assistant life Archives - Desk of Amy Suto

Hey there readers, it’s Amy. Before you read this post, I just want to let you know that my outlook on the current state of the industry has changed, and I can’t in good conscience continue to advocate for the assistant path for writers. It’s part COVID, part an inherent sense of classism in the industry. For more, read my new blog post here about my advice for new grads and why I think writers shouldn’t go the assistant path anymore. I’m keeping these posts up just in case you disagree with me and still want to go this path, but I just wanted to be fully transparent and give you the best advice I know how.

-Amy

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I’ve been writing a lot recently about creatives in the industry and posting images of aesthetically pleasing and meticulously organized writing spaces (aka: my therapy) so this blog post is continuing the trend.

At holiday parties this past month, I’ve been meeting other writers who are holding down jobs in the industry, from showrunner’s assistants to writer’s PA’s to researchers. The first question I ask pretty much all of them is how do you do it? How do you be good enough at your day job and somehow retain the energy and time to write outside of our 11+ hour days?

Some are honest: they aren’t able to make it work a lot of the time. Understandably, we’re all human and it’s tough.

[You guys should also check out: a day in the life of an agency assistant working in Hollywood]

However, we work in an industry that doesn’t care about our busy schedules — everyone is busy all of the time, and that’s not an excuse. If we don’t write, if we don’t commit that great idea to the page and then rewrite it until its brilliant, then others will just surpass us and we’ll never be able to escape the assistant life. As one writer who had been staffed on several shows told me, you have to grind and hustle to get your writing to where it needs to be: you can’t escape it, so might as well put in the mind-numbing hard work now.

With that in mind, here are some strategies I’ve put together that seem to work pretty well for myself and other writers out there. [Read more…]

-Amy

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This is part two in my series about how to survive that #assistantlife. Read part one here.

As an assistant at an agency, you’re fighting two battles: not only are you constantly putting out fires and helping clients and managing their schedules and your bosses’ schedule and working 11+ hour days to solve problems for writers and directors, but then you have to some how find a way to carve out time to do the job you WANT.

For me, and a lot of us, that job is writing. Yes, it’s an art form, but you have to treat it like a job before it can become your art. Step number one for assistants trying to be writers is to show up and actually write.

And then you have to network, balance the job, and be a real human and do laundry and run errands and also have fun and hang out with people and live life.

Oh hi real life, I didn’t see you there behind the MOUNTAINS OF WORK I HAVE TO DO.

Anyways, I’ve spent the better part of the past five months trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing and I think I came up with some semblance of a routine that makes this job a little less of a constant roller coaster and singular high-pitched scream, and more of a slow-motion car-chase (cool and only a disaster sometimes.)

Here’s what my typical day looks like: [Read more…]

A Day in the Life of a Hollywood Agency Assistant

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