Studio 60 makes me want to write (and other thoughts)

It’s ironic I guess that I’m surrounded right now by things that make me want to write, or force me to, somehow or another, and I can’t find any real inspiration.

Studio 60 is in its first season, and it hasn’t been doing as well as it probably should be doing, so it’s getting shelved next week for another show. My guess would be that it’s down for the count. But the episode I’m watching write now (last week’s) is a lot about writing.

Matthew Perry (yep) plays a character named Matt (yep) who is the lead writer for a sketch comedy show like SNL. In this episode there’s a lot of back story (or exposition) about how Matt started writing sketches that made it on the air.

There’s about twenty or thirty minutes of him hustling around with a legal pad, scratching sloppy sketches on to the paper and foisting it into people’s faces, trying to get an opinion or a laugh or a spot in the show.

It’s the kind of dramatized sequence that’s supposed to make you want to do it, and it totally works on me. I feel like applying for staff writer positions on a sketch comedy show. Who knows, maybe I could make SNL not suck again.

I’m also taking a screenwriting class, which means I’m writing a feature length screenplay this semester (it sucks so far). My journalism class makes me want to run around and be a journalist, but not enough to actually do it. I’m pitching a book to a publisher right now, which I hope goes forward. More writing.

Gosh I hope I’m good at it.

Also, I’m using parentheses way too much right now. It’s a phase.