Latest / Jennifer with Coffee / Jennifer with Coffee -Episode 27- TBT Create the Life You Desire with Lorna

Transcript

Jennifer with Coffee -Episode 27- TBT Create the Life You Desire with Lorna · Jennifer with Coffee

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Jennifer with Coffee, a mindset podcast for people who are looking for real change.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jennifer Lauer, writer, yogi, and fitness fanatic.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lately, I've been having lots of coffee meetups, long,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: honest conversations that delve into mindset,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: identity, choices, and habits that shape our lives.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I kept thinking how I wanted to share these conversations.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode moves in three beats,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: an inspirational story,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: an interview with thinkers,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: builders, athletes, and artists, people who want to share their own transformations.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll end with a brief meditation to practice calming the nervous system.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get to today's interview, I want to start with a quick story.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if we're friends, I've probably told you my Mookie Betts story.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I pretty much tell it to everyone I meet because it inspired me so much.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So to set the scene, it's the celebration after the World Series.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Dodgers beat the Blue Jays with a game-winning double play.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mookie Betts,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: former Red Sox player,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: just a little note for my hometown people, was interviewed right after the game.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what he said truly changed the way I think about being nervous.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope it will for you too.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So after the game...
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were interviewing him.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, he is playing shortstop.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's a four-time world champion player.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they ask him,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: how did you feel in that big moment as the pitcher winds up and there are runners
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: on base?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So a hit would be a win for the Blue Jays.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: A double play is a win for the Dodgers.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, the Dodgers won.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: He said he got nervous and he never gets nervous.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he told himself in that moment, be nasty.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: You just got to be nasty.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: You got to be nasty.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Cut to, I'm Telling Everyone I Know.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, me telling inspo stories is not new.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Usually, I get eye rolls from my kids.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But still, I go on telling everyone what a sage Mookie Betts is.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'm on the phone with a friend, and I'm telling the story for the zillionth time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my youngest overhears me, and he says, Hey, Mom, I did that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Please hold.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You did what?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he said at swim class, he was doing his timed freestyle and he was nervous.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he kept saying to himself, be nasty, be nasty.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that right there shook me because number one, my kid actually listened to me.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, he used it to help himself get through a hard thing.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So please feel free to share the Mookie Betts story.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the next time you get nervous doing a difficult thing, Remember to be nasty.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And now for our interview.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lorna Osunsanmi is a television writer, producer, and author.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lorna's successful career in television spans work on Netflix, Hulu, CW,
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  SPEAKER_00: and Showtime,
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  SPEAKER_00: best known for shows like All American,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Daybreak, Hemlock Grove, and Shaka, King of the Zulus.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: She also wrote the Princess Diaries spinoff for Disney and the indie film Money Moves.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: She developed a series for Tyler Perry Productions and is currently in development
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: with Picture Start.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lorna is also the author of the inspirational book Becoming Bold,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: where she discusses balancing work, life, and love.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: As if all of this wasn't impressive enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lorna is currently finishing up her master's in creative writing and literature
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  SPEAKER_00: at Harvard.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's have coffee with Lorna Ashizami.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lorna, I'm so glad to have you here.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself,
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  SPEAKER_01: how you became a TV writer and showrunner?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me, Jennifer.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to be speaking to your audience and to your listeners.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know,
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  SPEAKER_02: it's an odyssey,
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  SPEAKER_02: as you know, this business, but I always wanted to be a writer since I was nine.
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  SPEAKER_02: And when I was in college,
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  SPEAKER_02: I was an English major and a pre-law minor,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: and my mom said writing was a hobby when I was younger.
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  SPEAKER_02: So I believed her.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then I,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: like I said,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: going back a little bit,
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  SPEAKER_02: I went to – when I was about to – I was a junior in college.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a junior in college, I made the decision to –
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Not listen.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I pivoted and I decided to look into writing again and not be a lawyer
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: and not go to law school.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at all the forms of writing and what was the most intriguing,
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  SPEAKER_02: the most exciting, the most fascinating.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, TV and film, my work can live outside the bounds of the page.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that was really exciting to me.
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  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think about I didn't think about it being difficult.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think about any of it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was just thinking about, oh, I would really love to do that.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I just set out to strategizing where I needed to go,
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  SPEAKER_02: what I needed to do, how can I make that happen?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I decided just I was going to Buy a bunch of books and read and check out books
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  SPEAKER_02: and join different screenwriting organizations.
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  SPEAKER_02: While I still lived in Texas,
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  SPEAKER_02: by the way, I worked, I decided to the best education would be real time.
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  SPEAKER_02: I found independent productions in Texas and Dallas and I worked on them.
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  SPEAKER_02: Then I was accepted into a TV and film writing program called Act One Writing for Hollywood.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it is still in existence today.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: At the time, I've shown my age.
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  SPEAKER_02: You had to fly to California and stay there for a summer.
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  SPEAKER_02: And the program itself found homes for the students to live.
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  SPEAKER_02: There's only 30 of us.
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  SPEAKER_02: And entertainment professionals like working showrunners,
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  SPEAKER_02: working screenwriters,
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  SPEAKER_02: just working TV writers came and lectured and mentored and gave us writing tools.
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  SPEAKER_02: It was all writers.
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  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, I can do this.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I became a teacher after that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: I taught for two years.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I taught English for two years because I returned to Texas.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: I did not stay after this program.
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  SPEAKER_02: And then afterward, I moved.
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  SPEAKER_02: I moved to LA and I decided that I would just start from the bottom,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: like as a PA. And that's what happened.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just, in my head, I had my own plan.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I know people have their own ideas of how they want to break into the business.
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  SPEAKER_02: My plan and my idea was just to start as an assistant because I didn't know anybody.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I just knew I was going to have to work my way up and network and network
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: and push and hustle.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what happened.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I became an assistant and my showrunner helped me out, gave me an episode.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then my husband's former manager connected me to a showrunner who hired me.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how it all began.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Can I ask,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: did you utilize any of the connections from that program that you did
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: when you finally did move to LA?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Nope.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: All of those individuals were really high end.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was the showrunner of that 70s show that was really big.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was screenwriters who had movies in the theaters, Scott Derrickson.
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  SPEAKER_02: He had just, he was like the, what is it?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: The Possession of Emily Rose, I think, was just out.
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  SPEAKER_02: But it's...
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_02: When I moved, I didn't feel like I could call them and be like, hey, can you get me work?
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  SPEAKER_02: It's so bizarre.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
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  SPEAKER_02: No one has ever asked me that, number one.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: And number two,
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  SPEAKER_02: that never occurred to me to do because of being in the program for that time,
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  SPEAKER_02: for the summer months that I did.
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  SPEAKER_02: It was like two and a half months.
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  SPEAKER_02: It was just a sense of they had their people.
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  SPEAKER_02: There was a sense of they had their people that they were going to promote
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  SPEAKER_02: and move up, and that wasn't going to be me.
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  SPEAKER_02: And now I know better.
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  SPEAKER_02: Now I ask people all the time.
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  SPEAKER_01: Would you say that time then just served as more of an impetus to get you to LA?
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  SPEAKER_01: It inspired you more than it was a
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: connection networking experience?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think that psychologically how I think about things is...
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Everything people,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: people come into your life,
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  SPEAKER_02: not necessarily to give you something it's to tell you something.
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  SPEAKER_02: So I'm always ready to receive what people have to say.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I did learn about the business.
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  SPEAKER_02: I learned politics.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: I learned what not to say and what to say.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: I learned about writing the craft of writing,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: obviously in a summer program,
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  SPEAKER_02: they can't teach you how to write,
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  SPEAKER_02: but I learned a variety of tools from working professionals.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Which was quite useful to me because my TV writing is all 100% self-taught.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, at the time it was.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: At the time it was all self-taught.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Now I've taken a variety of classes.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: I've been in writer's rooms.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: So now I can't, you know, claim that anymore.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: But in the beginning it was 100% self-taught.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it was an aggressive teaching program.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: I did learn quite a bit.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's why I felt like I...
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't need to take anything else.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: They had given me so much.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: They'd given me so many tools to work with that by the time I finished the program,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew it wasn't time.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't time for me to move to Los Angeles, but I felt like I knew a lot.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: okay, I could navigate the city because I'd met people at the time who had returned.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: They went to LA.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: They had these, their dreams, and they came back.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I was not interested in being that person.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to make sure I landed on firm ground.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wanted to make necessary preparations.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: But there's something about preparing for the political landscape
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: of what you are going to be stepping into that I think had a lot
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: of those people understood the nature of the beast,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: they probably would have They probably would have been more prepared
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: and they probably wouldn't have come back.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly it worked.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really interested in the before and after of how people create their lives.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I find that time in between that becoming period so intriguing.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump right into that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And can you tell me about a time in your life?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this one was that actually that transformation,
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: but that you manifested a transformation that was really clear to you,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: the before moment and the after moment.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would say, I mean, I have two, relationally and professionally.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Relationally,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'll start with that because, you know, we downplay our relationships in this town.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about the work.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I feel like they should run in tandem and parallel to each other
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: because they both have such beautiful impacts on the health and well-being
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: of our entire life.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: But, um, Before when I lived in Texas and before my life, I never thought I would be married.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think I would have children.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I've told you this before.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't, I did not think that was going to be my story.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: I just thought I would be this single lady fulfilled.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I felt fulfilled even then when I was single.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I would be this single lady and Just work and that would be it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I wouldn't have children.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: And at some point, and I operated my life in that way.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: when you have a certain narrative about your life,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: you sort of operate in the space of that story you've told yourself.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't really try to make meaningful, lasting, have meaningful, lasting partnerships.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: I just sort of dated casually and that was it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: And not even a lot of dating, just...
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Mostly work.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I felt very satisfied.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: But when I moved to Los Angeles, I thought about it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you flash forward.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm of the mind where you sort of reverse engineer your life and think about what
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: the end is going to look like.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then you think about what the steps you have to take to get there.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So in the end, I did not conceive of myself being alone.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't conceive of myself being alone.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't want to be by myself.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted, I could see myself.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end, I saw the kids, not visually, but I was like, oh, I will have children.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, okay, well, if that's the end, time, you have to get started right now.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right after I moved, it was like, I moved in February.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, God, I think I really want this.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: I do want to be in a relationship.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be married.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to have children.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you write the whole long list.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd done that years ago.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't even know where the list was at this point.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I was like, I think I've been lying for a long time when I wrote the list even.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I'm really ready.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I need this person to be comfortable with waiting for me.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Just because you meet somebody and you say you're ready doesn't mean you're ready.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew that I would not be ready.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe two weeks later,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: it was probably about a month and a half,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: two months into living in Los Angeles that I met a lovely gentleman
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: who became my husband.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Back up.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You decided that in the end you wanted to have this family that you hadn't considered before.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then you made a list and you thought about, I want this to happen.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: I want a husband not just to be the single artist experience.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: I completely relate to, by the way.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when and how did you meet
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: your husband?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's so funny.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote the list almost...
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Four or five years before.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Whoa.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Before I even conceived this new thing.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I wrote it while I was in Texas.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it was long.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a legal pad and I put it in some box.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, when I moved to LA, I don't know where the thing is.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: I probably threw it away.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I was like, it's not for me.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's for you, God.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's your list, God.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: You need to make sure all those things are marked off.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: I can't do that.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't feel the urge to try to find it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I met my husband while I was working as a PA,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: a post PA on the Bernie Mac show, which post I was an editorial.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was an editorial PA, not in production.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that means whatever the editors needed.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I would go grab lunch for a couple editors.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: I would go do runs for Film and footage and for stock and all of that.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was part of my workflow every day was to start
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: at this post house called Technicolor Complete Post.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that building is no longer,
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: the building is there,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: but they have a new fancier building on Sunset, which is really funny.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I went to the more- Original.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I went to the original sketchy one directly across the street from
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: the brand new one, which is really hilarious.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I go down to the vault and I picked up, oh, I'm really showing my age.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So they digitized the 35 millimeter cans and put it on VHS tapes.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I picked up two VHS tapes to bring them back to the office
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: and dub like multiple copies and walk them around in boxes to all the executives.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my sort of life.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: I started and stopped at Technicolor.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I walk in regular day and there he is.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: There he is.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: He's standing at the counter.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like giddy in my boots.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was so excited.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my gosh, it's my lucky day.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Who is this beautiful man?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was just over the stinking moon.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: I walked up to him And there was such a huge grin on my face.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh, and I'm having a whole conversation in my head, by the way.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: The conversation when I saw him was like,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: oh my gosh,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: when I get to him,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to talk to him and I'm going to get his number and it's going to be on.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then I could,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: because that was the conversation in my head,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: by the time I got to him, I was smiling so hard.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, oh my God, Lorna, calm down.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: You've lost all your cool points.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: All your cards are on the table.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's no mystery.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: You've got nothing.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: You've got nothing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: You've got nothing.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, well, I've got nothing.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just like standing so close to him.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, hi, my name is Lorna.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: I just moved from Texas.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just, I don't even know what I'm saying.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just chattering.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I've completely fallen apart, by the way.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I've just given up.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he's just staring at me.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: He has not said a word this whole time.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: He's just staring at me and he's smiling.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, well, it's not going so bad.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: He's not looking at me like a psycho, even though I feel crazy.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Then he and then I was like, oh, this is I don't know if this is going well.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then he asked me for my number.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And we exchanged numbers and he called me.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: We were true to I mean, true to the prayer.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: I we were friends for a whole year.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: And because I was so afraid we were friends for a year.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then after the year was like,
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: either you're going to You're going to stop being you're going to be fearless
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: and you're going to move forward.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I called him like almost almost a year to date.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like,
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: it was so funny because it was like we didn't have And by the way,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: going backwards just to here, we did chat and communicate during that year.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we hung out a little bit during that year.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't like no communicado.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: We were chatting, but it was all very friendly-like.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, toward the end of the year, I was like, okay, this is it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to do it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I called him.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, hey.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: All I did was say hey.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he knew what that meant.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: He knew.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we started dating after that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was weird intuition when I said, it was just the weirdest hey.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, I just was like, so hey.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just like,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: and then we just start,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: it was just such an instant,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: like subliminal,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: subconscious,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: intuitive shift where it was like,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: oh yeah, at some point we're going to get married.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was wrapped up in that,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: the energy of that one call,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: in that one hey, it was all wrapped into like its own little cosmos.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: oh yeah,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: we're, it's, and no matter how long we date, we're, it's going to end the same way.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to be married.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that it was love at first sight and then deep love at first hey.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes!
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: It really was hilarious.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, that's all it took.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was really funny.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was really funny and very endearing, all the things.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that was like the biggest thing, like personally, to happen.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then professionally, it was like my second show as a writer.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't sure what show to go on.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I had other opportunities.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was like,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: I need to be on the show that is going to teach me the nuts and bolts of TV writing
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: in sort of like a bare bones way.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not interested in being on a show that isn't like that
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: because TV writing is complicated.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: You have a lot of storylines.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: You have to know how to weave it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't formally trained.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, I need to be in a room where they're not training me.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need that kind of handholding.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: But how they break it down is in such a way that I can learn.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: And wouldn't you know, I ended up on All-American.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Greg Berlanti was in the room for two seasons.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: He is a genius.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: He is a master writer, TV writer.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: He is a savant.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he was in there for two whole seasons,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: two years,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: breaking down what the arcs and how a TV show is put together and brought
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: and pulled apart and put back together and how it should be pitched,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: how you need to think about it,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: how you need to think through acts one, two, three, four.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: And depending on how many acts a network has, And it was incredible.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like those two moments were the biggest, I think, biggest
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: transformational.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: For the second one,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: for the career one,
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: you just thought, oh,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I really need to be on a show that's going to teach me the structure of TV writing.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or did you write it down?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Was it a goal?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's, I mean, magical that you got school from this brilliant writer.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think that manifested?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Did you just have that intention?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: What was the in-between of Yeah, I am always a thinker of what do I want and what do I need?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm constantly like, what do I want?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: What do I need?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Can they align?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm always very, very conscious.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like God is like,
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: on a spiritual sense,
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: I always feel the question and the urge come into my spirit of what do you want?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: What is it that you want?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the hope is that the want and the need can align.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's always the hope.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: But at some point,
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: you just have to be able to really,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: and it takes me a long time sometimes to think about it,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: but I feel like this was more accidental, where it was like, what do you want?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, well, yeah,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be on a show,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: but I need to know how to write if I'm going to keep working.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm going to keep working, I need to be highly successful at this craft.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: And either I'm going to go back to school, which is Online classes started to become a thing.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, well, I can always keep working and just take classes on the side.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, that's confidence, right?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: At some point, you have to get confident about your work.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: I had already successfully written three pilots, and they've gotten me really great feedback.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: So at some point,
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: I know a part of the journey and transformation is just needing confidence
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: in my work.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I know that's a big part of the story for me.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: But in the space of understanding exactly where my writing was and where I wanted it
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: to be, I was like, okay, I need to be in a setting like that.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I had been a longtime assistant before I had gotten my first writing job.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Longtime assistant.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been in countless rooms as an assistant to showrunners.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of them are brilliant, genius writers.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Emmy-winning,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: award-winning writers,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: wrote novels and books, these showrunners that I've worked for.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I never heard them break down or disseminate how they do what they do.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Very few of them can actually tell you whether they don't want to share it,
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: because they feel like their knowledge is proprietary,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: or they don't know how because it's so intuitive.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's so intuitive and so internal, which writing generally is.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Who can articulate exactly how they come up with their secret sauce?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was either one or the other.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I needed, I was like, I don't know if this is this.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: To a certain degree,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: when I am articulating and saying what I want and what I need,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even factor in that it may not exist.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: I literally, it is irrelevant to me.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to do research.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just assume that it does.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I just put that in my head.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, set an intention, set a prayer.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think I wrote it down.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: And generally,
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty big on writing things down,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: but I think I just really held it in my heart.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is definitely what I want.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: I want this.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: I want this.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I just kept repeating it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I really want to be in a...
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't that... And I didn't think about it in terms that it didn't exist.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think that might be the trick of the speed in
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: which you received it is you knew this thing that I want and need.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't want or need this if it didn't exist.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't even know if I was that clear is what you're saying.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: I literally didn't make it a point of interest.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, of course it does.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: I tell you what,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think on an intuitive and a subconscious level,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: because you're asking the question, now I'm able to articulate it.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was the fact if I can ask for it, it has to exist.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: So there should be no qualms about, oh, does it exist?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you're thinking it and you're conceiving it, it exists.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Even act one,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: now that I think about it,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: going back,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: act one writing for Hollywood,
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: that was also a prayer because I was like, you know what?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: I need to be in a writing program that's really short,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: that's over the summer, that I can learn from people.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Every single thing that I like talked out loud in my head and was the prayer.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: I go online.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was right before I went online.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then I go online and then I find it.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Act One Writing for Hollywood.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it was so idyllic and they only accept 30 people and they get,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: they, at the time they were getting thousands of applicants.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I felt very fortunate and grateful and all the things that I was one of
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: the 30 who got in to work with such extraordinary talented writers and directors,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: writer directors.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, you're right.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: I would say whatever it is that you need, that's what the request is.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's not, I hope it exists.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: You don't put any caveats on it.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you go into the store and every single thing is there and it's all free.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: When you walk into a store and every single thing is in there,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: you just go in and you just pick stuff up.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: You're not thinking about anything.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's the rules of the universe as well.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there's a great amount of faith.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: That you wouldn't have the thought, you wouldn't have the feeling if it wasn't.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: That is the divine part of it all.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't have that urge or the curiosity if there wasn't something there for you.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to dreams and desires and goals,
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can sometimes intellectualize ourselves out of it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you trust that thing that you want,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: desire, need, feel drawn to is out there, that's all you really need.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the faith that that will come to you.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: You're right.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: It absolutely is.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're so right.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well said.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because I really do stand in my humanness.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like if we have to give the caveat because I am a person of faith, but even...
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: As a person who believes in Buddha or believes in whatever you believe in,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: if you have any kind of sense of divinity and
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: that there's something greater out there,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: then you have to stand in your humanness that you are not in control
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: of this big orb.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're not in control of the universe.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're not in control of anything.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: You're not God.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't make anything.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't do anything.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I stand in my humanness when I make my request because I was like,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I can't do that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know a human being who has created dirt.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know scientists are aggressively trying to find the concoction to create dirt.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know anybody who's made a test tube tree.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we have not conceived these things.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: We research them and we look at them and we examine them,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: but there is the mysteries of the universe.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I sit in my humanness to those and bow in those awe-inspiring things and say,
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: If I can't do that, I'm not going to try to do these other things.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why do I need to?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: That is not my fight.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Not my fight.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that there is a natural human connection we're supposed to have
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: with human beings.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're supposed to allow people to help us.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it's humbling to allow people into our lives.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: To sow into us.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I think at some point we have to just stand back and to your point, trust and just believe.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think this is an interesting time to look at the opposite of that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you've had this ease of transformation when you, these moments that you've brought up.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Has there ever been like an obstacle where you look back at it and you're like,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was the transition from going from assistant to like my very first job
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: that had to do with me not being as confident as
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: In my work to put it out there even more than I had been,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: to your,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: earlier,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: it's like you have to tell people,
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: you have to talk to people, you have to ask people, it's a part of I don't know.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's something connective about asking people for help.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we're supposed to do that.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's something sometimes people don't want to ask for help.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I just think it's really important to be able to ask for help because that is my struggle.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: My struggle is asking for help.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: At some point, you have to ask people for help and they actually expect it.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: That was the learning curve.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to learn that people expect you to ask them for help.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I wasn't doing that.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: I learned, I did intuitively learn that, or I knew that.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I started to ask people more,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: but I ran into a friend who I worked for as an assistant decades later,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: and he is the most lovely human being.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he's currently a showrunner.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: And he said,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: and I worked as an assistant to all these other writers
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: who are now quite successful right now.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And they were like, we were all waiting for you to ask for help.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like,
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: oh my gosh,
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not, you know,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: People are waiting for you to ask them,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: not the other way around,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: because if they call you and say,
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: hey, I have this thing for you, you may not be ready for it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: You won't be ready.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you will say yes, and you won't want it.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: You won't be ready.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: You only have said yes because they asked.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: You always have to make the request to people so they actually know you're ready.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess the first bite I learned that lesson was when I was working as
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: a writer's assistant in the room,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: and that's how you get your bump is by getting an episode.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Who gave me the position was already treating me like a staff writer.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: I asked him for, I finally asked him for an episode.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it was my friends in the room who insisted that I ask him.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, how long have you been working with this guy?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, why haven't you asked him?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I don't know.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think I mentioned it a time or two.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, no, you need to ask this man for an episode.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and I should have.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I did.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, great.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And afterward, he was like, yeah, I was just waiting for you to ask me.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: My gosh, this goes right into my next question.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any advice for aspiring TV writers?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's your advice.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's your advice.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, have your writing samples, which I did.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: I had really wonderful writing samples that continue to get me work to this day.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: I took a lot of thought in my writing samples to make sure they were evergreen,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: they were provocative, and they had a really strong point of view.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Those take a lot of time and effort.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: You really,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: for your writing samples or even a sample that you want to get made,
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: it needs to be really, really, I mean, really strong.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to say perfect.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think perfect is the enemy of the good and the great.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think you just need to have a very strong point of view.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: You need to have a very clear theme, very clear command of your craft.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: And they do need to put, you do need to put your best foot forward.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, and then you believe in that.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: You believe in it so strongly that you're passing it out like freaking candy.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, carefully so, because you don't want people to take your stuff.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know,
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: to the right people,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: not so fearful that you just keep it to yourself and you don't let other people
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: who potentially can help you.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then ask.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Once you have it, you ask.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: You say, hey, the script.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you know, can I get this?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you ask people and you keep asking.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: That was the thing.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh, well, I asked one time.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's you keep asking.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you ask one month and go back and ask a month later,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: two months later,
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: there's a great sense of paying it forward,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I find in this business,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: but I do find everybody's really busy and really Just moving a mile a minute.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: So you do need to really push because it's not a personal thing where they're like,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't want to call them back.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: No, people are really just that busy.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the other thing that slowed me down Is that I got too comfortable.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was like working on shows and you get really comfortable and it's really hard
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: to write while you're writing on a television show.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you do like,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like I wasn't as strategic and I kind of got super comfortable
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: where I wasn't moving forward.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: And in this business, Where you are feeding yourself.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: You are your own garden.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: That means you have to constantly be tilling the ground.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: You have to constantly be putting seeds in the soil.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: You have to constantly be watering.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like I had stopped doing those things.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't plant the seeds and you don't take care of the land, you won't have a harvest.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: So now after that,
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm reminded that I constantly need to be sort of,
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: coning my craft and I need to be tending to my garden so I always have a harvest.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is great advice.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So any aspiring TV writers out there, ask for help.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Ask for what you want.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Advocate for yourself.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Have an amazing sample.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And don't get too comfortable once you get where you want to be.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Keep writing.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Keep talking to people.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Keep networking.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, as writers, it's so easy.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's so easy for us to be like,
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in my You know, bubble,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: we don't want to come out,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: but it's really important for us to continue to network,
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: continue to meet people,
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: continue to explore and expand and think about new ideas for new material.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: So Lorna, what's next for you?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: What project are you working on?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's cooking in your world?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm moving toward being a showrunner and having my own television series.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: another thing,
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: obviously,
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: you never want to consider You know, people are like, oh, the climate's bad.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, everything, this business has always been very difficult, so there are new challenges.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Again, if I'm feeling this, there's space for me.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: So whatever it is you're feeling, there's obviously space for you.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: Be strategic and think about how you're going to do it.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm writing a couple pilots,
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: but in the meantime,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really excited about launching a platform called Lorna Deer,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: and I'm on Instagram,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: Lorna, L-O-R-N-A, like the cookies if you haven't heard of them, Lorna Doon.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: But Lorna underscore Deer,
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: D-E-A-R, where I offer my advice and thoughts on life and living and love.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Also your book.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: I do want you to mention your book.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, my book.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you so much.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate that coming from you.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: You're such a prolific writer.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so impressed by you.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Becoming Bold.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote it so long ago.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think even now, I feel like I'm more bold than I was when I originally wrote it.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: But even as I was writing, it was aspirational, you know, for me.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew I had taken some very bold steps,
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: but there was more boldness yet to come, which is hence the becoming.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's something to be said, reading something of when someone is in that becoming stage.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: It is so inspiring because it feels sometimes when people are,
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: like now you're this big TV writer and like you've achieved all of this success.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're just starting,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes it feels like the canyon between where I want to be and
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: where I am now feel so large.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: I find it best to read books from people who maybe aren't there.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely check out Lorna's platform, all of her inspiring videos.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she talks about lots of things between relationships and writing,
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: all kinds of things to inspire you on your journey.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Lorna, is there anything that we didn't get to that you wanted to share?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: No, I feel like that was everything.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Always just believe.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, believe in yourself, believe in your abilities and be confident.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, don't doubt.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for this conversation.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was so inspiring.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I get goosebumps thinking about going forward with belief in yourself and
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: that trust in the universe.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: What you want, what you need is there for a reason.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: We end each episode with this very important question.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll ask you, Lorna, how do you take your coffee?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, I love black coffee, no sugar, but with a spot of macadamia and milk and cinnamon.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I tend to make my own coffee because I like the cinnamon in it.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I just like the taste of my ground beans.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just have my own thing where I really love just making my own coffee.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: And please look up Lorna and go follow her on Instagram.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, to end each episode, we take three intentional breaths together.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: There will be a theme offered each time.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take a breath of gratitude.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: As we inhale, allow the mind to wander through a few people or experiences you're grateful for.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hold the breath at the top and a long exhale.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Two more breaths.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe in, expanding the lungs.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hold it and exhale.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And one more breath.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Inhale
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: and hold it at the top
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: and a long exhale.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: May you have a day filled with gratitude.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Be well.
• 39:32
  [music]
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Jennifer with Coffee.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on Instagram at jenniferwithcoffee and on Substack.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a Kings of Content production.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Music by Oreo CC.