Wed. June 10, 2026: That Old Time Radio

image courtesy of Przemysław Krzak from Pixabay

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Waning Moon

Pluto Retrograde

Cloudy, hazy, humid

Another mid-week.

When I returned from taking out the garbage yesterday morning, Willa shot out the front door. Fortunately, I always look down going through doorways and caught her before she’d gotten more than a few feet. She was racing around, full of pep back inside, so I changed my plans and gave her a good, solid playtime to wear her out.

She has no idea she is nearly 14 years old. She thinks she is still 2.

I did a final polish on the radio series pitch and got that out the door. Whenever I send off a big project, I’m always ready for a nap. The adrenalin crash always hits fast.

However, I still had stuff to do.

That Thing closed down blocks of businesses in Manhattan who depended on the income from a major sports event, just so he could be an asshole and take a nap. It also negates the whole “ballroom is necessary.” He was booed right out of town, trying to save face with “scheduling conflicts.” That Thing shouldn’t have mucked everything up (and guess what, the Knicks lost). There’s a war on that he ignores except to lie about it. I’m tired of the grifting.

Tried to hunker down and get to work. Got a response an hour after I sent the radio series pitch from the producer saying he liked the pitch and wanted to look at the pilot. So I did another polish on that, and sent it off.

By then, it was almost lunchtime, and I hadn’t yet made the salmon salad! I did that, it was yummy (used CSA ingredients in it), and then took a break, which meant I was late getting back to tackle the ghostwriting.

Then, I heard back from the producer, who had great, specific notes on the radio play I sent him right before lunch, and is interested in producing the first season of the show (10 episodes). I’m excited. Contract terms sound reasonable, and we’ll see if we can get this done. Until everything is signed, sealed and delivered on all our parts, I can’t go into detail, but it’s a great opportunity, doing just about my favorite thing in the world. It’s not a lot of money, but it is paid (although I probably won’t be paid until each episode goes live, which would be at the earliest next year sometime). It’s not a WGA contract (WGA covers radio, rather than the Dramatists Guild), but their NY rep has always been helpful and supportive and encouraged me to ask questions on my road from smaller productions to WGA productions, so I have that support. A colleague of mine has worked with this company before, and had a great experience. There are several points in the process where it could fall apart, even after contracts are finalized, but that’s the way it goes.

Good notes are so important. I’ve found that there are three kinds of notes: the ego note, the I-would-write-it-this-way note, and the value note. The first two are useless. The ego note is the note-giver inserting themselves to put their fingerprints on a project. This happens most often in film or television, where you have a lot of people throughout the process trying to justify their jobs. There are lots of parodies of working in the business where execs give these types of notes, and you can bet that someone in the writers’ room had someone say something as off-the-wall as they scripted. It usually has very little to do with the premise, tone, and drive of the show, and more to do with the latest notion of what’s trending.

The I-would-write-it-this-way note comes in every discipline (far too often in writing groups from unpublished aspirants), and it’s the note giver liking the premise but wanting it done their way. Then write it, hon. It won’t be a copy. It’ll be your vision of the premise, and that’s perfectly valid. But don’t expect me to rewrite to your specifications if you’re not my employer.  Now, in something like the ghostwriting, it’s my job to deliver what they want in their world the way they want it. That’s why they pay me, and that’s a whole different animal. In something I’ve created, unless that person is paying me, that kind of note is too similar to the ego note to be helpful.

The value note is fantastic because of the precision and because it strengthens the piece within its world and vision. I’m lucky that I have Trusted Readers who give value notes, as do my Boiler House Poets colleagues. (I’m telling you, poets give great script notes because they are so precise with language). Those value notes, from Trusted Readers, help a piece land a contract. Then you go through a whole different set of notes during development, rehearsal, and production. So when I get a value note from a producer or a director or a dramaturg during the process, I’m always delighted, because that gives me something tangible to strengthen the piece. There are plenty of people on a production who may give the first two types of notes, too, and then you have to sift and have conversations about whose note to take. The point is, a value note is a great opportunity to strengthen the piece.

I still have another script in mind for this producer’s mid-July deadline for a different project. I’m on the fence about whether to continue with that, since I have the series and another piece under consideration with them, and this mid-July deadline is slightly out of my wheelhouse. The piece is a stretch. I still have to finish a script for the UK producer and get it out the door before the end of this month. So I guess my End of Play pages are all going to be radio, not stage. Which is fine by me.

Right after the back and forth on the radio series, I got the next set of notes from the ghostwriting client. Those are very clear and do-able, and they’re excited about what I did with the concept, and where I see it going for the next three books. I’m still wrestling the notes on the other project, which I should have done either late today or first thing tomorrow. Then, I have to turn around this other set – so, basically, 40K ghostwriting revisions in about a week, and then I can start tackling the radio series, while juggling the other two scripts and the Llewellyn article. I’ll do a few pages of a non-series script per day, and a few pages of the series script. Once I get the non-series scripts out the door, I’ll turn my attention to the Llewellyn article (which isn’t due until September 1, but I need to get it out the door in August for my own schedule). Somewhere in there, BETTING MAN has to get back into the mix, along with the I WILL BE DIFFERENT revisions and the final push on ANGEL HUNT. I’ll figure it out. It’s good to have a summer where I can do what I love.

When it gets too hot to work at home, I’ll pack up and work at the college library.

Good thing my schedule settles down after this week on the out-and-about front! Because June, July, and August are going to be about scriptwriting and ghostwriting and Nina Bell. After I get these two ghostwriting projects out the door, I have 5 more on my contract with this client (3 for one series, 2 for the other).

Yesterday was supposed to be the luckiest day of the year astrologically with Venus conjunct Jupiter in Cancer, opening doors to desired paths, so I was happy with the way things shook out.

However, one also has to go through the door and deal with what’s on the other side. If you stand in the doorway, nothing changes. You have to take action on the opportunity, knowing there are no guarantees.

So we’ll see. I’m excited and cautiously optimistic. Now, I have to buckle down and do the work.

Heated up leftovers for dinner, read in the evening. I should have done more ghostwriting, but I was out of steam by that point.

Slept reasonably well, up at the normal time. Morning routine was fine. I have a feeling I’ll be noodling the radio pieces in my morning free-write.

Today, I’ll do some script pages in the morning, but the bulk of the day is about the ghostwriting, the other 10-11K I didn’t get done on Monday. I have to take a break around 4 to trot down to Savvy Hive to get my CSA box. Greens, greens, so many greens this week!

The next few days are supposed to be hot, so I will adjust as needed. Yesterday was just a perfect summer day – clear blue sky, not too hot or humid. Not as hot as predicted. I’m hoping the entire week will turn out to be not as hot as predicted.

Have a good one!

#books #fiction #ghostwriting #notes #radio #scriptwriting #writing