I'm not even sure where to begin. Maybe back during the staged reading of my sitcom last December when my friend Mike heard my work for the first time. Or maybe back in the spring when he (and his newly formed production company) took my screenplay out to a studio and they passed (well, we assume, we're still waiting to hear...). Or maybe back to the week before I left for Paris when I learned that he and his producing partner wanted to submit a logline of another of my scripts (just one sentence encapsulating the whole idea) to a new-ish television network. Or to the day, just before we were to leave Paris when I found out we'd been selected to actually pitch the idea to the head of the network. Yeah, I guess that's a good place to start.
I don't even know what to say about that, I'm completely blown away by the fact that after six years and countless words and pages and scripts, I would get the chance to have a television network head hear my idea. But I would.
And that happened today.
Yes, I am in Los Angeles. Yesterday I was in Detroit. Within ten hours I will be back in Detroit. But in the past three weeks I've had several meetings, conference calls, hundreds of email sessions, one long Google Doc experience, and after five hours of preparation with my producing partners last night, I got the chance to pitch my script, my story, to a television studio. Yes, today. It happened.
It went quickly. Twenty five minutes and we were in and out. It went well. They asked questions, we had answers. I talked, a lot. It was exciting and fun and most surprising of all -- not scary. I wasn't anxious or nervous or sick to my stomach or anything I have experienced in the past or thought I might be.
I was ready.
My family and friends have been giving me pep talks for the past few weeks. So have my producing partners (who are AMAZING). And on Saturday I heard one of my favorite baseball players say that before he swings the bat, he goes into the batters' box and says one word: dominate. So that was my mantra. And I did it.
I ad libbed some jokes and little asides during the pitch. I added answers to questions and jumped in when the producers needed me to jump in. I smiled and made mad eye contact and made sure the head of the studio knew I was talking to her (Yes, she is a woman and I love that).
And now? Now I get to smile a lot and go back to Detroit. I go home to family and friends and bonfires and birthday celebrations and wedding showers and baseball games and my childhood bed. For a few more weeks.
And I wait.
It may be a while. Their time table isn't immediate. And that's okay. Because I've done my part. And I feel I've done it well.
So, that's the scoop of the day. I flew back to LA for just over 24 hours for my first television pitch meeting. This life we live sure is amazing, isn't it?
