Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 67831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
I believe that. I truly do.
I go about the rest of my day, putting out fires at work and hurrying home to pack for the trip with no clue that my entire life is about to change.
Or that the Voice of Doom isn’t finished with me yet.
Not even close.
two
. . .
Leo Sampson Fenton
A man whose once fulfilling, creative life
has become an exercise in herding cats.
Feral, fame-hungry cats…
“We’re screwed.” My director, Ainsley, watches two of the five innkeepers in our soon-to-be-doomed reality show wrestle on the ground of The Tender Rose Tea Room Saturday afternoon, her eyes growing wider with every passing second.
“So screwed,” I agree dryly as Meredith, the allegedly “sweet” contestant from Seattle, easily evades one of the grip’s attempts to catch her under the arms and drag her outside.
She lunges forward instead, punching Hannah, the “troublemaker” contestant from Georgia in the nose, drawing blood. Hannah responds with a repeat of the “C word” insult that started all this.
Ainsley’s hand flies to cover her mouth, while the boom mic operator leans his pole in to capture the resulting font of profanity Meredith spews in return.
“Oh my God,” Ainsley mutters, her already pale face now ghostly white beneath her brown bangs. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
I sigh, trying to work up the will to step in and take care of this. I’m the creator and producer here. This show is my first big solo project with major financial backing, my chance to prove that Americans can make a tasteful reality show a la The Great British Bake Off instead of devolving into violence, scheming, and melodrama.
But Meredith and Hannah clearly didn’t get the memo, and all I can think as tiny finger sandwiches and scones begin to fly across the room, is “this can’t be my life.”
It just can’t.
I’m a writer. A comedy writer, no less. I spent three years with Sketch Night Live and even wrote a movie for one of their most popular characters before transitioning to a gig as head writer at the Sandy Saunders Skit Show. There, I honed my craft as a monologue and sketch creator, delighting television audiences with work that made people laugh and feel and think.
I never wanted it to end…
For a long time, it didn’t seem it would. Sandy was a titan of the comedy scene, who ran a tight ship. She didn’t drink or do drugs and maintained close ties with all the top comics in the country, ensuring an endless supply of famous guest stars who kept the audience tuning in every week.
Then, she had to go and have a thirty-something crisis and sleep with her sister’s stepson. Her step-nephew. He’d only been her step-nephew for a few months and was twenty—legal, if just barely—but it was too much for the public to take. The court of public opinion ripped Sandy limb from limb, leaving nothing but a few sequins from her iconic pantsuit and a clump of bleached blond hair.
That clump of hair is now happily retired to an island in the Caribbean, with its step-nephew, having a fabulous time. The pictures Sandy sends to our former co-worker group chat are filled with sun, sand, and lobsters she’s teaching to do underwater ballet.
Meanwhile, I spent six months pounding the pavement without a nibble from any of the comedy shows still in production. Times are hard in sketch entertainment and there just aren’t as many writing jobs as there used to be, even for veterans of the scene.
That’s how I found myself producing a season of Horny Housewives for the Realer than Real channel. The original producer had a heart attack—probably from the stress of listening to the horny housewives scream at each other for five seasons straight—and I stepped in to take over the reins. I’d never produced before, but my emergency savings was running out, I needed a job, and the Realer than Real people were desperate.
I expected I’d muddle through one season, save every penny, and be ready to look for another job again when I was inevitably fired.
But unfortunately…I did a fabulous job.
Turns out, I’m really good at getting candid confessions from horny housewives. So good, that I lost three years of my life to the mind-numbing drama.
If this show isn’t such a hit that my network or some other purveyor of reality television immediately buys it and orders more episodes, I’ll be back for a fourth season with the horndogs starting February Fourteenth. (The housewives are always especially frisky on Valentine’s Day and the network wants to take advantage of that to craft a banging episode—pun intended.)
If I have to go back, it will kill the last of the artist inside of me and snuff out what little sense of humor I have left.
If I have to go back…
I shake my head, banishing the thought. I can’t waste time staring into the void right now. I have a tasteful reality show to save. And it will be tasteful, damn it, even if I have to babysit these contestants twenty-four seven to make sure they don’t do something stupid and crass.