Serendipity takes Shape

“Everything that kills me makes me feel alive” sing One Republic in Counting Stars. It could be the theme song for Serendipity, the protagonist in my original television pilot Red Fish, Blue Fish. Serendipity is a complex woman of contrasts seeking that next dopamine rush. She is her own worst enemy, a pleasure seeker, a risk taker and a hero. Recently I have enjoyed bringing her to life in all her self-sabotaging glory. A woman so flawed, she is fantastically ordinary in the mistakes that she makes and a woman so perfect, she is extraordinary in the journey that she ends up taking.

Through New Dramatists in New York City, I have met an inspiring group of female writers also creating their own pilots. We gather on a weekly basis sharing the fruits of our previous weeks’ efforts under the guidance of teacher Francine Volpe. It is an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. Ten pages of our carefully crafted work is read aloud and then analyzed by nine people. It is constructive, humbling and enriching. Each writer has to go through the same ordeal: share a group of characters and conflicts, themes and dramatic choices; one act of either a half hour or hour long pilot. Sometimes our efforts work, sometimes they don’t. Mostly they don’t, but therein lies the lesson. In all, it is a wonderful antidote to the solitary experience of writing.

In Red Fish, Blue Fish, I am striving towards a feel-good, upbeat dramedy with a panoply of characters normally not represented on American television. They regularly and comically deal with issues that we would rather forget. As a marketing strategy, this could either be groundbreaking or suicidal, but at this point, I don’t care. Ultimately for me, it is engaging and entertaining to write. I like a good challenge; I suppose you could say that everything that may drown me makes me want to fly.