I began experimenting with writing daytime soap operas sometime in the mid-90’s. A friend and colleague had reinvented and revitalized her television career when she moved from primetime into soaps, and I thought it was an interesting evolution. I used to describe it as “writing a never-ending television novel”. It was that for sure, and, for a writer, it was a daunting task. Not only do you have to mentally juggle decades of history and multitudes of characters, it was and is necessary to be extremely disciplined. Writing 250 shows a year is relentless, sometimes one to two hour or half-hour shows a week, holding in your mind what everyone else is doing, what’s gone before, and what’s coming next. It takes energy, effort, desire and organization. Sometimes it’s even creatively rewarding. My favorite of all the shows I worked on was Port Charles. We experimented with content, we worked as a team and we all contributed. It was the little show that could, then it couldn’t, then it didn’t.
I began experimenting with writing daytime soap operas sometime in the mid-90’s. A friend and colleague had reinvented and revitalized her television career when she moved from primetime into soaps, and I thought it was an interesting evolution. I used to describe it as “writing a never-ending television novel”. It was that for sure, and, for a writer, it was a daunting task. Not only do you have to mentally juggle decades of history and multitudes of characters, it was and is necessary to be extremely disciplined. Writing 250 shows a year is relentless, sometimes one to two hour or half-hour shows a week, holding in your mind what everyone else is doing, what’s gone before, and what’s coming next. It takes energy, effort, desire and organization. Sometimes it’s even creatively rewarding. My favorite of all the shows I worked on was Port Charles. We experimented with content, we worked as a team and we all contributed. It was the little show that could, then it couldn’t, then it didn’t.