Last year, I needed to crank out another original one-hour sample for a potential rep. Fast. I already had the show’s basic premise, characters, arcs, and theme in mind…but I knew I wouldn’t have as much polish time once I pounded out the first draft as I’m used to. And (as I’ve mentioned before) those rewrites are where I really find my scripts come alive.

So, once I hammered out that first draft, I opened up a special document where I’ve been stashing little pieces of awesome for close to a decade. Great stories I overheard, cool dialogue parted out from abandoned projects, unique characters I’d imagined but not utilized yet, etc. …it’s basically where I bury the babies I’m forced to kill – but plan on reanimating at the right moment.

I call this document my Golden Garbage Dump.

It’s a simple Final Draft file with a random assortment of the items I described above. But it’s proved invaluable time and time again. In this particular situation, I had a scene where a con man describes his admiration for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to another criminal. It was originally part of a spec “Leverage” I was working on at the time – but the show didn’t spark *any* interest from potential reps and showrunners, so I took it out behind the barn and executed all forty pages.

But I had to keep that scene – it was just too much fun to write (and read). My new project was about the same world, so I did some tweaking and voila – the scene was recycled into something I could actually use while saving me a grip of time.

The point I’m trying to make is, Don’t ever feel like you have to kill a particular element because it’s part of a failed project. Allow yourself to mine that pile of trash before discarding it. You’ll thank yourself down the line.

I’m a serial rewriter – when I’m in the middle of a script, I can’t stop myself from reading back over what I’ve accomplished in prior sessions and doing a little polish work. Of course, this means I’m rewriting all of my scenes multiple times before finishing the first draft.

And it still sucks. Always.

This used to get me down because of all the work I’d put into that first draft. What I didn’t realize was that, despite it’s first drafty-ness, I’d done most of the heavy lifting. Which is to say I’d written everything down – front, middle, and end. Now, I can go about making it actually good.

Which is why I’m writing this post. Forget Hemingway, EVERY writer I’ve ever heard interviewed or spoken with directly has emphasized that the first draft is the first effort – and that it should never see the light of day. It’s quite simple to identify missteps when you have an entire story to contrast it against – not so much if you only have part of the whole and don’t know where you’re headed.

So I guess the long and short of this thought is: don’t be afraid to be bad. Because we all are. It’s how you work the rough shape that helps add a distinct voice and focus to the script you will show other folks.

I first came across this *brilliant* bit of inspiration on John Roger’s blog Kung Fu Monkey. It’s hanging in the writer’s room at “Leverage” and undoubtedly in many other places as well, but I’m not sure where it originally came from.

That said, check out how motivating the stuff can be…”Done is the engine of more” gets my fingers on the keyboard more mornings than I’d care to admit. And my showrunner buddies think it’s genius. I hope it helps you, too.

Once you’re sure you’re ready, there are a number of ways to query an agent – the most powerful being The Referral (it’s so important, I’m capitalizing it!). There’s no better intro than having an established professional step up to the bat for you.

But that’s not the type of query I’m writing about today. I’m going to talk about a “blind” email query – which is to say an unsolicited request for a read.

This can be a controversial subject – Alex Epstein raised the subject with a former agent’s assistant and she dismissed the idea out of turn as futile and a waste of time.

Luckily, my “research” has proved otherwise. When I queried agents who’d never heard of me in mid 2008, I ended up being read at Endeavor, William Morris, ICM, UTA, and Gersh. For the few who don’t know these names, I’m talking about *serious* talent agencies with the largest TV departments in the world.

So how’d my email go? This is the gist of it:

NAME: Ari Agent
SUBJECT: “NAME OF MY PROJECT”