Something I love: The Nerdist Writers Panel

There's this podcast that I am totally digging right now, and I thought I would share it with you since I always want to talk about things I'm listening to. It's like when I listen to NPR, I always want to talk about it, but I never know who to talk about it with.

I discovered this podcast through a fiction class I was taking at Story Studio Chicago. One of my classmates recommended it, despite the fact that it discusses television writing, a completely different medium than we were studying. As usual when somebody mentions a podcast, I was wondering "How the hell do people learn about podcasts?" I just have no idea who consumes podcasts and why and how they hear about them and when they consume them. All of these are a total mystery to me, but you know the story of how I discovered this one, and in case you're wondering, I'm listening to it during my relatively quick commute to work.

So anyway, the podcast is called The Nerdist Writers Panel and every episode, they have a panel of television writers discuss the business, their process, etc. It is completely fascinating. I obviously love television, and it is what I would like to be doing eventually, so knowing a few tips and familiarizing myself with the business can't hurt. However, the podcast is very interesting even if you don't want to get into the business and perhaps even if you don't enjoy television (I've heard these people exist.)

I am thrilled that they often have Buffy writers on the series. As a huge Buffy fan, I can understand all of the examples that they use from the series. It's also pretty awesome to hear about how the show worked when it was being written, and it's nice to know that it was generally a positive experience for all involved. Although, you can never really be sure because one of the first things you pick up on is that working TV writers have to remain positive at all times. Apparently publicly trash talking people you've worked with is not a good way to find more work in the future. Who knew.

I've also been gaining a lot of knowledge about how to break into the writing for TV business, but I will not be sharing that here, mostly because I fear that it's stuff that everybody knows, and I would sound like an idiot being like "Hey, do you know what a spec script is?" And perhaps, ultimately, that's the reason why I don't talk about things I've learned. I fear that other people already know them.

Anyway, check it out. It's super entertaining. You can find it on iTunes and put it on your mp3 player or phone for your commute, just like I did. It's kind of hard for me to just sit and listen to it when I'm at home, since I figure I need more stimulus, but it also functions as a nice distraction while I'm working out (never.)