¶ Intro / Opening
We poach from our family and friends . Watch what you say . Around a screenwriter , I would carry a notepad where I had my joke file . I had conversation snippets . If I was eavesdropping on the subway , I would take all of that .
Hi , welcome back to how Much Can I Make , the podcast where we pull back the curtains on career you've always wondered about .
I'm your host , mara Vozzeri , and today we're diving into the world of punchlines , rewrites and writer's rooms with none other than Don DeCaser , a seasoned sitcom and comedy writer whose credit includes hit shows like Ugly , betty , news Radio and many others .
In the show notes I put a link to Dawn's IMBD page and you can see the huge amount of shows she wrote for . So let's dive right in and find out what it takes to write funny for a living . First , dawn , I would like to thank you for your time . I know you're really busy and I really appreciate it that you're willing to sit with us .
My pleasure , that's great . I have a lot of questions , but let's start with . What made you become a writer ? Was it a moment in time or did you always know ?
So
¶ Finding Inspiration in Real Life
I did not always know , and I would say that when I was growing up it was Carol Burnett at first and Lucille Ball it was these comedic women that had their own shows that just kind of opened my world up . I didn't know that that existed . I lived overseas .
I lived in Europe , we were a military family , so when we came to America I was just blown away by funny women who seemed to have their lives in order and I didn't know that you could be a writer for TV . I didn't even know that was an option .
I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to be an artist or a novelist , but I was from a very middle class background and those were not options .
So , but you always loved writing yes .
Okay , yes . So you didn't know , it was an option and and so I studied international business when I was in college in Texas and I went over to Europe and lived in Belgium for a while . I thought I don't know , I don't want to know business .
I came back and I stumbled into the television and radio department on the University of Texas campus and within that they had an advertising program and I discovered art direction and copywriting and that was the closest I could even get my head around being in a creative field , Like OK , well , that's kind of you can still earn a living that way .
It was all about how do I pay my bills when I become an adult ?
So did you start as a copywriter ?
I started as a copywriter . I started in Austin , then Dallas , then moved to New York and became a copywriter and then a creative director .
So how do you get from copywriter to comedy writer ?
Well , that was a big leap . I was living and working in New York . A friend of mine moved out to LA and was discovered as an actor and he said you know , you write 30 second segments and 60
¶ Breaking Into Television Writing
second commercials . Have you ever thought of writing 30 minute TV shows ? I love sitcoms more than anything . By then I was like in my 20s and I was watching all of these great 80s , like sitcoms from 70s , 80s and 90s and I just loved them . I thought I don't know if I can do that .
So he sent me some scripts from the shows that he was working on and I began to study them , and then I took writing classes .
Oh , specifically for sitcom writing . Yes , oh , wow and fell in love with that .
And I fell in love with that . I also took improv classes in New York and film writing classes and just sort of did a deep dive to educate myself .
All right . So what was the first show you wrote for ?
The first one was it was kind of a cult classic called News Radio and it starred Phil Hartman and Dave Foley , more Tierney . It was just like a little NBC sitcom that gained this following . It was really well written , I have to say it was like a real feather in my cap , but it was one of the most difficult shows I've ever worked on .
Why .
I was the only woman and every guy on staff was from the Harvard Lampoon . They all knew each other . They were privileged , they were white dudes and they were vicious . They were vicious and competitive with each other , but that was a game for them . For me it just it was really a hostile work environment . So I loved the actors .
They kind of adopted me and they try to get their storylines to me to take to the writer's room and , you know , be heard that way . It was difficult .
Interesting . You know , I interviewed a camera , a TV camera woman , and she said that the guys were sabotaging her work . At the beginning they didn't want to see a woman there .
I can believe that .
Wow .
They took my work away from me . They didn't allow me into some meetings . We would write all night in order to get the scripts down to the actors . In the morning they would shut me out but then take all of my work and use it on the air .
Without giving you credit for it .
Sometimes I'd get credit , but a lot of times no . But that wasn't even the part that concerned me . We all share credit . Sometimes we get our names on the scripts , sometimes not , but it is a very collaborative process . It was just the way they treated a woman .
Wow . So , but from the writing point of view was it nerve-wracking to the first show that
¶ Dawn's First show
you did .
It was very nerve-wracking and when you start out as a young writer , you want to perform really well . You put this inordinate amount of pressure on yourself , but you're really not usually required to perform that well because you are learning , you're apprenticing , if anything .
That was a particularly difficult work environment , so I was very disciplined and I wrote night and day and kept turning in work and then ducking .
So it's basically the comedy . You chose it , but it's actually also chose you . You had the break . That's always it's all about luck , yeah well the luck part .
I moved out to LA with , I think , maybe $3,000 to my name , which is , I mean , you know , in the 90s . You can get by on that . I temped , I got odd jobs and then I was able to get into the Disney Writers Fellowship .
So they picked five out of a few thousand people and they that is where I was able to start getting my scripts together to start submitting to shows . So so how does it work ?
you have , you write like a spec script , right , and then submit it . How ?
do you know about spec scripts ?
I have been in that business a little bit .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . So you write , you put your spec work together and you start making connections on your own and I was able to make connections through the fellowship and through the Disney executives . That didn't get me my first job . It got me time on one of their shows and a chance to get my scripts together .
You mentioned before that you write . You wrote with other people , they all wrote and you all got credit . How do you write with a number of people .
¶ Collaborating With Other Writers
So in a writer's room we spend weeks before called pre-production , before we ever go into production and the actors get there just talking about what the season's going to look like . If on network shows we had 22 episodes to write , we would talk about what are our first four episodes going to cover ? Who has ideas ?
We'd come in with All sorts of story ideas for A stories , b , c , joke runners it's just like a big mixing pot and then we would start mapping out where we wanted our characters to go . And we would do a lot of all of this , this initial work , together . And then we would start portioning out the scripts , like who wants to write this first one ?
Who's got a really strong take on this ? Who pitched this episode three ? Do you want to write that ? And there's a lot of steps before you get to the first draft .
So when you said that you were sitting in the room and deciding , only the writers or the network tells you listen , the show has to be about so-and-so . How does it work ?
Only the writers . We'll have meetings with the network saying this is what we're looking for in this show . They already know . They kind of know that already , because they picked it up . They've bought the show .
So that's after a pilot .
After pilot they get an idea of you know who the writers are , what kind of work they do and where the show is going to go , and they do give us notes . They would give us notes weekly on each script but it wasn't suffocating at all . You know , everyone wants the show to work .
The smarter network executives would hand that over to the writers because they know what you know . We knew what we were doing .
So I know that in television writers end up being showrunner . That's like the
¶ A show Runner
head writer for a show .
It is the showrunner runs the show . Usually you're the executive producer , they're the head writer , and running the show means they run the writer's room or they use proxies .
Like your executive , your co-EP , your producers , we all have producing titles , but we're all writers in the writer's room and it just means that as you move up the ladder you get to do more producing , like going down to the sets , talking to the actors , going into the editing bays and a showrunner has had time on other people's shows .
She knows the process of getting a week's worth of work together I like how you said she is it mostly women that are showrunners ?
no , no , but that's been . That's been changing for the last 10 years in such a great way , but not when I was starting out . No , but like one of the first showrunners , not one of the first , like Diane English , there was Susan Harris , there were a lot of , really , uh .
Diane English is known .
Yeah , she created Murphy Brown .
Right right .
When I saw that show I was in my 20s and I remember going to work at an ad agency and asking anyone did you see this new show , Murphy Brown ? It's incredible and no one had seen it and I thought it's also run by a woman and this , again , like it , fed into my .
I want to be a Carol Burnett , I want to work with a Tracy Ullman , I want to know this Diane English . And the showrunner just has this overview and is suddenly running a multimillion dollar empire . It's difficult because you come up from a creative standpoint as a writer . And suddenly you're given these- .
Like a producer A producer very administrative role , right . Do you have a dream of becoming a showrunner ? I did for a while . I've run rooms plenty . I've been a co-EP , which is next to the exec producer . I have sold pilots . I've sold series that , had they gone forward , I would have been the showrunner on .
Okay series that had they gone , had they gone forward , I would have been the showrunner on okay , as I was reaching that part in my career . The tv industry was changing so rapidly and a lot of people were taking a hit like this . You know just our strikes and everything going to streaming , digital residuals
¶ Wiring For Uggly Betty
, all these things were just totally changing the landmark the landscape of it .
So you worked on a lot of shows , like Ugly Betty . I know Jenna Davis these are the names that I remember . What was your favorite show to work on , and why ?
It was Ugly Betty . I made my leap from being purely in the comedy writing room to dramedy , so it was a big writer's room , 12 to 14 people . Sometimes people would come and go as consultants and it was half drama writers and half comedy . It was women , gay men , couples . It was the most egalitarian room I'd ever walked into and it was a joy
¶ The Writer's Room
. It was so much fun and it was more about when you're in a comedy writing room I call it a full contact sport . And it was more about when you're in a comedy writing room I call it a full contact sport . These people jump . You jump on the table to sell your idea . You act out your jokes . You're always trying to hit your mark .
With drama , it's much more writerly . Let's talk about how we're going to shift this act into act two how do we end this scene ? And I loved that because I had not been around that . It was much more performative where I was coming from .
Do you sit in the reading when the actors actually read it ? Do you give them some directions also ?
Yeah , that is called the weekly table read .
Okay .
So when you're about to go to the stage with a new script , all the network and studio executives , the actors and the writers , everybody comes in , sits around a table and they read , cold , from the scripts that they'd gotten the night before . And the network says okay , we heard the whole episode .
We're going to talk to you guys , the writers , here's our notes Studio may have notes and then we go back to the writer's room and we figure out what worked , what fell flat , what kind of rewrite we need to do that day .
Do you tape it or do you just listen ? As it happens , you listen , you listen yeah . And you can tell and you don't miss Right . So okay , so when you write something characters especially where is your inspiration from ? Where do you take the details ? Family , friends , your life , imagination , what ?
We poach from our family and friends . Watch what you say . Around a screenwriter , I would carry a notepad where I had my joke file . I had conversation snippets . If I was eavesdropping on the subway , I would take all of that . And when you're pitching to other writers in the room you want to have , you want it to be grounded with you know what ?
I was just on the bus and I heard these two people talking about this . It makes it more immediate and real . I mean because it is real . That's just sort of a good rule of thumb . When you're pitching your idea , you want to make it accessible so people can go . Oh , I can totally see that scene . I can see where it plays out .
So we pull from everything right , yeah , so you , you , you write the episode . Do you watch it when it airs ?
we do . I mean , we have viewing parties . A lot of times I I don't watch my shows from 10 and 20 years ago . It's a weird thing to do that , because it takes me right back to the time we'd have on the set and all of the politics going on with the network . It's very , it's very jarring for me .
But you know , especially when you're on a hit show , you can't wait for it to air . You go over to everyone's house or the actors' houses and you watch it debut . It's great .
Does it happen to you when you watch and say , oh shoot , I should have written it this way . And does it happen ?
Oh , yeah , yeah . And also in editing you can lose entire parts of the script and sometimes the script can end up not making a lot of sense . Right yeah you lose a lot in the process .
So you mentioned residuals . I know that on Broadway they get royalties . The creative people Do you get royalties ? I mean on reruns and all of that
¶ Residuals and The Changing World of TV
.
We do get residuals and it's one of the things that I think in the 1980s the Writers Guild , which I'm a member of it's our type of union . They fought for residuals , pension and health coverage , and without that I don't know how I'd be getting by . I relied on residuals and with the prime time shows that I worked on abc , cbs , nbc those paid really well .
I think the minimum guild was , say , twenty thousand dollars for a script for an episode for an episode . Sorry for an episode . Okay , when it runs , you get half of that , ten thousand wow I know , and then every time it would run . After that it would go down by half half , half .
All of that changed when it started going to cable into streaming what do you mean ? Well , there was a different kind of negotiations that happened . So we went on strike in 2007 , 2008 , because we didn't even know that was on the very beginning .
There was a verge of everything going streaming , so we didn't even know how to argue for digital residuals , where something can be pumped out in 50 different iterations on different platforms . So residuals really took a hit . Writers that were reliant on that kind of stream of income were taken a hit .
I still get tiny checks from my network days and very small checks from my digital streaming days .
And if the show was shown overseas ? I mean , some shows go international . Do you get residuals from that ?
Yeah , and it's not a lot , but you'll get a chunk of . They'll aggregate a lot of your smaller payments for international usage and you'll get that in a lump sum . It could be anywhere from $ dollars to thousands yeah it's , it's I just don't even know what they base it on , but so it's always just it's christmas .
Well , every quarter for me I get oh , like the other day I got a check for 87 cents . For what for it was ?
Um , it was for a nickelodeon show that I wrote that I'd totally forgotten about and I thought the 87 cents that they sent me in a paper check that had to then go through all these guilds and paycheck companies and then being mailed to me was a loss .
Of course , just the stamp is 75 cents now .
Are they ? Yeah , oh my God .
That is crazy . Okay , so comedy , we know , is very subjective . How
¶ Comedy Writing
do you know when you write a line , that it's really funny ?
That is a difficult question to answer . I gosh , where do I start ? I did not consider myself a funny person until I met someone in my later 20s who said you're really funny . And that again was like these opportunities that I eventually got were not even on my radar when I was young .
So I started exploring , I started doing improv and just sort of stretching that doing , doing improv , performing or writing . Performing and I was terrible and I will only be behind a camera . I was just so terrible . But it taught me , like , how do you think in the moment , what would a character really really say in those instances ?
The comedy part of it is I knew that I wanted to be around really funny people and I imagined that Lucy and Desi had a beautiful house in Hollywood and poolside it was all of the great comedians and I thought I wonder if they still do that in this time and age . And come to find out they do .
When you break in as a comedy writer , you go to parties where it's the funniest , most amazing . As a comedy writer , you go to parties where it's the funniest , most amazing talented people in the world . And so I got my dream to be around funny people and you just keep up .
So what ? They just run lines around the pool .
Well , I mean , they're just funny , naturally , and you want to not be crushed in a conversation , so you step up your game .
Interesting . So how long does it typically take to write an episode ?
When you're on staff , you're usually given two weeks , and that's from the time that . Hey , what are we doing with this episode that's going to be filmed next month ? So you talk about the story , you talk about the smaller stories within it , you write an outline and then , as the one writer , you'll be handed that as an assignment . Take that episode , go home .
You've got a week and a half to write it , and then you come back and then it's workshopped by the other writers . So you've got people cycling in and out of the writer's room depending on where they are in the writing of their episode .
So did it happen
¶ Beating Writer's Block and AI Challenges
to you that you had a writer's block ?
Oh yes .
What happens then ? What do you do ?
I really succumbed to that . I think it's a luxury that a lot of people don't have , Especially when you're working like there would be times when we were called to turn a script around in two days .
Right .
So we would just all jump on it together . If I was given a week and a half to write a script , I would freeze for the first seven days .
What .
Yeah , that's my process , apparently , and I would just wring my hands and stare at the sky and think I can never do this . I'm going to write my way out of my career and then I would scare myself into writing and I would sit down and do two or three all-nighters , but that was . I don't recommend that . I don't recommend it .
It was exhausting physically and emotionally and it was terrible on my loved ones and anyone who watched my process . So I don't recommend that . But I'm constantly still . I come from a place of fear . I want to write what's great , and in order to write great , you have to write really shittily . Really . Yeah , I do , and I tell writers these days write poorly .
I would write what I call the swill draft . It's nothing but pure swill , horrible , unreadable . But at least I got on the paper so then I can go in and start writing from there . But the blank page is something that just takes the wind out of me .
That leads me to the question about AI Also . I know the last strike was about AI . Yeah , how can you help that ? Don't you think studios will just write through AI ? They are , they already are .
There are studios , I think it's Sony Through AI they are , they already are .
Really .
There are studios I think it's Sony that has said that they are going to use their own AI . Let's call it a machine . It's a plagiarizing machine . They're saying they're going to take all the Sony intellectual properties and funnel it into their own AI system and then they're going to pull from that .
So it's not really poaching , it's not stealing if you're stealing from yourself . I mean what we're heading towards is you can take any existing pilot or pre-existing pilot , run all of the episodes that are ever written for it into AI and say write me a new season of 10 episodes . It's not going to be very good , but it's always .
You know the writing of it's getting better . So when we went on strike in 2022 , we didn't even it was not that long ago we didn't even know what AI was going to be doing other than it was going to be a threat . It is . It's unregulated . I think that my peers and I were not for no AI . That would be foolish . It's like saying no internet .
Right .
But there's no regulation I can tell when someone writes with AI .
Really .
Yeah , there are so many tells .
Really .
Yes , and even when you ask it to write in a more human voice , it's not there yet . It has a lot to do with the prompts that you feed it . I'll do research using AI and some of it's really in-depth and amazing . Some of it's incorrect .
Yes , I saw that a lot , yeah , but what stops you as a writer ? You have a week to write , or a week and a half . Seven days , you are paralyzed , basically .
Yeah .
What stops you from just feeding all the characters and stuff into ai and spewing something ?
because it takes you out of your brain and your talent . It extracts that and then you're a , you're passive , and any writing that I've done using ai which is more for administrative , or I do tables and spreadsheets I am just watching it give me answers .
As a writer , you have to go deep , you have to go emotional , otherwise what you're writing is just words on a page . You'll never find your voice , and that's one of the things that you get to do as a . As a writer , throughout your career , your voice deepens .
You find a way to say something that no one else can say in a way that no one else can say it , and all of that would be erased with AI . So I caution young writers .
¶ Career Highs, Lows, and Missed Opportunities
What show you wish you had worked on .
The Tracy Ullman Show which is sketch comedy . I know it was sketch comedy and that's where the Simpsons got its start . I was up for King of the Hill . It is an animated show and I just loved it so much I thought I was perfect for it and I didn't get the job .
There was major depression right .
Yeah , yeah , that one hurt . There was a lot of things that I didn't get . Oh , I turned down shows that became juggernauts .
Oh , why Don't tell me you turned down Friends ?
I didn't turn down Friends , I turned down Sex and the City because I thought it was going nowhere . I watched the pilot and they said , Dawn , you can move back to New York where so many of your friends are . And I was like , yeah , I've watched the pilot . I said no , I don't see it happening .
I hated this show .
Yeah , I mean I ended up loving the show . The first season was bizarre and bad and then it kind of found its stride . All of my close friends worked on it , made a career of it , bought homes .
Did you kick yourself oh ?
my God , yes , my daughter's . Like we all love Sex and the City . They're all in their 20s . And I said , you know ? And she goes , mom , don't tell the story about you . Turn that show down . You can't watch it without being bitter . I was like , no , I'm bitter . I am so bitter , my God .
And there were many shows that I should have gone with that stayed around for years and years , and I was like , no , I don't see it . There was a time that I was 100% wrong on every call that I made with my career . It cost me everything .
Oh well , and your ?
agent didn't push you to accept it . They did , they did . My agent called me at like late night . I found this show for you . You've got to get on Sex and the City . Oh yeah , yeah , oh well .
It is what it is . Everybody has a missed story . I know Any industry that they are . Yes , if you would have the possibility of producing or writing any project , what would that be ?
I do have a project that I want to do and it's a post-Civil War feminist screed . But funny , oh , oh yeah , I just . There's a woman outlaw that existed that I want to write about , and in order to get that done , first I have to write about it and stop talking about it .
As a film or as a TV show as a TV show . Okay .
And in order to get that made and realized , I would reach out to producers that I've worked with . I would reach out to actors that I've reached out to one and he said I think it's a great idea and I'd be a part of that . I'd have to do the producing and pulling it together myself , and it's just really a matter of can I ?
You know , if I can get past my own self .
For someone without connections to producers
¶ Ways To Break In
or network executives ? What's the best way for them to break into the business ?
I talked to a lot of university students in the film and TV programs and I said first off , you've got YouTube . I think it's an amazing force . You've got TikTok , you've got Instagram . You have ways of getting your work as a comedian , especially as a musician . There are formats that we didn't have at our fingertips right . That it requires you to self-produce .
So when you apply for the job , they look how many followers you have . They do now . They do huh .
Yeah , that's a big part of it . Even for actors now , it's not where we wanted things to go and you've got writers who are camera shy .
And you're very solitary usually .
Very solitary . Yeah , we're introverts by and large and there's a lot of us being called to get our names , our brands , as ourselves out there . I did that a lot last year . It worked . I didn't enjoy it , but I've got to do it again if I want to get some heat behind my name so that people will read me .
Wow , I looked up your history a little bit and I see that you went into producing and into coaching other writers . That's why you started that .
It is , and also there's the notes giving process to scripts that I always really loved . I was always in writers groups . I feel like I'm in a really good position to mentor and help other people , so I shifted after 2020 , because we all shifted , we all pivoted where we lived , how we lived and you mean after the pandemic .
After the pandemic Right , yeah , we did it . We had a lot of time for soul searching and I did not want the hustle of getting my next project up .
But I did want the hustle of what if I can create a company that people can come to as a writing community and they can form their own writers groups and I can coach and I can do one on one script consultation . So I've been doing that for the last couple of years and I love it .
What's the best advice you got as a writer in your career ?
I think it was simple Get out of your own way . Get out of your own way . When you're writing , we tend to like get precious about oh , I want to tell , oh , that was a really good line , oh , this is not great . Like it's the all theediting that will slow up your writing and really put a kink in the works . Let the writing happen , follow it .
You don't have to be so stressed about it like you're hanging on too tight . Let it go see where it goes
¶ Writing as a Muscle and Career Advice
.
And that to me was like a free fall on your website , I saw something that really perked my interest . You said that everybody can write , that writing is a muscle , right ? Please talk about it , because I don't believe it , but maybe so tell me what you don't believe about .
Writing is a muscle .
I think a lot of it has to do with talent , with how articulate you are , how observing you are , that kind of thing .
Yeah , that you have to have . I think that I jumped over all of that . You have to have talent , but talent can be brought out . You do have to have a point of view , and that's something that comes with maturity .
Right .
And then the muscle part of it is what has kept me working in an industry that likes to disappear people after 40 . What's kept me working is my habits and rituals and my habit of writing every morning , and that's the morning pages , the Julia Cameron artist way stuff Very corny .
I resisted it for 20 years and then , at a very particular time in my life in 2018 , my marriage was failing . We were losing everything it . It was very I'd lost my voice and my ability to write and I , out of desperation , turned to morning pages and I would sit there with my cup of coffee and go I don't want to do this , I don't want to do this .
And weeks into months , I started coming back to myself , just stream of consciousness , writing . Stream of consciousness because when you first wake up , it's that diffuse thinking , your analytical brain is not kicked in yet and that was the muscle of just getting my thoughts out of my cranium and onto a page and then going on with my day and what I found out .
It cleared out my day to get to my other writing , which is the . That's the professional writing . But I couldn't do the professional writing because I was so lost and it was those morning pages . That got me back on track . So when I talk about , it's like the muscle that you have to develop , it does mean writing each day .
I think talent can be brought out by that .
Interesting . That's good to know for all the audience out there that are dreaming to become writers . Yeah , what is the biggest challenge for a screenplay writer ? I ?
would say that they think it's breaking in . I think it is learning the format and how to tell a great story they need to know I mean , let's just talk about film writers To write a screenplay you've got to have the outline , the treatment , the breaking , the story . You've got to know all the beats to hit .
And if you're trying to be really creative and artistic and work outside of that , then good luck . But you're not going to be a screenwriter unless you can go make it yourself . I think that's the hardest hurdle is reining in your talent and putting it into the format that will get you read and made .
When you say format , let's take film , for example . I know they have like oh
¶ Writing Format
, by seven minutes . You have to have your first plot point and then another 21 minutes , you have to have another plot point , you have to have three acts . So do you follow that formula ?
Absolutely . I follow it to the T , to the page number , and here's why . That's what helped me break in . And I studied the beats to a sitcom . I watched Frasier episodes , I watched anything that was on and I wrote it down in a notepad and I thought , oh , in this one minute , this is the information they conveyed . How they conveyed it ?
Which character conveyed it ? When you're writing a screenplay , by page three , you want to know what the genre is Like . Am I reading a horror ? Am I reading a romantic comedy ? You've got to pick your lane . I think a lot of other writers would disagree with me , but this is what worked for me . I stuck to the format and the structure and it mattered .
Interesting . Yeah , they always talk about the format . Yeah , it's incredible . Yeah , what advice would you have given yourself when you were just starting out , when you were 20 , you said you started to write . Yeah , the first thing that comes to mind is don't take it personally .
What do you mean to write ? Yeah , the first thing that comes to mind is don't take it personally , but I think that's what do you mean by that ? Don't take it personally , well , like when you get Rejected . Rejected , and when you get notes and when you're told you'll never make it in this business , all these things .
Even I was told that in advertising you got to be ayear-old guys .
Right , so we talked about the challenge . What's the biggest reward ?
It's the people that I have gotten to work with and have become close to the funniest , brightest , sharpest people on the planet , and I didn't , you know , I had that when I was talking about that , poolside with Lucy and Desi . That's kind of what I wanted . That's kind of what I wanted my life to look like , and my life is that .
Do you have a dream of writing a novel ? Like when you were back in wherever Germany , you said In England . In England .
Yes .
You do .
Yes , I have various outlines and titles and ideas . All right , yeah .
We're going to look forward to it . Thank you so much for your time . That was a real good lesson in TV behind the scenes Cool my pleasure . That's a wrap for today . If you have a comment or question or would like us to cover a certain job , please let us know . Visit our website at howmuchcanimakeinfo . We would love to hear from you .
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