Pilot Season is All Year Now

You hear that? It’s the sound of exhaustion. Every TV writer you know is burnt out, and the main reason is that they’re working all the time, with no breaks.

Writing in Hollywood used to be kind of cyclical. There was this thing called “Pilot Season” where most TV networks would buy a bunch of screenplays, produce a few pilots, and then pick the best of those to go on the air.

The shows that were purchased staffed writers. And if they stayed on the air, they provided great wages for years.

Now, pilot season doesn’t exist anymore, or more accurately, it never ends.

Let’s dig in.

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Pilot Season Never Ends

As soon as streamers came onto the scene, they challenged why shows were all bought and sold during one time of year.

And they won.

While network shows went off the air in the summer, streaming shows were available year round, and because they had no time slots to fill, they constantly needed a stream of new shows for people to check out.

Now, while network shows still have traditional seasons, writers are working year round pitching to streamers to try to sell their wares.

Another wrinkle is that networks also changed what they do. They’re not spending as much money researching and developing ideas, like they used to with pilot seasons.

Instead, they’re just picking a few shows to go to air.

That means, the writers who used to get staffed on those other shows are out of a job. So to make money, they’re also pitching in the endless cycle that used to be a season.

This endless cycle places a huge burden on writers all scrambling for jobs year-round. And without a season, you’re not totally sure when you will go back to work, and you could be taking out multiple shows or specs per year.

I’ve seen the lack of pilot season now take a toll on my fellow writers.

How to Combat This Exhaustion

I broke into Hollywood in 2014, and since then, I feel like I haven’t stopped working. As the business changed, so did my habits. It turns out, you have to create your own seasons for work, and also your own time off.

While I primarily work in features, I know that the time from November to February is usually pretty dead in Hollywood, so I schedule most of my travel and vacations around then.

I also know that a lot of execs go away during the summer, so I try to pick around Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day for places I can take a break as well.

When I was in my 20s, I never thought I’d need a vacation, but now that I creep toward 40, I’ve grown to see my writing actually do a little better with a few days off to just relax.

The thing I had to come to terms with is that we’re just cogs in a much larger machine. But we have to do maintenance on ourselves in order to participate.

If I want to be writing and pitching at a high level for most of the year, I need to get in shape physically and mentally to make that happen.

That can mean a few less cigars and a lot more pickleball, and it also can mean just giving myself days where I am not in front of the laptop.

Now, I never stop thinking about the scripts or the ideas, but I do allow myself to not obsessively type them out. And I try to just catch up on rest, read, and live a life that leads to experiences I may want to write about.

At the end of the day, the extension of pilot season to the whole year places a ton of pressure on writers to always be on. And that’s just not physically or mentally possible.

You need to set your own seasons and find a bandwidth that works for you.

And above all else, you need to treat your body in a way that doesn’t cause you to burn out because we need your stories.

Let me know what you all think in the comments.