751 - Assembling a Career with Erin Gibson

19:45John August:It is a Hallmark Channel show and it's second season, third season? No, that show's over. Oh, I'm so confused. I hate to tell you. I'm on a new show. All right. Does the new show have a name? Can it be announced or is it a secret? I can't talk about it, but it is an hour long that I'm putting LOLs in. It's a magical realism show. Love it. And we just got our, we don't have our cast yet. We have two cast members and they're so lovely. That's awesome. And they're so lovely. And I just love them so much. And I love talking about process with them and what I can do to make their process safe. My pilot director also was an actress for 25 years, and she's an incredible director.

20:23And she also is oftentimes on shows gets pulled on as a producing director. And we talk a lot about being actors and what it's like on the other side of the camera and what we can do to make actors' lives easier because we know those pressures and we know what it's like. And that's why I have a very strict, like, we don't objectify our actors on the set rule. Because I remember one time hearing, I was walking by Village as an actor and I heard someone saying, I think she's too tall. We need to recast. And they were talking about me. And it was brutal. I was just going, I just wanted to go 10-1.

21:00John August:Yeah. Well, Aaron, couldn't you just be shorter? Couldn't you just slouch a bit? I'm sorry. You know, you're messing everything up. Like the DP is like, the camera doesn't go that high. Put these guys on a fucking Apple box. It wasn't my problem. There's a thing that people think that actors, that they can handle this kind of stuff. And, you know, you see certain things as an actor, like, I don't know if you know about these codes that they use. They used to use in commercial auditions. And do you know about the code? Nothing. There's a code called NPE. And I feel like I heard that they also used to use them in TV.

21:33So NPE is not pretty enough. And you would, if you know the code, and then you start seeing it on your callback sheet, it fucks up your mind. because you know you're going in there, and either the producer, the director, or the studio doesn't think you're hot enough for this role. And the fact that anybody's still acting is kind of a miracle when you know this stuff, and I'm so protective of our actors, and I really want to make sure that they have a functional set and a place to do the—I mean, listen, I'm not making high art. I'm not making the next big hit. I'm making a very good TV show. That aside, it's still art to me and it's still special.

22:16And I think the time on set is so magical and wonderful. And I needed to feel that way or it's just not worth it. I mean, I'm getting three hours of sleep every night. There's got to be something else in it besides money and another thing on my IMDb page.

22:34John August:Well, let's talk about that then because we have writers who are at the very starts of their careers, they're thinking about, they have this plan, this vision for how they're going to, stuff's going to work. And I was stressing in the intro, I was like, you don't know what this is going to be. This is not a thing where you get your degree and everyone looks at your screenwriting diploma and like, oh my gosh, we need to hire this kid to write all the movies. That just doesn't happen. You don't know what the actual projects are going to be, but what you can decide is who you are going to be, what values you're going to put out there in the world.

23:03John August:And what things you will pursue and what things you will stay away from. And it sounds like the kinds of principles that you're embodying now on this new TV show is like, this is what this show is. I recognize the values of this show and I recognize what is not important. And one of your things you're stressing is like, this needs to be a good experience for the people working on the show. Which, honestly, not a lot of showrunners are talking about. It's not an easy job. It's being a bank manager. It's being a creative. it's being a set mom or dad it's putting out fires it's doing a lot of stuff i spent the last six years taking care of my boomer dad and my boomer mother-in-law and i highly recommend if you think you want to be a showrunner to have an older difficult family move in with you because it really does prepare you for this kind of situation i just think i think chaos is fun when it's when it feels like it's in the right direction i understand why showrunners get stressed out, you should never take it out on anybody around you.

24:02It's not their problem. So get a meditation routine, start smoking again, run, like coping mechanisms, right? Yeah.

24:12John August:I do some coping ahead to figure out like, this is going to be a stressful situation. The same thing happens with directors on their first thing. They go nuts because there's just too much on their shoulders and they're not ready for it. And some of that is like, it's only going to come through experience. It's only going to come through maturity through going through the process. But you can also listen to Aaron and plan a little bit ahead and write down some of your values. Like, this is not a thing I'm going to do. And hopefully don't do it. Or if you do it, apologize and acknowledge it and do better.

24:44I'm constantly apologizing. And part of it is because I'm in Canada. But really, I think it's really powerful. And sometimes I apologize, but it's not my fault because I don't care. I don't want to. It's like, I'd rather apologize and get over with. And I also always give everybody the benefit of the doubt. When somebody messes up or somebody does something that's discordant with what I want, I always give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe there's a misunderstanding. And I'm 98 % of the time right. And I didn't yell and I didn't get upset. And I didn't say like, this person doesn't understand my vision as an artiste.

25:15I just say, oh, well, the email wasn't clear or whatever. And I can mitigate most problems that way. But I always come at it from a place of, this is really hard. Everyone's stressed out. Everyone's underwater. And everyone's just doing their best. And some people are doing their worst and they never work with me again. Absolutely.

25:34John August:Some people are completely phoning it in or actively undermining the process and you need to get rid of them. But I do also, I have conversations with people like that. I will take them to a corner so everyone can see that they'll be getting a talking to. And then I say, your behavior's not okay. But I'm in a position of power so I can do that. Yeah, that's a challenge. It's hard when you're not... I mean, I have bosses above me, but I don't have to deal with them every day. It's hard. You have to eat some crow. The challenge I had on my TV show was like, while I was, in theory, the showrunner, there were people who were above me who were very closely managing everything.

26:10John August:And so I didn't have the other real power I had, not that I knew how to deal with what I did have. So that is the challenge. Well, you don't actually... Unless you're at a certain level... I mean, I don't know what percentage of showrunners actually have free reign. Very few. You'd have to be really big. Everyone else gets death by a thousand cuts. And if you know it, then you can deal with it. And this time I know it. I now know it. And so I am much better prepared to deal with this now than I was when I was 28 years old and had never been on a TV set before. So I was not ready for it at the time.

26:45John August:And trauma is, of course, just too much, too fast, too soon. And that was a classic recipe for failure and disaster. But I want to talk about happier things because... Oh. Do we have to? No. I don't want to focus on my past videos. I want to focus on good things that have happened. So you host a weekly show with Brian Safi where you get to talk through things. I also have a weekly show where I get to talk through things. I think a lot of my... It's not an education, but a foundation and a way of thinking about how I do the job I do is because I have this weekly conversation that's all about this.

27:20John August:You have a book, Feminacity, which is talking through what you think about things and is sort of putting it down in paper. Not everyone's going to host a podcast, not everyone's going to write a book about themselves, but I think it is helpful to, I don't know, just have some forum for deciding what it is you believe and what you think. And it can take a lot of different forms. It could be who you present yourself to in smaller groups. it's probably not your internet persona. You need to have some sense of who it is that you are and what is the work that you find valuable to do. I agree. And I also think experiences shape you in that way.

28:00One of my pieces of advice that I always give my writer's assistants is when you're not working, go do stuff that absolutely scares the shit out of you. Truly do things that are outside of your comfort zone because everything that we do is kind of that anyway. I mean, writing stories is diving into the abyss. So you can forge yourself that way too. I mean, John, I listen to your show every week. I'm not going to say I haven't looked up Craig's therapist to see if he's got availability. Dennis Palumbo, yes. Yes, and reading his book, by the way, that he recommended on the show. Even if you don't have that personally, like let's say you're in like another city and you're starting your writing career, your podcast is such a warm hug of like a way to feel like you have a sense of community yeah and i hope you i mean i'm sure you get listener feedback but i just want to tell you personally how much i i value the show i look at your website all the time because i don't know why i can't ever remember how to format lower thirds and um and i send all my writer's assistants to your podcast.

29:08And I mean, you're doing a great service here, not just for people's careers, but I think giving people a sense of community who live in different places and this is their dream. That's what you're fishing for, right?

29:20John August:That's exactly what I'm fishing for. Thank you. So clip that soundbite, we're 100%, we're set. Put it on the book cover. Knowing that you were coming on the show, I was looking back through previous guests where we've talked about sort of assembling a career and sort of the early things that didn't feel like they were related, but ultimately connected into the work that they were doing. We had John Hoffman on, who does Only Murder's in the Building, but he was an actor before that. And he talked about sort of how being an actor on so many different sets and working on different projects really gave a sense of like the breadth of what was there and what he wanted to do and what he really didn't want to do.

29:51John August:We had Ashley Nicole Black on several times. Oh, I love her. And like you, she was writing for herself as an actress. She was writing herself as a performer because no one else was writing stuff for her. And so she would need to write for herself. And that's how she learned how to do it. Brittany Nichols talking about she was doing all these different things, a background actor, doing web writing, variety shows, indie films, scripted television. And what strikes me is that at any given point, it might be hard to say, wait, now who are you exactly? But there's kind of a sensibility that follows and connects through all these different jobs.

30:26John August:It's that like they are funny people who bring their best work into whatever the specific medium is. and are reliable and trustworthy and smart and dedicated. And they have to be really good at writing, but they also have to be really good at sort of all of the other sort of human skills that make someone be able to pull off a project. I think about Ashley a lot because I love her sensibility. And I think when you make your own stuff, people get you instantly. When you have to tell somebody who you are, it doesn't work. Yeah, it's tough. It just never works. Yeah. So just show them. You have to show them.

31:05Show, don't tell. Yeah.

31:06John August:And what I worry about is I think sometimes the influencer culture and sort of the TikTok and like that a person who is trying to get followers on Instagram is going to contort themselves into a shape that the algorithm feeds and it's not an authentic presentation of themselves. And so we don't get a sense of what their actual voice is, what their point of view is. It's only like, if I do this thing, this gets clicks and it warps their own perception of who they are. Do you know Kurt Vonnegut's rules for writing fiction? I don't. So tell me. Okay. So I, there's one I love and it goes, if you open the door and try to make love to the world, you'll catch a cold.

31:47And I think about it all the time because that to me, Instagram is chasing fumes. But if you can really be authentic to yourself and not try to satisfy, satisfying everybody else is a losing game, right? It's never going to work and no one's ever going to be happy enough. And it's just, it's an infinite, you're on a hamster wheel. But if you make yourself happy and you do something that really, that's a joyful, and it has a little piece of your like soul and happiness in it, I think it translates to how other people experience that. That's the most special thing to me. I mean, go ahead, I guess, get a million followers.

32:23That feels so empty to me. Yeah.

32:25John August:I mean, it's valuable to a certain degree because you have a little bit of an audience. But I look at some people who, there's some very, very funny people who've gotten to the million followers by just being incredibly funny and authentic and real. And God bless them, they're killing it. And that's great. But I also see people who are trying to chase other trends and they're not that person. They're just copying a thing that they're seeing and that's not gonna work for them. It's not gonna, you're not developing your own voice by just copying somebody else. Yes, all at the start of any process, there's going to be some imitation and some copying.

33:00John August:You're going to try to do the Saturday Night Live style jokes because that's what you're used to. But you have to then move past that to find who you are. And I worry that Instagram in particular or TikTok steer people into like, you just got to hit these metrics. It also, it's like a feedback loop of like, oh, if you're doing this, you're going to get 18 other people doing this. and so it's hard in that system to even find somebody unique because it's not what the algorithm rewards. Yeah. I think of Game of Thrones because it was just such a weird idea and it was very timely, very specific. It was a role that I suppose was going to work but it was a funny idea independent of itself.

33:40John August:If it had never gone viral, it still was a funny, weird idea and you recognize that Jonathan Ness has this bizarre charisma and that with the right framing around it, you can make it work. And yeah, and I was lucky because I was working at Funny or Die at the time. So I could just be like, hey, I want to do this thing. And there was no oversight. They just, I just did it. And I was very privileged in that way. But that was, again, to your point, John, like if I had a clip on lav mic and my iPhone, I could have made that show now. And so that is the great thing about this moment is that you didn't have to have the infrastructure behind it to make that thing.

34:20John August:And so people should take those shots, but do something that's interesting and new. And I just don't chase the current trend. Don't chase. Same with dating. Don't chase. Don't chase. Can we talk about, you found a domestic life, I think early on and very smartly, and you locked that down, which is nice. Congratulations. Talk to us about that as a value in terms of someone who's thinking about their career, thinking about like, Like, I want to be happy in my personal life too. Are you talking about my dilapidated horse ranch in Santa Fe? I'm talking about that, but I'm also talking about your husband.

34:55John August:I'm talking about your family. Oh, my husband. Okay. Well, okay. I've been married twice. Yes. My first husband's a director. We're still friends. I didn't want to be married. I think in Hollywood, it's really easy to put your career absolutely first. and because I married my husband, who's also a TV writer, but he's European, he would say, you are doing too much. You are going to break and you don't need to do this. But I was chasing the thing. I was like, oh, I got some success. I got to do more. I got to do more. I got to do more. And he kind of was this influence of like, let's just, let's have a nice long dinner.

35:39Let's, I don't want you to be gone every evening. Having somebody in your life who loves you and wants to spend time with you puts work into perspective. And I feel like that sounds really shitty because I'm like, I'm in a relationship.

35:55John August:But you also prioritized that as a part of your life, which is that like, because you could have blown that off and lost that. I tried to. Yeah, tell me. I tried to break up with this person. I was like, you don't understand. I grew up poor. I need this. This is filling a hole. And he was like, the hole's never going to get filled. And I just made a decision that this relationship was more important than my job. And I have continued to make that decision with other members of my family. And I keep getting rewarded for choosing my family in strange ways that feed back into my career. So it's weird that I kind of was like, ah, this stuff isn't really that important.

36:34And yet I've chosen the important things and they make my career much more layered and interesting. And I say no to stuff now, which gives you a weird allure to say no. I don't know. It was a choice. That's for sure.

36:54John August:It's a good choice. I'd forgotten that you'd been married before, but I think of your husband as being like, well, obvious, like that is the perfect person. Like you, I locked down my person and Craig too, like locked down his person. And like it's for great success because it's spending the time and prioritizing having that relationship and having that home life makes your work life a different thing and it gives you a safety to come back to. It's just, it's nice. It's important. Well, I just think there's also a weird emphasis with playing human chess with people in Hollywood. And so it's important to love who you love and not care about what they bring to the table.

37:31John August:Yes, that's very important. You're not assembling a portfolio. You are picking someone who works well with you and sort of makes you happy. You're not hiring for your law firm. No, absolutely. Which is crucial. John, I'd like to just back up and point out another reason that you should be glad that I met my husband because my husband came with a wonderful cherubic brother with Down syndrome and a mother. He was a package deal. And his mother foolishly adopted a dog that she couldn't take care of. And we got stuck with that dog during some upheaval in our family. Not stuck with, he's an angel. But I was at a very stressful point in my life where we had too much on our plate.

38:18And we were at lunch with Brian and you said you were looking for a dog. And I said, I happen to have an extra dog who's the best dog in the world. Oh, I think Brian actually said it. He said, Erin has her mother-in-law's dog and she needs to find a home for it. And he's the best dog in the world. And do you know what that dog? where that dog lives now.

38:34John August:That dog is Lambert. That dog is, as Scribdhous listeners will know of Lambert because Lambert is the dog you see in the background of some of the videos. You'll hear him walking by in the background. He is genuinely the best dog. He's a source of such joy every day of my life. He's asleep here in the corner. I love Lambert so much. We just couldn't do it. And I saw Lambert for his birthday last year. And I'm going to reference a movie no one remembers, which is Bette Midler's Stella, where she refuses to go to her daughter's wedding at Tavern on the Green and instead stands in the rain and watches her marry the love of her life and cries in the rain.

39:12And that's how I felt like when I was watching Lambert at your house.

39:16John August:Yes. Lambert is fantastic and I'm so incredibly grateful that you brought him into our lives. We have moved to Paris. A lot of users will know that we moved to Paris in 2016 and we'd lost our dogs before then. So we came back and I sort of put out in the universe, hey, I'm looking for a dog. And then I had coffee with you guys. And you said, there's a dog. You brought Lambert over. And it's like, well, this is obviously our dog. This is the best dog. Not realizing that Lambert loves all strangers unconditionally. So it just, you know, you could have brought him to anyone. And they were like, well, this is our dog.

39:49John August:He's a great dog. We're very, very lucky. He's so perfect for your household. We call him Orphan Annie because he went to live with... Yeah, we're the daddy warm bucks. He got out of our slummy house. So Meredith also knows Lambert, knows how wonderful talk he is. I love Lambert. And I didn't put it together. I knew there was an origin story like this. I didn't realize it was Aaron. All right, let's answer some listener questions. Who do we want to start with, Meredith? Let's start with Billy. Okay. Billy writes, apropos of your recent discussion about daydreaming, I have a question about what's a reasonable amount of ideas in the bank and how to prioritize them.

40:31I'm working out a spec TV drama that I'm very excited about. It's fresh, it moves me when I think about the story, and it has a kernel of momentum towards getting produced. But it's the most recent story I want to tell. I have 14 others on my office whiteboard, features and TV, at least half of which aren't complete shitty ideas. My question is, how do you address the idea bank when you haven't been produced?

40:57John August:I don't know that being produced changes the idea bank. Like I have a list, like I keep a notion of like 40 different things that are sort of like ideas that are out there that are some point I could write, but I probably won't write. Erin, how about you? Do you have that list? I have the list. I have the list. I make it a priority. I'm not allowed to add anything to the list till I finish something on the list. Otherwise it's haunting me in my dreams. Yeah, that's fair too. I would say to Billy that it's good that you're thinking about a lot of different things. What you may discover is that those ideas us will conspire with each other and to try to get more brain cycles.

41:34John August:And you realize like, oh, these are actually kind of the same idea or they want to work together or that thing that doesn't really work about that idea actually works better than this idea. So it's good that your mind is thinking about stuff, but also be careful of the grass is always greener problem because that other idea is always so much more tempting than the actual difficult thing you're writing because you're not writing that one. You're like, it's fresh and wonderful because it's like, Like it's the beautiful person over there at the cafe versus the actual challenging relationship that you're in right now.

42:03So recognize that that's the reality. Don't cheat on your current project.

42:10John August:Don't, don't, don't, don't. I was talking though with a writer yesterday at Coffee. Similarly, like a writer who I just, I thought she was fantastic and I wanted to get coffee. So we got coffee. And she was talking about very much like she has like this main thing when she knows that I need to write at some point, but all the other things feel like cheating when she goes off because they're easy versus like this one idea is hard. And that's actually okay too, is to know that you have this main thing, but like sometimes those little flings you have with the other projects can be good at reminding you, like they're vacations from the work that is your main thing.

42:46John August:Along these lines, Aaron, I want to talk about what things are you writing just for yourself versus writing for other people or other things you're doing to keep yourself creatively satisfied that may not be your main STEM idea? Yeah, I'm fueled by hatred. So when I get bad network notes or network notes I don't agree with, I blow off steam by writing something for me. And I've finished three scripts that way. And so I write stuff that is, I mean, what we were talking about earlier, that are exactly in my voice. I am really into, I'm a sci-fi fan and I always wanted to try something that felt like a feminist sci-fi piece.

43:26So honestly, not even with the intent of selling it. I just wanted to do it so I have an hour long and see what it looks like on paper as an exercise. And it's so fun. It's so fun when it's just for me, but it's not something, it's just genre. It's like genre cosplay for me of like, oh, can I even do this?

43:45John August:Yeah, which is great. And again, it's that same spirit of experimenting like you did at the start of your career is like try things. And like the lovely thing about being a writer is that we can just do stuff. We don't have to get Bill's permission to do anything, to do it. So Billy, don't worry about your idea bank. I would just say keep it. And like, it's fun to sort of go back and revisit it and remind yourself of these friends you made at camp that you might strike up a relationship with, but like don't get so obsessed with it that you don't do your main project. Meredith, another question we could answer.

44:17Yeah, this one comes from Laura from Orange County. Laura writes, I'm a writer who's a bit newer to the scene because I started out as an actress. I've written some short films and also have co-written with my writing partner, a web series, a pilot, and I'm working on a couple of feature films. You give advice about handling the relationship with agents and managers, but I'm still unsure how to find either one for a new writer. I have a pitch deck for our pilot. I have a YouTube channel with my web series. But how do I find an agent or a manager? I've heard agents find you, and I should start with a manager.

44:50Where can I find a list of people to approach or email?

44:54John August:Yes, this is like a fundamental question. I think we actually try to answer this in episode one or two of Script Notes. And so it's a fun way, like, where do you start? And there's not a list, you can walk through a list, but you kind of make your own list and you can sort of reach out to people. We had the two writers of K-Pop Demon Hunters on the show recently, and they were talking through how systematic they were about reaching out to people. and they would send out like 30, 40, 50 emails a week to a targeted list sort of showing like these are the things and they wouldn't get a very high response rate, but like they got some response rate and they would send stuff through and they were smart and they were thorough and they would do it.

45:32John August:What I would say though is like, that needs to be a part of your job. It can't be your full-time job. You still need to keep writing new stuff, find ways to put stuff out there and get it going. But it's not like, the cold calling is not likely to succeed, but sort of putting the energy out there that you're looking for somebody, a manager, an agent, any one of those things will be a start. Getting to a producer, honestly, is probably even a better idea. Someone who makes the kind of thing that you're trying to do because then you're starting a conversation with them and you can back into, hey, I'm looking for a manager.

46:06John August:I'm looking for an agent. Do you have recommendations? Because managers and agents are going to be much more likely to respond to a producer who's buying things then to a writer who's trying to sell themselves. Erin, talk to us about your experience with agents and managers and the writers you're hiring onto your show. How did you get your reps? How did they get their reps? Do you know? My manager is my first writing partner's sister and she was a school teacher when she was managing us and then she became a manager. So that's unorthodox. She's still my manager. I have been through several agents.

46:38I've been at big agencies that I, It's not my culture is the nice way to put it. But I don't have an agent right now and it's fine with me. I have a great lawyer. I agree with you, John. Like finding producers who you align with is so powerful. I sold three projects through one production company because I love working with them and I'm so aligned. That's such a winning formula for getting stuff done. And then I get recommended to agents through people I work with on projects. That's cool. That's cool.

47:10John August:That's nice. That's cool. Rep sort of feels like, okay, it's a validation that you're real and people pay attention to you. But honestly, you're still doing a lot of that work yourself. You're still like, you know. You're still doing the writing. You're still doing the writing. And honestly, you're sometimes just doing the connections or they may have like set you up for that first meeting, but it's really you doing all the work to sort of like build and maintain those relationships. Reps aren't doing that for you. So listen, I think focus on making things and working with people who can make things and you'll find a way to get to reps who can help connect you to other stuff.

47:42John August:I understand why everyone wants that sort of sense of validation that there's a real, like that you're bonafide, that you've made it, you've crossed some sort of Rubicon, but it's not that important. I continue to get jobs through word of mouth or people bringing me in or friends helping me out. And these producers, I have two production companies who I love and I just bring them everything. Now that we have a relationship, I just bring them everything. Do that. Do that. Find people, again, like your writing partner's sister, like it's somebody who like, who trusts, who don't dread talking on the phone with them.

48:16John August:And that's winning. And as long as they can actually do the outreach they need to do, as long as they can function like a manager in terms of reaching out and cold calling and having no shame, then that's a manager. I would rather work with somebody who is passionate and likes me, who maybe isn't like a marquee name, than work with a marquee name who, it's lipstick. Yeah. Meredith, another question we could answer. All the way from New York, tired of myself, writes, I am my own worst enemy. Despite being a playwright for many years now, I'm still struggling to steward my own emotions during the writing process.

48:57First, I walk around panicking that I'll never figure out my idea. Then, I convince myself all that panic actually killed my idea before I had a chance to grow. If I miraculously get past that phase and I'm working on a first or second draft, I panic that today might be the day I destroy the whole thing. When I feel off about a choice I made, I have trouble distinguishing between paranoia and writerly intuition. So here's my question to you both. How do you deal with the internal weather of being a writer? What have you learned over the years about how to cope and find due north again?

49:32John August:Wow. Yeah. Erin, start us off. I don't know if this will apply to this person. But I remember early days, I had a friend who told me, do you know how many people are out there doing something you're better at just because they have more confidence? And it did destroy me. I remember that. And there's so many fake-at-tell-you-making people who were just out there killing it in the biz. This is less of a psychological answer because I don't know how you deal with that level of internal turmoil. I have different things inside of me. I'm not working hard enough is my problem. So I will go the other ways, but I've never had, I can't get started.

50:15Mine's I can't stop. So I don't know. Yeah.

50:20John August:I resonate with parts of this question because there are times where I feel like I have overthought a thing or I've overworked it and like, I've ruined a thing. I've moved past a lot of my self-doubt and my sort of like self-bad talk. What I would stress for our questioner is to think about just actually writing the thing because it feels like so much of your anxiety is anticipatory, that you're thinking about the process. Like, this is going to go bad if I do this thing and this is the problem. But by all accounts, you're probably a pretty good writer. So maybe just try writing the thing. Maybe just try sitting down at a desk and writing some scenes and take the pressure off that it has to be perfect.

50:59John August:See what it feels like if it's just okay. There was a video, we'll try to find a link and put in the show notes, where Zach Kregor is talking about, I think it's like, imagine that like a crappy intern has to write this script and just like, let yourself be the crappy intern who just has to get the first draft done and give yourself permission for it to not be great. And giving yourself that permission, get that thing done because you can improve something that exists. You can't improve something that never existed. So just try to just get through that first thing. Listen, there are writers who, I think vomit too easily and just like put stuff out and they show their vomit and like it's just bad writing.

51:37John August:But there's also writers who could really benefit from just caring a little bit less about that first step and not getting so in their head and just letting the thing exist and be the way it wants to be. And let it be easy. There's no stakes. Yeah, there's no stakes. At that point. There's no stakes. It's just you and your MacBook. Did you have Kay Cannon on the show? We've not. She's a terrific writer, but no, she's not been on the show. She came on our show, not to brag, but so I win. But she came on our show and she talked about how she does a vomit draft. And so she does a thing where she won't even stop.

52:11There's no questions. So she just keeps going. And then she'll go back the next day and say, okay, well, this obviously doesn't work. But, oh, I like this. And because she didn't stop herself, she gets these really wonderful, magical things that come out of her brain. because she's just fully free to just do whatever.

52:31John August:I like that. And Paul and Lucia were on talking about hacks recently and they were talking about how they set a timer for like 12 minutes and each separately go off and write a scene and they come back together and they're just like copy and paste and see what each of them did. And setting a clock may be a good idea for this writer because just like a different kind of pressure may like in a weird way lessen the other pressure. So they're only thinking about like, oh, I only have 10 minutes to knock out a first draft of this thing, of the scene could help. It's worth it trying some different things because clearly whatever they're doing right now is not working for them.

53:02John August:So experiment. Again, what Erin said, the stakes could not be lower. I will say something too, which might actually activate this person's anxiety, but maybe it won't. I've ushered two parents into the afterlife and I have been very close to death in the last five years. And nothing makes you feel like everything is absolutely possible than being alive and having the gift of knowing that it's going to be over one day. So I don't know if that will crush you into an existential crisis, but I do think about it. Like, why not? Yeah. Why not now? Yeah. Why not now? Why not me? Why not this idea? Again, try.

53:40John August:Just go. All right. It is time, Aaron Gibson, for our one cool things. My one cool thing is Lambert related. So I think you remember about Lambert is Lambert has the strongest teeth of any dog in the world and will destroy anything you give him. And so he won't ruin things in the house. He'll chew on pillows sometimes, but he's generally a really well-behaved dog. But any dog toy you give him will be destroyed instantly. Except we have a new one. This is the Tuffy Tug-O-War Dog Toy. It looks like two red donuts with sort of a hyphen in between it. And he loves it. He loves to play tug-of-war. You can pull and pull and pull and it won't rip apart.

54:20John August:He can chew on it. It won't be destroyed. So literally, as long as I've known Lambert, We've never had a toy that can sort of sit out other than like a nylon bone or some sort of rubbery thing, which they really shouldn't be eating. This is the one. And so if you have a dog who just destroys any toy you give them, I would say try the Tuffy Tug-O-War dog toy available wherever you buy dog toys. It's solid. It's great. I'm so happy that we finally found this one. I'm happy for him. Yeah, he loves it. He genuinely loves it. He'll bring it in from another room to play. Mine is a painter, Agnes Pelton.

54:57She's a desert transcendentalist, or was, rather. Do you know her?

55:01John August:I know, but I'm excited to hear about it. Okay, so I got full body feel when I saw her artwork for the first time. She's been rediscovered. She was rediscovered in the 80s, but unfortunately died very unknown and kind of came up with this incredible ethereal way of painting. So I'm looking at this right now on the web. It's gorgeous. Stunning. Okay, I will steal this quote from the observer because they nailed it. Quivering biological forms and soft beams of light. That's what it is. And she kind of came, I'm living in New Mexico full time, so it's the number three art market in the US. So I get exposed to a lot of art now.

55:41And she's one of these artists that had done all the stuff. She went to Pratt, she went to Italy, blah, blah, blah, but didn't really nail her passion until she came to Taos and saw the light. The light there is some of, and there's similar light in Colorado, but it's just a very special quality of light. And then she created this way of painting and then died. And all of her paintings went into a junk shop and her friend came upon them. They were marked down like$7 and bought all of them and preserved them. And that's why we have them.

56:14John August:Incredible. I mean, had I never seen her art, I guess I would have never known, but you must see them in person. They're quite large. I think there's some at the Whitney. LACMA had a desert transcendentalist exhibit last year, but they go around. So if you see them, you have to see them in person there. Absolutely, you will get body quivers seeing them. They're so stunning. I love them. And they do look great. So as I'm looking through the stuff. And so Wikipedia, like, so she, again, she died in 1961. So it's very early on. So for it to be rediscovered later on, it's fantastic. Great. I know it's bad to say art on a podcast, but I did it.

56:51I don't care. Break the rules.

56:52John August:It's fine. Oh, I also have a second one cool thing. It's called The Wax Child. There's this bookstore in Canada that brings these books in from Europe. This is translated from, I don't know. I feel like this is so up your alley. All right. Anyway. So pitch us The Wax Child because it's a how would this be a movie or this is an adaptation waiting to happen. Please somebody make this into a movie because I actually think it's too scary for me to even read. Okay, I'll read the back of the book. In 17th century Denmark, unmarried noblewoman Christine Zekrukal and several other women are accused of witchcraft.

57:28They are rumored to be possessed by the devil who comes to them in the form of a tall, headless man and gives them dark powers. It is said they perform unchristian acts and can steal people's happiness, cause pestilence, illness, or even death. And once the rumor of witchcraft takes hold, they are all in danger of the stake. narrated by a wax doll.

57:48John August:Yes, exactly. So on your podcast, you're reading that first paragraph, basically, which is like from the point of view of the wax doll and what the wax doll was. I'm like, I am so creeped out. Oh, it's so... You don't have time for this. This is the first sentence. I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and fingernail pairings from the person who is to suffer. I fucking love it. I cannot read one more book about someone's missing husband. I need this weird shit. I was going to send you this book because you can't get this in the States.

58:25John August:It's Canada only. That is our show. The script is produced by Meredith Stedman with help from Lauren Loesberg. It's edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our outro this week is by Matt Gillespie. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com. That is also a place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts at johnaugust.com. The Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books. Script Notes merch is available at Cotton Bureau. If you'd like to see us, not just listen to us, follow us on YouTube and Instagram. If you'd like to read us, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

58:59John August:Most of all, thank you to our premium subscribers. You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net where you get all the backup episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on living and working outside of Los Angeles. But most crucially, Aaron Gibson, thank you for being on the show. Please listen to Attitudes because you get to have Aaron and Brian every week being very, very funny. And talking about the important issues of the times. Yeah, maybe it makes things not as sad. Question mark? Question mark. Well, also, it's not only do you get like, you know, the main feed, but you can also subscribe to the premium feeds and you can go back and learn about groceries.

59:35John August:You can learn about the other thing you're doing. We do a show about grocery stores. That's, I'm telling you, live your weird dreams, everybody. If you want to dig into the archives, you can also learn about dolls or Dateline Recaps. Thanks, John.