Desk of Amy Suto

TV writer who eats danger for breakfast

Pandemic Diaries: How Writers Can ‘Create Dangerously’ in Times of Turmoil

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Things are tough right now: how do we make the best of a crisis while taking care of ourselves and others?

Part of the way I’m staying sane throughout this pandemic is by connecting frequently with friends and family over the phone and via Facetime, reading good books, going on walks, and trying to focus on work even in a time of crisis. (I am now in not one, not two, but THREE virtual writers’ groups right now.)

If you are social distancing or working from home, this downtime also offers us time to take a breather and see what speaks to us in solitude. Some of us might gravitate towards rest and all the unwatched items in our Netflix queue, some might veer towards getting immersed in our work, and others a mix of both.

Oh, and as a PSA: The Sims 4 is on sale for $5 right now.

You’re allowed to spend this time any way that heals you. Whether that’s doing the 100 baby challenge in the Sims or writing the next great American Novel, there’s no “wrong” way to spend your time social distancing.

Escapism vs. Art as Protest

For me, solitude has always presented answers, but I find those answers by working through my own fiction and writing about my experiences on here.

However, it can feel like art is a “deceitful luxury” if it isn’t addressing the times, as Albert Camus’ addresses in his essay/speech Create Dangerously which explores the responsibility of an artist.

“In the face of such misery, art–if it wishes to continue to be a luxury, must today accept that it is also deceitful,” Camus writes. “Art for art’s sake, which was merely a pleasant distraction for the solitary artist, was precisely the contrived art of an abstract, artificial society.”

The artist must be aware and informed in order to create art that goes beyond a “deceitful luxury” and spur real change.

[Read more…]

A Writers’ Life in 2018: Novel Writing, Freelancing, First Episode of Television

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It’s December! You know what that means: a lengthy reflection on the year that’s passed, with all the ups and downs and status on my impending carpal tunnel!

Amy’s Best Posts of 2018

Before I dive into the shape of this year and what I’ve been up to, here are some of my top posts of 2018. You can always look in my Most Popular Posts section for an overview of the content I care about.

I didn’t blog a ton this year, because it’s been a crazy year of beginnings, endings, and adapting to new jobs and writing projects.

It was a year of learning new skills (like how to make money as a freelance writer on Upwork) and engaging with my creativity and self-reflection on a deeper level than I’ve done in the past.

[Read more…]

Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer

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san francisco cliffs
cliffs outside of San Fran

Hello friends! I’m back from doing some travel (San Fran for work, Tahoe for play) and also just moved into a new apartment with my best friend who also happens to cook the best Italian food you’ve ever tasted.

I thought I’d share a little bit about what my days are like as I’m in a weird hiatus period for the TV show I work on, which is more and more the norm for those of us who work on shows with short orders that don’t fit into the traditional, 22-episode broadcast television season.

When I’m not working in a writers’ room, I work on my own projects and moonlight as a ghostwriter. My bread and butter is ghostwriting people’s memoirs and helping them find the right words to tell their stories. I work for fascinating clients I can’t really talk about here, but they include accomplished lawyers, former professional athletes, and people dealing with great loss and tragedy and finding strength through their experiences.

Oh, and I also write blog posts and short stories and op-eds for various companies and publications, so I keep busy. What’s nice is that I only take on work I believe in, and every writing project I’m working on I love. I also get to make my own schedule, which is so important.

Here’s a day-in-the-life of what it’s like being a freelance writer/ghostwriter: 

//7am: coffee & planning the day

I have a Google home, so as soon as I wake up I tell it “good morning” and it turns on all my lights, my coffeemaker in the kitchen, and starts playing the news. (Creepy or efficient? Probably both but the faster I can get caffeinated the better my morning is.) It takes about 30 seconds of hearing about how much of a mess the world is in to get me to get out of bed and stumbling toward the coffee that’s waiting for me in the kitchen.

Coffee in hand, I immediately get to work plotting out my day. I use a BestSelf journal to track habits, record what I’m grateful for, and set my intentions and goals for the day. I’ve been using these for the past six months and love the pen-and-paper organization. I always have a mess of projects, to-do list items, habits, and other responsibilities I need to hold myself accountable to get done. It’s important to me to get everything I have to do on paper and out of my head so I can clear up brainspace for the work I have to do. [Read more…]

Writers’ Life: How Your Examined Life Informs The Stories You Tell

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Photo by DJ Suto

Just like you are what you eat, you write what you live. While I believe that write what you know is a narrow way to approach the vast expanse of stories you could be telling, I do believe that our own experiences create a prism through which we see the world and write about it.

We can’t — and shouldn’t! — spend every hour of our days writing. But the hours we don’t spend writing still show up on the page.

Our examined lives shape our stories

Photo by DJ Suto

In my writing group, I recently dismantled the seven page outline I had written for my pilot — and rewrote it from scratch, with another character as the protagonist. This is in part because of the badass ladies of my writing group had helped me get to the point where I realized this was the best move, and in part because of what’s been going on in my own life lately. My hero went from the reclusive male protagonist to the live-wire of a woman whose life was a mess but is grappling with her priorities and how she approaches the world. I realized that my male hero was safe to write from: he was a reluctant hero, someone thrown into the story. However, the female character — as vulnerable and messy as she is — is the one who is actually moving the plot forward and putting everything on the line.

After going through a breakup, I realized that I was running from my feelings and the messiness of them — I had also been running from the messy character who was clearly my way into the story all along. So, I got vulnerable, and asked myself why I had relegated her to supporting cast for so long, and realized her story was the most dramatic, even if it was harder to tell.

I say “examined lives” because an unexamined life (aside from not being worth living, according to Socrates) doesn’t provide these kinds of revelations. As artists, we have to question everything. That’s when epiphanies happen: as things click into place after we’ve been moving the pieces around and trying to make sense of it all. [Read more…]

Writing 100 Pages and Second Seasons, #Scriptchat, & Passing the FBI Fitness Test

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It’s been a landmark summer filled with unexpected writing opportunities, a rollercoaster post-production process for CON, and lots of having to explain why my walls are covered in newspaper clippings, red string, and far too many color-coded notecards.

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I have 99 problems and all of them are trying to keep these notecards from falling off my wall

Jen (my writing partner) and I are also training to pass the FBI fitness test– and not because we want to join the FBI, but because we want the bragging rights for our Twitter bios. Yeah, we’re cool.

Writing Projects

This summer I wrote a play, two thirty minute episodes of a miniseries (season two of CON!), a short film for a production company, a short web series to go along with our CON marketing campaign, and some short portfolio items. The page count total is somewhere around 100, which was my goal for the summer. [Read more…]

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Amy Suto