Take 148 - Showrunner and Novelist Craig Thomas, How I Met Your Mother and That’s Not How It Happened

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts literature.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

For every success, there is sometimes even years of failure.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Like everything in our business, your hands have opened it.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I was being told by my badger. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

As ever, I am Dan Rutstein, your non-entertainment co-host.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

And I am your still in the entertainment industry co-host Noah Evels. But man, what a brutal year it's been for every single one of us. Um on today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, we're thrilled to welcome back Craig Thomas. He's obviously well known for co-creating the Emmy Award-winning TV series How I Met Your Mother. But he's also worked on such shows as The Goodwin Games and The Late Show with David Letterman, amongst many others. And more recently, he's used his comedy chops to write a big heart, big-hearted novel titled That's Not How It Happened, which follows a family turned upside down after Hollywood decides to make a movie version of their lives.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Welcome, Greg. Thank you guys for having me back. I I appreciate it. I've missed you desperately. What took so long? It's been years. We never talk, we never hang out. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, no, it's Ham So Salais. It's funny how we invite you on the podcast, we don't hear from you, and suddenly when you're trying to shill your book, we should get back from you.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

It's really it's it's incredibly mercenary and disgusting. It's true. I'm I'm the problem. I just realized I'm the problem in our relationship, and I apologize.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Um, so obviously, you know, we we'll ask you about the book, not just because you've told us we have to or you won't appear. Um just just a quick one in general. Um, obviously, you know, Noah alluded to it because um it has been a tough year, and not just uh because he's not working at the moment, or at least he's not on a show at the moment, but as somebody in the industry, and obviously you're still very much in the industry, like what what is it like out there for you in terms of both searching for opportunities, but also uh when you meet up with your uh previous colleagues and friends who you've worked with in a in the pub or whatever Americans do. Um and you know, what like what what's the chat? What's the word on the street?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

We also go to pubs. I don't see let's let's build bridges here, let's build bridges, Dan. Uh between the re you know, it was a long time ago, the Revolutionary War, we're all friends. Uh we so yeah, look, it it's horrible out there from what I can tell. I mean, I for just speaking speaking from for myself, I wrote a book uh to not have to be fully immersed in how hard it feels in TV right now and film. But since I've mostly worked in TV, the I like I needed a break from that. I don't want to use the word, I don't want to say I'm retired, uh, it sounds very, very old. But I did step out of that world to write a book so that the fate of what I was creating wasn't at the mercy of this giant machine that seems to be failing. And and the gears of our of it are grinding and they're grinding people up a little bit. And I I I needed to take a break from that. It really is tough. And to speak to the other part of it, uh, I am, you know, I'm 50 now. And uh thanks for the birthday cards, by the way, guys. Um I thought it meant something our my previous time on the show, but obviously not. Uh no, I I turned 50 a couple months ago and it I had this moment, and no, I don't, I never guess anyone's age anymore or pretend they're my contemporary, but maybe you'll relate to this, where I can simultaneously think how bad the business feels right now, and yet realize I have I had such better opportunities than people who are in their 20s and 30s now trying to break in and trying, or they've they got in and now they've been kicked back out. They're trying to get back in, or they're trying to see how it can continue. I have such sympathy, empathy, I have and I have such gratitude and guilt for how many good opportunities I had when I was 25, when I was 30, when I was 35. And um God, I wish people people come to me in their 20s and 30s and say, Hey, I like how I'm at your mother. How do I break in now? And I tell them the story of how I broke in. And the ending of that story is nothing I just said is particularly helpful to you because it's changed so much that I don't know if I've wasted five minutes of your time even telling my story. It's so different now. Do you do you feel that way now, or where you're like, I don't even know how to describe how I got into the business and had a bit of a career there for a while to people now who are like 25. Do you do you what do you feel?

SPEAKER_04 5:43

I've been I've been doing a uh a lot of mentoring in in all my free time I have right now, you know, a few different organizations asked me to come in and speak uh as either be a full on mentor or just give like a menti lunch. And it's before we we could give them advice that that actually maybe gave them a path or discussed possible paths, and now you don't want to just be completely depressing to everyone saying there is no path, but it's more like, hey, maybe you have to focus on regional markets for now, because the thing known as Holly, if you're like a writer that's working in South Dakota, write your South Dakota small thing you can make there because it's such a difficult market. But I, you know, we'll we'll get some get deeper into this as we go along. Uh, but yeah, I'm 100% with you. And also, by the way, exactly your contemporary. I have a birthday 50th birthday coming up uh in a couple of months.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Hey, happy birthday. Okay, good. I'm glad I was in my mind, I was like, we seem similar. I don't know. I feel like I never know.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Uh yeah. So obviously, this is this is obviously uh on audio, but for for if you could see these people, uh Craig doesn't look a day over 48, and Noah looks like he's nearer 60 than 50. Um, so uh you actually sort of answered, I'm gonna have to ask it anyway, but uh you you sort of answered a bit my question about the why you wrote the book. So we've had this before on the show where we've had people. I think uh in the advice part of the show, people have said in today's world, just if you're if you're not getting anywhere, just make something yourself. Like that's the advice for for young filmmakers and so on. But actually, I think actually it was Eric Lasalle when we had him on. He one of the reasons he became a writer was he was fed up having to wait to find the right script to to be in sport. This is obviously slightly different because you're just you know, you've switched to a different side of the business because you're a bit fed up with it. I mean, is it really that simple that you did the book for that reason, or did you sort of feel like you had a book in you and it just happened timing-wise that it worked?

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Uh it's more complicated than that, as everything is. I, you know, I'm I'm the parent of a child with a disability. And I always wanted to work, I tried for years to work that into my um TV writing and my film writing. My son is 18 now. It's been such a huge part of my life. He was born during the run of How Much a Mother. I could never quite figure out how to write about that huge part of my life on that show. A show that featured two characters, ostensibly based on my wife and I, but I I never kind of got up the guts to really tackle any part of that actual specifics of that part of my life on that show. After that show, I thought I felt some regret about that. I felt some like, ah, it would have been interesting to try to write about that. I it's such a huge part of my life. I'm gonna write a TV pilot, another TV pilot, a movie, this. And Carter Bays and I have tried for years, who co-created How Much Your Mother with Me, um, to write stuff about that in TV and film. And the frustration of that never going anywhere is also part of what led to the book, which is just to say, as writers, we have to, there's this aspect where we're writing to make money, it's our career, but there's also, it is true that it's where your emotional content comes out. There's something therapeutic about it. There is some, there's some kind of catharsis that hopefully happens in your writing. It doesn't always have to be 100% literal. The thing I'm going through is the thing I'm going to write. What I was going through having my son during How Much Mother came out in other ways during How Much Mother. But then I really wanted to tell a story about this huge part of my life that I was effectively researching for 18 years. I was raising this kid for 18 years, meeting all of these people, having all these experiences. I thought, this is my material, this is what I want to say, this is what I want to talk about. And I just, the door just stayed closed in TV and in film when it came to that subject. Maybe I don't want to entirely blame Hollywood on that. Maybe my approach, my, maybe our approaches just weren't in the right place at the right time. But by the end of a bunch of years of trying to work that in Hollywood, I thought I want to write a book instead so that I get to tell the story on my terms. And the finished product is words on a page, and it's the story I want to tell. And hopefully I can get that into the world uh on paper at the at the least. And there is this aspect of Hollywood in my book, which is also another meta layer of me wrestling with how do I interface my actual life experience with Hollywood.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

Eventually I'm gonna get to the question, but uh, we're gonna get there, which is like, has the move, has the book, which is about a screenwriter making a movie of their life, been optioned into a movie so it gets to become even more meta? Like I've there's so many layers.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

It's so weird. It has not as of yet. And I would be open to it. I fear that some people could read the book and think, like, ah, this guy would never want to make a movie of this because the the book itself is about the bastardization of this sort of fun house mirror that the movie becomes of a real life experience. And it would it would be very Russian nesting dolls, like a book about a movie about a movie about a book about a book about a movie if it actually got made into a movie. But I also think that would be the fun challenge of making it into a movie and why it would maybe be super cool. It's like a cry, it's a Ghostbusters crossing the streams thing. Either it would save the day or destroy the universe as we know it. I don't know which one would happen, but it would be could only be one or the other.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

I think maybe we could use a Ghostbusters crossing streams reset of our entire industry. But I, you know, this is and a planet, perhaps. And the planet and our existence. I I have a question which might verge on a really depressing answer. Something we were talking about to give context to people listening before we got on was that, you know, you know, for those of you for fans of the podcast, Dan and I haven't put out a podcast for a little while. And one of the reasons we haven't put out a podcast is it's really depressing. It's not as depressing to talk about failures when people are succeeding in a booming business. It's a little depressing to talk about failures when you're in the middle of a Great Depression and everybody's failing all around you, and there's not as much hope, you know, insight. But I do want to back up to sort of the the edge of our Great Depression. We I I hope you guys go back and listen to the first episode we had with Craig, who was a more typical episode where he talks about his journey, the creation of how I met your mother, some of the struggles in that show, some of the successes in that show, and kind of what happened shortly thereafter. So something I'm super curious about, though, for you, Craig, in your life, and we're gonna come back to your book again because it ties in, because you you you stepped out on Hollywood using your words, um, is like you create a show that's an Emmy Award-winning show, and yes, Hollywood is contracting and there's some challenges after that show ended, but uh I'm just curious, like like what happens next for someone in your position with Hollywood, you know, wanting to feed its own beast, wanting to have their their creators of Create Hit Shows create more hit shows for them? Like, like what was what was your opportunities like? Uh, you know, I know there was a spin-off maybe after the spin-off or during that time. Like, do people come to Craig Thomas and your writing partner to be like, make us 10 new shows? Or are you hat in hand like the rest of us? And every new pitch is like a blank slate where they forgot about all the successes and they don't care. And they're like, Well, you know, no.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And I would I have a few answers to it. But for I want to hit pause for one second and just say, I think it's it's as or more important to talk about failure when we're all kind of in it. I think I think your show is still a public service, maybe in a different way. Maybe it's harder to do and weirder to do when the industry is in such a contracted, uh, you know, uncertain time. Um, but I think I think there's real value to talking about that. It's very therapeutic. I think, I think people are having a really hard time right now. We all had these dreams. We all have these things we want to communicate. We want to feel like there is at least some, we want to feel like it's only a long shot and not impossible. Right? It's always been a long shot. I feel like when we broke in Noah, it was a long shot and now it feels borderline impossible. I don't think it's impossible. Cool work still finds a way through. It has definitely gotten harder. Um, to answer your question about what it was like right after how I'm at your mother, and like whether people, you know, are there doors swinging open? And what does it feel like? What I discovered, and this does relate to my book, and this does relate to what I said about our attempts to write a couple um sitcom pilots about that that included the aspects of disability. That's a good example because what people wanted out of Carter and I was another How I Met Your Mother, right? We signed a deal with Sony after How Met Your Mother ended to do like a development deal. I think it was for like three years. Um and we spent a couple of years trying to find some balance in our development slate. Like it was Carter, myself, and a development executive who's great, Brian Bachrath, who now helps run like the Walking Dead Empire. He's like, he's a great, he had been an executive and he was a pr on the producer side. Now he's like more on the producer side of that. Um, and we just we had a couple of years of trying to balance, let's give things that Sony feels it can sell to people, to buyers who want a how I met your mother of their own, that that's that still feel like there's something interesting about them. It's not just us aping our past selves. It's not just effectively to try to find a way to make it cool and but also try new things. Um it didn't feel like there was as much of an appetite for the try new things part. For example, a show one of my favorite pitches under that development deal was a show that included an aspect of disability. There was an aspect of exploring being the parent of a complicated child on that show. Spoilers, it did not sell. The ones that were more like how I met your mother did sell and get shot and then didn't get on because in the end, we weren't as excited about those. And I think maybe it showed in the in the final product. And what I realized at the end of that deal, which I quit a year early because I was feeling so creatively stuck in it, is that what the the mission felt so blurry by the end. Are we trying to redo How I Met Your Mother? Are we trying to find, you know, there's a great quote about TV, like TV is everyone running to the place where lightning just struck. And you go, I don't know who said that, but it's a good one. Uh and you just go, well, you can't really do that. And, you know, and again, a couple years after that Sony deal, 20th came to us and said, Hey, we want to reboot How I Met Your Father. And they had writers lined up and they had a star lined up, and they're like, it had been kind of concocted mathematically, like, this should work. The algorithm says this will work on Hulu. And it didn't. Um, you know, it didn't in the end. And we, Carter and I weren't particularly involved with that. We wished them the best. We wanted it to work for that team. There's a lot of nice people on there, but it didn't end up feeling quite like its own compelling new universe, I guess, that was welcoming a huge audience into it. It just didn't connect in that way. Um, so it's just an interesting study. Like it's what you said, Noah. Like your advice, like, go make, or maybe Dan was saying it, like telling young people, like, just go make your own cool, weird thing in North Dakota or wherever, whatever, wherever you are, and just hope that the specificity of that thing is your calling card rather than trying to be like something else. And there are the tools now. Unlike when we were in our 20s, Noah, you can very cheaply make and edit your own stuff and have some, at least some flicker of hope it can find an audience online. I do think that DIY aesthetic is much more appealing. It's certainly why I went and wrote this book. Um, I'm doing a How much Mother Rewatch podcast with Josh Radner. There's something about just making our own little podcast that feels really good. That empowerment of like this final product is the thing we made. It's not part of some bigger machine machine, it's this little thing. And I think that is that reminds you of what creativity really feels like.

SPEAKER_04 17:37

Is it satisfying? Uh uh, and I've and by the way, uh, I don't think I've ever done this. And I'm I'm I'm not gonna remember, I don't remember the name of it, and I don't even remember the details of it. What I do remember, Craig, is you wrote one of the best short stories I've ever read uh two years ago. And I think it's about like the QA of an F of like a of a medicine model or something. Yeah, you're right. Asking questions about for her own child, and it's just such a unique format. I'm gonna post it when we when we announce this podcast and we put it in, you know, I tweet about it. Thanks, Noah.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

I really appreciate that. I remember you writing me a really nice mess nice message at that time. The story was called Questionnaire, and it was published in the Iowa Review, and it was definitely like the opening of the door that led to me writing this entire novel. Um, because it is that short story is of in and of itself about being the parent of a complicated child with a disability. There's like a sci-fi kind of um speculative fiction element about that short story, whereas my book is a comedy, a dramedy uh about a family. It's a very different tone, the two. But that short story is one of my favorite things I've ever written. Like that, my novel, and how I met your mother are like my three favorite things I've ever done. And so I really appreciate you remembering that and bringing that up. I love more people to to give that to the story.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

If you don't give, I I'd love it to link that. Like to actually, if you could send me the link so I could post it with this podcast so people can read it.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Yeah, I will.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

I'm actually writing, this is kind of a personal question connected to your question, is like I was and I was talking to a friend about it. I'm writing my third or fourth novel. My first three I never even attempted to publish, my fourth one now. I'm maybe send it out to people. But it's like so cool. It's such a different feeling when you're writing, knowing that every word is go is important and is going to be read in a way that our screenplays are read, but they're not meant to be read. Totally. Totally. I'm jumping ahead of our story because like just that feeling where your book is is is out there, your short stories are out there, people are responding to your words and your stories. What is that emo what does that feel like emotionally to you?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

I I was deeply terrified about it because there's nowhere to hide, right? There's no larger team you collaborated with that that made this. There is, in the sense that you have amazing editors at Harper Collins, the whole team at Harper Collins was amazing. Uh, my assistant, Elliot Connors, is like was like my first editor before we sold that. He was amazing on the book. So you do have people, but this is the most solo thing I've ever done, right? This is the most just me thing. And I was so scared putting it out in the world, especially because it is about this very vulnerable subject to me, being the parent of my son. And it's inspired by that. It's it's about it's a different family, it's fiction, but there's a lot of me and my family in there. Um and I I wanted, I was scared because I wanted other people in the disability community to A, not think I got it terribly wrong, because I would hate to get it wrong and make anybody feel bad or make anybody feel like I'm saying I'm the expert and everyone's experience is this. No, I'm I'm writing it very specifically as my own experience of being the parent of a kid with a disability. But I my hope is that the specificity is what's universal. But B, I also wanted that community to like it and embrace it. And then I want, and I'll add C, C, I was hoping that the book is really just about a family and that any family anywhere would see themselves in this family, even though it's a specific family. And all of those a all of those things seem to be happening in the month the book's been out, or a month and a half. I'm getting a it's it's the nicest response in some ways I've ever gotten anything I've I've ever written. Because on How I Met Your Mother, it was like one week half the audience hated the episode, you know, or half the people that I'm not gonna say the word audience, half the audience members who go online and post what they think about TV episodes, which is a very self-selecting group, and I need to remember that, and we all do. But those half of the people would hate one episode and the other half would love it, and the next week that would switch. And that happened for 208 episodes. Uh and there's some because TV is so weird, right? It's it's this big collaborative beast and it airs to millions of people, and people weigh in and they've all got takes. The book is sm the response is smaller, and the sales are obviously smaller than a TV audience. But the connection I feel when people are reaching out to me, having read this book, it is. Is a deeper connection, I think, than anything I've ever experienced in terms of published work of any medium. So it's it it was terrifying and then it's been incredibly gratifying. I'd say that's been the arc so far.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Can I ask I'm gonna ask two questions? One is I I think it's controversial, but it's maybe a difficult question, and then the second one is more just about writing uh process. So the first one it's quite a broad topic. Disability in entertainment. Um so obviously there are plenty of examples of disabled characters in TV, film ad heroes and so on, but also there are I imagine, and I don't know how many more scripts that never made it because some executive decided that it's the wrong disability or the wrong type of disability or it won't play well or whatever it is. I mean, yeah. I was thinking you know there's blind superheroes, but uh not very many people have heard of Jacobson syndrome. So in terms of how that works, like you would have, I imagine, done lots of research and you're involved in this in a different way. What what is your view on historic use of disability in TV and film and what maybe is is wrong with it uh from a point of view where you obviously have very specific personal knowledge?

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Yeah, um it's interesting because you hear people in the people with disabilities saying, I hate how inspiring so much of it is supposed to be. It's but like growing up, we we all grew up with the like the feel-good movie. Like I think sometimes uh disability is kind of sanded, the edges are sanded down to be something palatable and inspiring and feel-good, some story of overcoming this or inspiring or transcending that. And there's obviously so much more to it. It's and and those stories are rarely comedic or satirical or you know, things I'm trying to do in my book while also being respectful and and I hope poignant there's a lot of uh heart in the book. It's not like a spiky the this the comedy of my book is not particularly edgy or sure or uh off-putting in that way. But I do hope there's a point of view in the book about yeah, about how we we fail in a lot of ways in pop culture to think and talk about and portray disability, whether it's representation, whether it's at the writing stage, whether it I think we get it wrong all over the place. Um and I think there's a and it's starting and most fundamentally with how little there is of it. And then when there it does sneak through, it's almost always of a certain tone and not another kind of tone. And sometimes the tone it is, is kind of painting with these broad strokes to be palatable in some way rather than the honest experience. And I think it's gotten so much better. There are so there are more examples than ever in history that for in terms of film and TV and books, where there is a more honest feeling of representation and people with disabilities representing themselves. That's that's a weird thing for me. I don't have a disability. I'm writing about being the parent of someone with a disability, but one of the characters in my book has a disability, and I write from his point of view. I'm very much tapping into my son's voice when I do that. But of course, I want to get it right because I don't want to be the very thing I'm saying is wrong, which is somehow co-opting or taking something away and getting it wrong. Um, so I think it's the big thinking error with it for in my mind, for Hollywood and just pop culture in general, is thinking, oh, there's not an audience for this. There's not a big enough audience. Well, the disability community in America is the largest minority when taken aggregately. It's like 20 something percent of Americans have some type of a disability. So there is an audience for it, but I don't think Hollywood fully believes that. Even if they say they do, I just don't think you see the amount of work geared to that audience that that should be. Um, and then I think there's also this idea of oh, either it has to be very, very serious and hard and dark, or it has to be very uplifting and inspiring. And I don't see a lot that is funny and just true and human-sized. And like there's a theme of disability in the story, but really it's a story about humans, really, it's a story about family in my book. I mean. Um, and I just like I like the idea of I hope my book tricks people into reading a funny book about a family, and at the end of it, they go, Hey, I just read a 300-page book about disability. I didn't really mean to do that, but it's kind of what happened. And I I that's that's what I'm looking for, where the story it's just baked into the story in an honest way, and it's uh it's just part of our human experience because that's what the world looks like.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah, I appreciate it. That's a that's a great answer. So my my second question is much more practical. Obviously, you know, you've written uh over 200 episodes of television, which is as my understanding of it is you know, 12 people in a room um writing you know, uh eight to ten drafts of a thing that's whatever it is, 40 pages long. This is a bit different. What was your uh process in terms of like are you are you a good writer? Do you do your you know two chapters a day, or are you sort of constantly like you write three words and then you go and watch some sport on TV? Like what's it like mentally knowing you've gotta write this whole thing and then finding a a way of writing it on your own, which is so different to everything you've done before?

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Yeah, there there were moments that were so lonely. Noah I didn't know I didn't know Noah you had you had written novels before. This is my first novel. This is my first novel full stop. I don't have a secret novel in a drawer somewhere. This is this is it. Uh and it's the most alone I've been writing since college, right? In college, I wrote like a short story collection, and like I Carter and I were, even though we did meet in college, we weren't really a writing team until kind of the end of college. And I've always had Carter and Room and all these other collaborators. This this gets lonely. I was missing writing writers' rooms in the middle of this. You you do there are days where you feel insane, like who, what's happening to me? Is this like I'm inflicting a psychological experiment on myself of locking myself in this room and going insane? And if you have a bad day, that's what it feels like. If you have a good day, uh you feel like, oh my God, why didn't I do this sooner? This is so great. I just the focus, it's just me. I'm just coming up with ideas. It's great. It's just very up and down. It's very much the stock market. One of my breakthroughs, though, was slapping things up on a dry erase board, like getting stuck on the story and reverting back to, okay, it's a season of TV. A novel feels a lot like a season of TV. Slapping up the beats of like I have four characters. You the book switches between four points of view of the four members of a family, a mother, a father, a young adult who has Down syndrome, who's 24, and his um younger sister who's a senior in high school, about to go to college. They're all kind of standing on some cliff in their life. All of them is at some precipice. The everyone thinks the big topic is well, our son with a disability is becoming this adult. And everyone in all my experience is that most parents of kids with disabilities call that the cliff. They say, ah, when school ends, when you know when you get to that, you age out of the school system and all the therapies and all the this shape and structure that has guided your kid from like 18 months old to 22 years old, whenever that ends, um, which is what my son is. My son has been doing all of this thing since 18 months, now he's 18 years old. That's the cliff. Everyone calls it the cliff. But really, I'm writing about all four family members are on their own cliff in some way. And so when I would get stuck on one of those stories, what the story of each of those four cliffs, I would know a, I would do what we do in TV. I would take, I would say, I don't think the middle of this whole story that I'm stretching across this 300-page novel mixed in with three other storylines, um, I don't think it's working. I think it's thin in the middle. I think I'm missing beats. Something else has to happen in the middle. I've I've fooled myself into thinking there's enough story here, but there's not. Or these two characters aren't intersecting enough in the middle. And I'm sitting here as I talked to you guys, looking at the dry erase board in my office. And I would just get, I would just make myself feel safe from go by going back to my TV dry erase markers. Maybe it's the wooziness of inhaling the marker fumes. Uh, but you suddenly feel a little bit comfortable, like, okay, I've I did that for 20 years. When I had a story problem, I put out all the beats of it on a dry erase board and just stared at it and just rearranged and challenged myself to erase the part that's not working and fuck, I gotta do something new there. Um, and so was there was more overlap to TV writing uh from novel writing. I really felt like it was very similar to plotting out a season or a series arc. You just gotta know the big moments and you gotta be honest when there's not enough happening.

SPEAKER_04 30:50

Well, okay, this is this was not the question I was gonna ask, but now I want to ask it because uh, you know, as I write my own uh prose novel, you there's definitely skills that cross over from TV writing, and there's skills that do not. What what do you think what what were your strengths when you were writing this novel? And what do you think you really struggled with as your first novel that's sort of different and unexpectedly different than writing a TV show?

SPEAKER_02 31:14

I think my strengths were cliffhangers at the end of sections, like commercial breaks. Yeah. Um, and I switch points of view a lot. Um, and Noah, I bet you would, I bet you're similar to me. You're looking for those moments that you're like, I need them to come back after the commercial. I know it's a book and there's no commercials, but maybe they're gonna get up and take a leak or something, and I want them to want to come back to this book. And that I felt like that came very naturally to me after all these years of doing it. Um I guess the bigger challenge is like trying to condense everything to all be in one story. Like I I in my mind went where I would go wrong comparing it to TV is when you want everything to happen and we've got nine years to do it, or we, you know, we used to have these big 24-episode canvases to paint on, but a book's a book. It's 300 pages and then you're done. And you need you do need to be selective, you do need to keep things missing. So there is that kill your darlings thing of like, I don't want this to be a long-bloated, boring novel. I want this to be a fucking page turner. I want this to be like people, I want people to want to get back to this book because they all they couldn't put it down. And so I used to have two additional points of view in the book. I used to switch between six different perspectives, which in retrospect sounds crazy. Um, but uh I had I had that, and I I realized, and with the help actually of my wonderful assistant, who's really a great editor before I had a before I had a publisher, he's he very courageously in his 20s said to me, that you don't need that. He was like, you don't need those two extra points of view. And you everything that's important in those two extra points of view can be folded into what happens within the four existing perspectives. This is a family novel. It's just the family, it's not these two other people that were more in that Hollywood world because there is this whole the book is about an interface between a family whose life whose real life story is being made into a movie, and there were these two other characters that kind of represented that part of the world. And the idea that you can fold that into what existed and make this much tighter, sharper thing, that that was that was the best and biggest change that that I made. And I I think that idea of condensing it and saying it's not, it doesn't have to run for nine years. This you want this to be a really breezy like 300 page read. And I I like to think it is. One thing I'm hearing over and over again is like it goes by fast, this book. And that's I have a short attention span too. You know, I I want it, I I I I write until I'm bored. And if I'm getting even slightly bored, I'm like, it was boring three pages ago if I'm bored.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

So funny. I think I think we have a higher not tolerance, a higher sort of uh our our our radar phonar, whatever, for boringness in TV writing, I think is really heightened, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Very, very heightened because we know how fucking precious those minutes are. I know you're an hour guy, so you get what 44 minutes, whatever you get. We on how much mother, we had like not even 22. You had 22, and then you minus out our 13-second main title. And sometimes that even was hard. And you go, so we're like working at 2140. And so I I'm pretty good at making stuff fit and not belaboring the point. That was something I got good at, and I know I bet you are good at that too, Noah.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

I'm I'm working on it. We're we're um we're we're running up against the clock. So this is our second to last uh question for you. But and and I I need to set it up in such a way that we that the answer, you know, I need this is a big question, but I need to get a condensed answer just so that we don't have to. I got a little time.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Don't worry about me.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

I got okay with that. Um the um the question is is is you this is sort of a breaking in question because you've broken into an entirely new industry, which is not I mean, there's less crossover than people might think between our agents and our worlds to be in book writing. So the you wrote a novel, you had your assistant help you be the first editor, you said, Yeah, yeah. And I know that Harper Collins released it. So, how did you bridge that gap in getting them to release your first book? Uh, and congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Thank you. And I thank you, but it's a podcast about failure, so I want to talk about failure, uh, which I love that about this podcast. I really do. I really think it's a public service. I know it's like a hard moment, so it's it's weirder to talk about failure when we're all it's struggling uh in this industry. But I think it's I legitimately, I said this to you guys in my for the first time I was on. It I think it's really psychologically healthy what you're doing with this podcast. I really do. Um so here's failure, ready? I wrote this book, and the very first book agent I sent it to, and keep in mind, I don't know shit about publishing. I don't know anything. I published that short story, Noah, that you were so kind about. I published a personal essay on the Boston Globe also about parenting and child with disability that was that was very much it's a personal essay, it's not fiction. Uh, and those were the kind of steps into me convincing myself to try to write a novel. I'm very proud of that one too. But when I wrote the novel, I put it, the first person I sent it to, a friend recommended a book agent, and the book agent read it and really hated it. Really like just didn't respond at all. I shouldn't say hated, but was dismissive and clearly didn't understand even a little bit what I was trying to do with the book. Because one of the notes came back as the character with a disability seems too happy. If you have a disability, you it should be darker, it would be harder than this, which is really fucking weird because for many reasons. The character is inspired by my son, who's 18 and is this very joyful person who also has very real challenges in life. And I wrote the character in my book, really channeling my son, even though it's a little bit different. Well, the condition my son has is a little bit different than Down syndrome, although there's overlaps. Um, but a number of things were wrong about that comment from the book agent. Uh, but at the time I was devastated by it because it's the book, the first person I sent the book to didn't like it and doesn't want to represent me because she doesn't think it's gonna sell. But her notes back on the book were so wrong, or so it was one of those moments where you're like, I don't, I can't let myself take this too personally because they don't understand what I'm trying to do here. I was trying to write a book that is comedic and that has parts that feel hard and parts that feel good because I didn't want it to be disability torture porn and I didn't want it to be disability inspiration porn. I wanted it to just be a story about human beings. And I, there, there the character with a disability in my book, Emmett, who has Down syndrome, he gets his heart broken by he's he wants to marry his girlfriend. It's really hard for two young adults with disabilities to get married in this country. That's a whole other topic. It's explored in the book. But he he has a huge, a really hard emotional arc that that, yes, has really happy parts in it too. And he is a happy, charismatic, positive dude. Emmett is the character based on Elliot, almost the same name, uh, my son. And I stand by every part of that journey. And I really don't like the idea that someone says, oh no, this is too happy for a character with a disability. No, there's joy in this journey too. There very much is, and it would be dishonest to say otherwise, just as it would be dishonest to say it's all horrible. Um, so that was like, but I felt like such a failure in that moment to talk about failure. When I got that first response back from that first book agent, I had spent two years writing this book, year and a half, and I was devastated. And the other book agent I sent it to at the same time, got back to me shortly after this one and loved the book. And very much everything she said about the book, I felt like she understood it. She said, this might be a hard sell. It's not a mystery, it's not a thriller, it's not a genre, but it's funny. It's about disability, but it's also about other things. It's about Hollywood. Some people might, some publishers might not like the Holly insider Hollywood part and think there's too much of that. Tone that down, make sure it's really a family book. Some publishers might be wary of the disability piece or that it's a comedy about disability. She was like, expect that you will have a bunch of months after I send this book out of feeling like we've failed, but know in your heart this is really good and it's gonna find somebody that gets it and understands it and champions it. And that is exactly what it found at HarperCollins with my awesome editor, April Osborne. And uh they found it and championed it, and it became this one of the best experiences in my life. I loved all the notes I got. Imagine a loving notes. And uh so, but but that was many months. I just shrunk many months down into uh still an overly long answer to your question. But uh, but really it there was a lot of feeling like, well, this was a huge swing and it failed. Um, because even once I had the book agent, there we got some passes. We got some very, I like this a lot, but I don't know what this is. How do we market this? It's hard for first-time authors to market books, uh, especially a weird one like this. But but everything my bad book agent that got it said came true. And um again, I'm just so grateful. I'm grateful it got through, but you have to endure a lot of feeling like it was a colossal failure to find your way to that right fit.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Well, great answer. Uh it was it was actually the answer was so long. Not I'm not criticizing, but the answer was so long. I've just downloaded your book in the time it took me to the book.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

You've read the entire book door to door. You guys can feel free to edit. You can edit a lot out of there. Just condense, use the little book.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

No, no, no. Sorry, I wasn't I wasn't being rude. It was a great answer, but I also have downloaded the book literally just now. I I'm I'm a listener, not a reader. So I'm intelligent to listen.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Oh, by the way, yeah, I should say I'll plug in one other thing since I'm a mercenary shill, as you pointed out right at the beginning, which I definitely is true. Uh the book is narrated. It's had four different narrators, one of whom is this amazing young adult actor with Down syndrome, who uh Kevin Ayanucci, who's in this awesome movie Champions with Woody Harrelson by the Farley brothers. And uh he's great as Emmett and uh Josh Radner and Kobe Smalders, two of the stars of How I Met Your Mother, are the voices of the mother and the father in the book. So there's like a little How I Met Your Mother reunion. That was really cool. And that would like bring a little taste of my TV world into this book. And there's a How I Met Your Mother reunion in my audiobook. And so people are really liking the audiobook. But that is that was nice just because I love having worked for so long in TV. I'm so lucky I got to do everything I did in TV. I really miss a lot about it. It was so great to bring those actors into it. I still, you know, I some part of my, you know, part of my heart's still in TV, but it it is, it's a hard, it's a really hard moment in this business. Let's, I mean, there's no two ways about it.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

So look, we we we definitely have got to the end of the podcast. So we have to ask the last question, which as you know is the advice question. We're gonna do this differently because obviously you've had one go at this before. So we'll make this one a bit more specific, which is if you have to give a single piece of advice to somebody writing a novel, uh either it's they're a TV writer switching over or they're just somebody who wants to write a novel, what would your single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Yeah, I mean, I I I I think if I had to boil if I had to boil it down to one piece of advice is write write the thing you've spent your whole life researching, or at least 10 years or 20 years, like when when I became Elliot's dad, you know, it's such a lonely feeling when when you become a quote unquote special needs parent. I have some issues with the that that term that I talk about in the book, but like that's how you feel. You feel like you're on this lonely little island and you feel like what I didn't ask for this journey and you're kind of fighting or resisting it, and then you get on the journey, and all of a sudden you're learning all these new things. And in the middle of it, I didn't think, oh, I'll use this all in a book someday. It was the hardest thing I ever went through. I think I talked about this when I was on the podcast the first time. I was running a sitcom while living in like a really intense dark medical drama of my son having open heart. Sir, my son had open heart surgery at two weeks old. He could have died. It was a really long journey. And if you sit down and write a novel and you have that blank screen and you think to yourself, what the hell am I going to write a novel about? I know I want to write a book. It really is helpful, at least for the first novel, to really write the thing you've basically been researching for 20 years. Whatever that journey you've been on that you've been avoiding or you think is too hard, like write that thing. Don't just skip right to the part where you write the thing you really, really, really know. Um, I think the frustration of not getting those projects to go anywhere in TV and film helped fuel me to write the book in a really big way because I realized this is my chance. This is actually my chance to talk about what's most important. I mean, what my 30s to now 50 have really been about. And I have also had a daughter in the meantime. My daughter's nine, and some of that idea of what is it like to be a sibling to a child with a disability, to be the person that in theory needs less support and help and less focus, but you're also living in that shadow of the person that does need all that help and support and focus. And these are the big things of my life. These are the big things of my life. And I was not writing about them uh on TV and film. I was not getting those projects through and realizing that, accepting that, and moving on and diving into that stuff, even the hard parts, that that made it possible to write a novel. I'm actually scared about what's my next. I want to write another novel, but I have to figure it out for myself. What's that next thing that I that has the depth of just thought and experience behind it? Because it is hard to sit for two years and write 300 something pages or 400 pages, whatever your novel is going to be. It's hard. So it was it was cool to write about the thing I actually think about a lot.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Excellent. Excellent answer, uh and end of an excellent podcast. I was one of only a very, very, very few handpick selected people to be invited back on this podcast a second time because they're I'm going for three. I'm gonna lobby for a third. Because their body of failure is sufficient to warrant.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

What if I start such a long answer now that it has to carry over to a third? Maybe that'll be my strategy. Sorry, I'm very wordy today, boys. Uh thank you guys for having me back. It's really, it's a pleasure. I really, I really do like the forum that you've created to talk about to talk about this stuff. Honestly, I mean, I think it's just as valid as ever. You guys gotta keep making it. It's uh it's it's a healthy discussion to have. I think it's it's cool. Um it's cool and you should keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

And for those of you who have not yet read or listened to, that's not how it happens. Cray Thomas says we have to say that at the end of the podcast. So please go out and buy it or listen to it. Uh but no, Craig, that was super. Again, thank you very much indeed for your time.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Thank you guys. I like hanging out with you both. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you, King for watching music. And our wives for putting up with.com. As always, each episode is brought to you by Scriptation, my favorite screenwriting annotation software. If you want to support the show, please download a copy at www.scriptation.com backslash.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Or perhaps even better, www.scriptation.com backslash Dan. Dan is spelled.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

If you want to find me on social media, I'm at Twitter at n epslin and more recently on threads at no epsilon.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Don't worry about me on social media, because all you people seem to care about anyway.