program. THE CLASS IS AMAZING.

I love to pitch. I’m fairly successful at it (this year’s ACTION SHOW trainwreck notwithstanding). Hear me when I say: Carole’s class is guaranteed to make you a better pitcher. Even better, each week you get to hear successful pitches from A-list writers—ones that actually sold. Worth every second. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Election Day. Oh.

Look. I was not stunned in 2016. I was shocked and grossed out and disappointed, but not stunned — because I had my ear to the ground. In 2020, I did not expect Biden to win — again, because ear to the ground, because disillusion — and he did win, so that was a pleasant surprise. But this time around? I am gobsmacked. I am completely caught unawares. I dumbly allowed myself to believe The Girl with the Rods (for my fellow TikTok olds IYKYK!)

I didn’t have my ear to the ground. Many have written volumes on what went wrong, and why, and how. That’s for another day, another column, another Substack. But if I see you in person, I will talk your ear off about elite overproduction;
and the enrichment of the ruling class off the backs of the working class;
and the abdication of journalistic integrity in favor of eyeballs, outrage, personal biases, and billionaire overlords;
and how frustrated I am with an entrenched gerontocracy that refuses to lift up the next generation.

I will talk your ear off about how we are all screaming at each other and nobody is listening. About how we need to come together to build movements, not silo them in self-righteous anger and name-calling.

I will also give you a hug and tell you how happy your face makes me, because it does, and I miss you. It’s been too long.

I use both Carole’s class and my post-election fervor to finish my pitches for BASED ON IP TV SHOW and DRAMATIC THRILLER.

My eldest turns 10! Birthday sleepover! Her first!

Two days later, quite unexpectedly, we have to pull the girls from school and race back east. My husband’s mother has suddenly taken a turn for the worst. We make it to the hospital after midnight, but they allow us all in to see her. We spend a few days with her, praying, waiting, saying goodbye.

My husband - who has already dealt with a lot this year - is by her side as she dies.

We have now both lost our parents. Orphans.

I have coffee the day before Thanksgiving with my film agent, TV agent, and manager at CAA, a place that never stops being intimidating and exciting. We run through all my projects, my hopes for 2025, and my kidding-not-kidding declaration that all I care about is making enough money next year so my WGA health insurance lives to support our family another day. It is the best health insurance in the world, and it’s cheap, and reality is very, very bleak without it.

Unions for the win.

DECEMBER

GHOSTWRITE people reach out. Can I turn the next draft around in five weeks? (Which is really three weeks because of the holiday?) Sorry, there’s no wiggle room. Okay, fine, a little wiggle room: I have six weeks. Maybe take Christmas Day off!

I pitch DRAMATIC THRILLER to the streamer. In a full circle moment, the two executives I’m pitching to — in person! on the lot! like ye days of olde! — are my TV SHOW FOR A HUGE STREAMER exec and my HUGE LITERALLY LIFE-CHANGING TV SHOW exec. Told you. Small town.

They say yes!!!!!

Gonna be a busy 2025.

I get two new client referrals for the travel side hustle, which is turning into more of a jobby-job Very Real Business. I now have a decision to make. Do I really want to spend my one wild and precious life running a Very Real Business centering on the needs of extremely wealthy people?

I do not.

Screenwriting…publishing…these are two historical extremely stable and well-paid industries with bright futures haha! But I don’t care. It’s time to unwind the just in case side hustle and go all in on writing. If I don’t believe in myself, who will?

If I don’t choose creativity, then what the fuck am I doing?

99% done with MY FIFTH BOOK. Will submit in the new year, as soon as I’m done with GHOSTWRITE.

Luigi/United CEO happens, and it has me thinking more than ever about class consciousness (long a pervasive theme in my writing), and the 1%, and the daily ramifications big and small of late-stage capitalism, and what tangible steps we can take to make the world better for future generations.

More than ever, I want to move forward with intention. I’d like to untether myself from my social media addiction and the heady thrill of demonizing “the other side.” (Related: I recommend the book I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT THAT WAY: HOW TO HAVE FEARLESSLY CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS IN DANGEROUSLY DIVIDED TIMES.)

I start to filter things through the lens of: who benefits from this division? Who benefits by keeping us small, afraid, angry, obedient?

[SEXY CLASS WAR SPEC feels more relevant than ever. A revise to tackle in the new year.]

I joke to my husband that I’m like an annoying college student who reads Marx once and suddenly has posters of Che Guevera on my wall.

Something has to change. But I am awfully lazy, and get cold easily, and dislike crowds. Comfy things so nice. Capitalism so yummy when good. Work in progress, mayhaps?

We shall see.

And here we are again! Year’s end! How was 2024 for you? What dream did you nurture? What secrets are you too afraid to admit to yourself? How are you taking care of yourself in these TERRIBLY UNPRECEDENTED times?

Can we keep our eyes open together? Can we support each other through the shit and President Tesla and the alien invasion (?). Because it’s gonna be a weird one.

If Rome falls and the world burns, people will still need stories. People will need beautiful dreams, more than ever. You’ve got them inside you, I know you do. And I bet there’s something, some quiet dream, you’ve been too afraid or too lazy or too cold (!) to pursue. You can do it. You are strong enough. Will you try? One small step, right now. Do it, do it, do it! I believe in you!!! I believe in us.

2025, we are coming for you.

We’re strong enough — but we’re stronger together.

xo, Nadine