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So it's the second day of the reshuffled deck and I need to do this or I won't get to it.  The last eighteen months have been crazy. Awesome but crazy.


Much of my conversation here has been about the roller coaster and what it takes to survive it. I came up with equations, some zippy one-liners and some, I hope, fun anecdotes about all that, all in aid of saying, "This is doable. It's wicked hard work but it's doable."


That paparazzi-chasing gadabout Marcus Aurelius popped this one off a little while back and I took it to heart. "Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish."


He's a quippy little bugger, old Marcus is, but that one is true.


So. The last eighteen months.


To compress a really long story into something bite-sized, I made it a policy over the last few years to say, "yes" to any paying gig that involved me writing, polishing or consulting on the writing of fiction of any sort. I met, worked with and for a lot of people in that time and wrote a stack of stuff I'd never have written otherwise.


So one of those former employers came to me with a proposal - "Co-write something with me and I guarantee the right people will see it." So I did. So she did and we ended up staff writers on this:






It was an interesting experience in the Proverbial Chinese way. I wrote a lot. I learned a lot. I met some great people.  My partner (yes, we were partners for the duration) and I were not asked to return.  They say this means nothing in the big scheme of professional TV writing but to me it felt like being fired (because that's what it was) and it was the first time in over 20 years of professional employment that I'd been fired.


Well. Wait. No. Right out of college I worked in a sort of cold-calling sweatshop managed by a former classmate who fired me for being ten minutes late. Once. He was a prick but ten minutes is ten minutes, I guess. Live and learn.


Anyway. I was rescued from professional oblivion (the sort of oblivion that exists only after you've been fired from something you've worked years to attain. can you say "bleak?") by the good folks at this place:






I loved this show and had tried for two seasons to get a seat at that table. They always liked me, they said, but the money was never there. This year, in the proverbial nick of time, not only was the money there but there was an empty chair.


I packed up my kit at Law and Order on a Friday. That Monday I was at Leverage.


The next twenty weeks were, by far, the most fun and the most rewarding of my professional life due ENTIRELY to the awesome crew of people I was lucky enough to work with there. They bust their asses to make that show and they manage to do it with a smile (usually) and without becoming [expletive-deleted]'s. To say I loved this time is to understate the feeling by parsecs.


I helped with all the episodes (everyone does; that's how it works) and I got to write this: