You can pre-order my book, too!

I took a look through my emails to see the journey of this Mary Sue, and was delighted to discover that the collected edition comes out almost exactly three years from when I sent the pitch email to my original editor.

So, I thought for today’s substack, it would be fun to follow the (truncated) journey.

BUT! Before we go down memory lane, an exciting update for PROJECT MAIL - we’re casting!

If you, or an actor you know, lives in or around London and would like to audition for this audio drama project, you can find the information here.

The recordings will be in person from September 25 - 27, so you must be able to travel to London for those days.

Mary Sue, a Journey Through My Emails

August 17, 2023

I write up some pitches to send to the editor I just hit it off with at SDCC. She speaks fandom, and I have an idea I really think she’ll like.

September 20, 2023

She had a chance to take a look at my pitches and she loves one… but not the one I expected! She really likes this MARY SUE pitch. Can we do a call?

September 25, 2023

I write up a really rough pitch for 6 issues. Seriously, it’s incredibly thrown together. But it gets the point across!

September 27, 2023

I do the editor’s notes on the pitch, clean it up. It’s a little more presentable now.

September 29, 2023

The editor is submitting to the rest of the Boom team for approval!

November 2, 2023

THE PITCH IS APPROVED! The editor builds a schedule and gets the contract moving! Things are happening!

January 29, 2024

New year, and a new contract in! Boom sends it over, and I let my agent, who just moved to a new agency, handle things.

April 18, 2024

My editor who has championed the project that I was really excited to work with is leaving Boom! I’m so bummed, but she introduced me to my new editor, who is an absolute gem.

However, it’s been two and a half months, and I’ve still not gotten the redlined contract from my agent’s new agency.

June 4, 2024

It’s been four months now, and still my agent’s agency has not gotten the redline across. The project is in jeopardy of getting cancelled before it has a contract and I send a strongly worded email.

June 6, 2024

The agency finally send the redline contract.

July 10, 2024

Penguin Random House announces it is acquiring Boom.

July 30, 2024

The President of Publishing and Marketing at Boom, who has been spearheading the contract, is leaving. But he got the contract done before he left!

Let’s get to writing and finding an artist!

August 21, 2024

Turn in my outline!

August 26, 2024

I make the difficult to decision to leave my agent. I really love and respect them, but the new agency left a bitter taste in my mouth.

September 17, 2024

Turn in the second draft of my outline!

October 3, 2024

Third draft of the outline, final adjustments made, outline approved!

October 7, 2024

We move forward with an artist. Can’t wait to see the designs!

SKIPPING AHEAD THROUGH TURNING IN ISSUES AND DESIGN CONVERSATIONS

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THINGS GO PRETTY WELL UNTIL…

April 3, 2025

After getting designs in, the original artist has some personal issues, which pushes the schedule.

May 14, 2025

We have to terminate the original artist. And we have to go from 6 issues to 5 issues. And we have to push release from July to October.

This was a tough email to get, but my editor is an absolute joy and treasure and I’m so grateful to work with her.

The other shining light in this moment is the wonderful artist, Lisa Sterle, who comes on board to do the art! And she’s so perfect for it.

October 8, 2025

MARY SUE 1 RELEASED INTO THE WORLD

From there, it was full steam ahead. We had a fun launch at NYCC, complete with a Barbenheimer-esque NYCC exclusive cover for Mary Sue, where she cosplays as Marian Heretic.

But it wasn’t without scrapes and bruises along the way. The fact that this project survived amidst so much upheavel and change is a testament to my editor and to the sales team.

It’s always a small miracle when anything gets made, and I am not only lucky, but so so grateful. It’s been a wild ride, and I hope we get a chance to keep it going!

SO, if you (or someone you know) loves fandom, is a part of fandom, reads fanfic late into the night, or you just want to support original stories…

Order a copy of Mary Sue!

Bless the rains,

Meghan

JANUARY

• Ring in the new year with friends in London, north of the River (important to me, as a south of the River girl).

• Start working in earnest on a feature script, call it PROJECT ARTIST2. It’s very fun, a rom-com with a little smattering of adventure.

• In an effort to stop hiding at home and discover a new writing spot, I start going to the cafe at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

• Visit from a dear friend Amanda!

• Pitch a creator owned comic series, call it PROJECT CHURCH. Different from my usual vibe, but still really personal.

• Meet on a video game project, call it PROJECT DUCKBILL. I can genuinely say nothing about this.

• Turn in an outline for an audiobook, call it PROJECT PRINCESS. Also nothing I can say about this.

• Turn in the last issue for an unannounced IP Comic, call it PROJECT DREAM. I’m so excited for this, I think it’s some of my best work.

• Lead a story summit for an independent audio series with the writing team for PROJECT MAIL. The vibe for this is wistful Cold War.

• Prep for an IP audio project called PROJECT FEAR. Can’t say anything, but this is a real honor.

• See musicals!! Hadestown for the… third time? And Ballad Lines, also a folk musical, which was spectacular.

FEBRUARY

• Belgium month! I’ve been going to Belgium in February for the last three years now, and I love it (despite the cold). Have loads of beer and go to the Beer Museum, where I learn that witch imagery comes from the women who brewed beer.

• Not only do I go to Belgium, but I visit a high school friend in the Netherlands! Get very into the Dutch/Spanish wars.

• When not traveling (and also while traveling), work on audio drama pitches. Including:

  • PROJECT HISTORY. This was originally a pilot script that my reps hated. But maybe it works better for audio? It will never get made, but it’s silly and fun!

  • PROJECT WATER. This is an idea I’ve been playing with for a while. It pulls from my own life in a genre that’s very commercial. It feels like a slam dunk.

• Adjust the PROJECT PRINCESS outline.

• Update the pitch for PROJECT CHURCH. Fingers crossed.

• WRITE A WHOLE BOOK. Seriously, I’m so proud of this. I wrote a first draft of a book for an IP in a month. Call this PROJECT PALS. I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I’ve been so intimidated by prose. This was hard, but so rewarding.

• Write the DC Comics title story for HAWK-GIRL SUMMER (out now!)

• Start working on a pitch for an animated project with a pal, call it PROJECT AMUSE.

• Meet with even more people for PROJECT DUCKBILL, and write up a conceit for the game.

• Prep work for PROJECT FEAR is done! Start doing the fun bit - actually writing.

• Contract for a personal project, call it PROJECT ROCKS, is done! I can finally work on it!

• PROJECT CHURCH is picked up!

MARCH

• Back to doing writing days at the Royal Court, often meeting friends. They do £1 teas and coffees!

• Slowly making my way through PROJECT ARTIST. Features are hard.

• Finish crocheting a blanket, a massive goal. It’s been good to crochet at night, it calms my nervous system and helpful to disengage from work.

• PROJECT CHURCH is approved… sort of! Just need to figure out if the budget approves it!

• Fly to LA, then two days later fly to Orlando for MEGACON. First time at Megacon, despite it being my hometown. Get to see friends and family, and say goodbye to the house I spent my teen years in (my parents are moving).

• Fly BACK to LA for WONDERCON. At no point do I recover from jetlag.

• Continue to develop PROJECT AMUSE.

• PROJECT ROCKS outline is done! I love it. Can’t wait to start writing.

• Turn in the first half of PROJECT FEAR!

APRIL

• Still in LA, so I do a whirlwind of meetings and catchups while in town.

• Recover from jetlag just in time to fly back to London!

• Continue to develop PROJECT AMUSE - including a field trip!

• Prep work for the second half of PROJECT FEAR, and start writing.

• Still working on PROJECT ARTIST - and hey! I’m 3/4 of the way done! How did that happen?!

• Good news, PROJECT CHURCH budget has been approved! All systems go, time to find an artist!

• Finally write PROJECT PRINCESS, which is akin to writing another book. At least I’ve done that now!

• PROJECT ROCKS is cancelled. Allow myself to mourn.

• Get a call from a friend I’ve been wanting to work with — do I have time to do PROJECT BUGS? Hell yeah!

• Anxiety-filled VISA interlude.

• Audio Pitching Round Results":

  • It’s a pass on PROJECT WATER. Bummed, but I’ve not had anything get through this round, so it’s not a huge surprise.

  • However, turns out folks like PROJECT HISTORY. Can write out a longer pitch for the next stage? Sure! (It will never get picked up.)

• Meet with producers of PROJECT MAIL as I wait on scripts.

• See John Proctor is the Villain, which was amazing (and at the Royal Court! I love the Royal Court.)

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MAY

• My birthday! Go on a fabulous history walking tour around Shoreditch and Whitechapel (north of the River), and then hang out with friends at my favorite pub.

• Oh, no, EVERYTHING IS DUE.

• Write out the longer pitch/outline of PROJECT HISTORY (it won’t get picked up, but I’m having a lot of fun).

• Assist with a Wooden Overcoats mini-series recording (not my project, but emotionally connected in every way.)

• Write the second half of PROJECT FEAR.

• Find an artist for PROJECT CHURCH! Contract time!

• Revise and turn in PROJECT BUGS draft and outline.

• Revise and turn in PROJECT PRINCESS.

• Turn in the second draft of PROJECT PALS, doing the notes in the lobby of the sketchiest “hotel” before going to a bar with limited wi-fi.

• Go sailing?! (IDK, this was a weird side quest.)

• A project that I’ve been on for two years starts ramping back up! Call this PROJECT ETERNAL.

• BRING SPOUSE TO THE US - IYKYK.

• Immediately go to Oklahoma City for a GalaxyCon. Fall in love with Oklahoma City.

• Return to LA on Memorial Day and collapse.

• FINISH THE FIRST DRAFT OF PROJECT ARTIST.

JUNE

• Turn in second part + edits for PROJECT FEAR.

• Get drafts in for PROJECT MAIL! Find time to edit them.

• Juggle editing PROJECT ETERNAL scripts.

• Continue working on PROJECT BUGS.

• Find out that a writer’s room I’d met for, PROJECT WAR, is full. Sad, but push through.

• Anniversary this month! We have an LA hang for it.

• TAKE THE TRAIN FROM LA TO CHICAGO. This may be the thing I’ve been looking forward to the most. I love trains.

  

• ALA in Chicago! Meet librarians! Hang out with friends!

• Fly back from Chicago. Our bodies cannot handle a second train journey so close to the first.

JULY

• So, funny story, PROJECT WAR? Not full. Can I start in five days?

• PROJECT WAR proceeds, full steam ahead. I adjust to being back in a room (it’s wonderful, I love other writers).

• Remember PROJECT HISTORY? The thing that will never get made? Anyway, it’s been commissioned.

• SDCC! A quieter show for me than usual, yet still exhausted.

Which finds us in August! I am finally in one place for the whole month for the first time since… January?? My body is thrilled, but my mind is already dreaming of travel (which will happen next month).

Where are the projects now?

PROJECT MARY SUE - The collected edition is out this month! I’m hoping to plan something to celebrate.

PROJECT WAR - DOING GREAT HAVING A BLAST.

PROJECT ARTIST - First draft is done! Now to find time to edit. As there’s no specific deadline on this, I’ve got to fight to make it a priority.

PROJECT CHURCH - Contract is almost done! Excited to work on it soon.

PROJECT DUCKBILL - Still going! It’s ebbed and flowed, which is why I didn’t add this too much to the above. But it’s approved by all the powers that be, so I believe this is full steam ahead!

PROJECT PALS - No word on this. Terrified that it’s cancelled, but also not bringing it up in a superstitious attempt to ensure it’s not cancelled.

PROJECT WATER - On hold, will develop further!

PROJECT AMUSE - Pitching this month!

PROJECT ROCKS - Sent this to other places, seeing if I can get a bite somewhere else.

PROJECT PRINCESS - Turned it in to the studio, where it will go through MANY passes. Excited to see the final product. I think this comes out in 2027.

PROJECT DREAM - Still no art. I’ve been told this comes out in 2027.

PROJECT MAIL - We record next month!! Casting starts this month, and I’m cleaning up the scripts. I think we’re aiming for this to come out in 2027.

PROJECT FEAR - Turned this in! I believe this comes out in 2027.

PROJECT HISTORY - This is also coming out in 2027. Since the outline is basically done, I should be able to jump into writing this soon.

PROJECT BUGS - Rolling along! This will also come out in 2027.

PROJECT ETERNAL - Some adjustments happening, but had a good meeting about this, so full steam ahead! This is also scheduled to come out in 2027.

IF YOU STUCK AROUND THIS LONG, you can see a big part of the job is to roll with the punches — turning negatives into positives, believing in projects when no one else would, try not to get too impatient when things take time (which is why it’s helpful for me to have a number of projects on the go), and trusting that something else will come along because of the seeds I’ve planted.

Cheers to facing the remaining highs and lows of 2026.

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Bless the Rains!

Meghan

Perhaps a heavy heart is why I feel the pressure to return to Substack. Yet, I always feel pressure when writing a Substack.

I’ve not found the best use for this platform. When I first started, I thought it could be a complex study on the different mediums I work in — however, I quickly found that… boring. And difficult. It felt like teaching and I am not a teacher. (There was a reason I studied Youth Ministry and not Early Childhood Education.)

I like Substack, in theory. It’s a good place to keep you up to date on my work. Like, for instance, that the All-Star Superman audiobook I adapted won Outstanding Audiobook Narration – Ensemble Cast – Best Voiceover at the Voice Arts Awards, and is now a Finalist for Best Science Fiction in the Audie Award. (Which means I have been mentioned in PEOPLE, which is very strange.)

I also signed two contracts this month that I’m really excited about. One is for an IP in a video game format. The other is for a creator owned that’s about a very personal event. And also espionage.

But other than keeping you up to date on my work, what is the point of this Substack?

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Every format I work in, I always ask the question, “what is cool about this format?” What do you get from the medium that you don’t get from other mediums?

For audio, it’s intimacy - it’s literally consumed in your body (unless you have over the ear headphones like me).

For TV, it’s character - hanging out with someone or a group of someones and seeing their static nature in changing circumstances.

For books, it’s internal monologue - you can get that from comics and live action, I supposed, but in books the internal monologue goes even further by expressing what you are actually seeing and experiencing.

I would say substacks are closest to books. It’s why there are so many educational substacks (including my favorites!) - it’s not enough to get the meat and bones of a topic, it’s about getting the internal monologue of the expert you’re reading. Substacks are not just newsletters, and they’re not just Nonfiction educational reading. They’re at the intersection of personal and informative.

Which, I’m realizing, are the exact two things I struggle with.

A big goal of mine this year is to write stories that are personal. I believe all writing is ultimately personal. But this year… I want to bleed. I want to physically feel like I’m scooping my insides out and plopping them onto the page.

Is it because I have so much anger and sadness swirling inside me with the state of the world? Perhaps. But I also believe it will make me a better writer. And, ultimately, a better human.

So, what’s the point of this Substack? For me, it’s the process. And maybe, along the journey, I’ll find my way.

Reading Scripts Through the Decades

Back on the topic of becoming a better writer — When I worked on Supernatural, one of the first big projects I started was to read every single script. It was a Masterclass in genre storytelling by some of the greats. I miss reading scripts... but I wanted to try my hand at reading a different kind of script. Features.

But where to start?! There’s almost a 100 years worth of scripts, and during my years as a Hollywood assistant, I’ve amassed over 500 scripts. And the WGA library has even more. I’m very easily overwhelmed by decision fatigue. But it helps if I have a project. Some sort of plan.

So, I decided to start by decade. Let’s go, 1930s.

The first script I read from the 1930s is the original FRANKENSTEIN, one of the original Universal Monster movies, complete with the iconic “it’s… alive! It’s aliveeeee!”

The draft I have is dated from August 1931, and it’s a real trip to read - particularly because the very well known and well trodden modern formatting of screenplays hasn’t been fully established yet.

Based on a play that was based on the book, the script is written in sequences, giving way more camera directions than a modern writer would ever dream of giving today. Almost each scene within the sequence is a different camera angle, which means the “sequences” (or “scenes” as we would call them today) are longer, but the actual “scenes” in the sequence are fairly short.

That being said, the scenes within the sequences are written almost like prose. It can potentially feel overwritten, especially if you’re judging it by today’s standards, but to me, it reads like poetry.

It’s also written more like a play, which makes sense. Theater had been around much longer. And even though this is a “talkie”, the dialogue was separate from the actual writing/adaptation, added in after the descriptive sequences were written. “Talkies” had only been around for five years at this point, so I imagine writing dialogue felt like a different skill set.

But my favorite moment in the screenplay is the description of Frankenstein’s lab. When reading this, I couldn’t help but imagine the men writing this almost a hundred years ago, unaware of how they were going to shape the imagination of generations! It’s even more apparent in this description:

I may not have an exact memory of the lab in this movie, but I feel like, even before reading the script, I could draw it from vibes. The entire movie created a public consciousness when it comes the monster. But not just the monster, Frankenstein (1931) was one of the cornerstones in creating the identity horror films, monster films, even mad scientists. So much comes from this movie and in particular from this exact description. It felt like unearthing an archeological artifact that explains why Egyptians love pyramids.

I also love that it references the 1927 movie Metropolis. Even a hundred years ago, references were king. And continues to remind me that the most important thing is to continue to grow and learn by reading and watching from the stories and imaginations of others.

The Crochet Report

Lest you think decision fatigue affects only my professional life, I am also besotted by decision fatigue in my casual hobbyist life as well. I did not crochet very much last year — in part because I was traveling so much and also because I was too stressed. Too overworked. I felt like a skinned hide, the meat sliced off piece by piece until there was nothing but skin.

Ultimately, if I had actually taken the time to crochet, I probably wouldn’t have been as stressed. Therein lies the conundrum.

I figured out a solution to my decision fatigue, but I’ve saving that project to tell you about at a later date. Today’s crochet report on this St. Brigid’s Eve is on a more… daring idea.

I wanted to make a St. Brigid’s Cross with crochet.

The crosses were woven together from thrush and hung on doorframes to protect homes from fire and evil. The day itself is also known as Imbolc, the day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s a day for opening up thresh holds, lighting a candle, and eating cheese. It means winter is almost over.

As you can see from the picture… St. Brigid’s cross is not one that really leans into a crochet. I’ve not found any pattern for it online (that isn’t a granny square, which I didn’t really want to do.)

I found one picture on Pinterest that was what I aimed for (see below).

Mine is… certainly not that good. But, without a pattern and for a first attempt, I think I did all right. I’m excited to hang it on the boat hatch in anticipation for spring.

The final product:

Not perfect! But I’m pretty proud. So leave a piece of cloth out for St. Brigid to bless and happy Imbolc!

Bless the Rains!

Meghan

It’s been over two months since the last substack, what I would charitably call a mad gasp towards the release of Mary Sue. And since then, I’ve been really pleased with the response, and so incredibly proud of the work we’ve all done on the project. (Just wait, 2026 is going to see even more exciting stuff for Mary Sue!)

Within those two months, I took a two-week vacation to Turkey and Bulgaria, found myself in five cities, four countries, and three continents within the span of thirty days, tried to keep my head above water as I worked on a number of unannounced projects, saw friends (but not nearly enough ), failed miserably at texting people, made deadlines, secured my UK visa, all in time to collapse in France for the holidays.

And before I close my laptop (metaphorically), I wanted to send out well wishes to you all, and thank you for making 2025 so meaningful. I am always so struck by how it is people who make life worth living. I have been surrounded by so many wonderful people this year - professionally and personally. And as the year comes to a close, I find myself grateful to live in this time, and to know each and every one of you.

My guiding light when it comes to doing what I do is that, at the end of the day, I want my stories to tell people they are loved. That the world is better because they are in it. I usually use metaphors, but in my last gasp of writing before 2026, let me tell you plainly — I am glad you exist. You make life better. And no matter what 2026 will be, I hope you know that you are not alone.

You are loved,

Meghan

As you may have noticed, I fully skipped a week. This round of jetlag has been possibly the worst I’ve ever experienced. Sleepless nights, anxious dreams, trouble eating — though that could all be anxiety. Jetlag and anxiety often present very similar. But I’ve been watching episodes of [REDACTED] for study purposes, so I can’t complain too much.

Just finished LA ComicCon and next week is New York Comic Con! I’ll be at Table H32 for most of the time, barring a couple of cool signing blocks —

Absolutely delighted to sign with for what she called “Mary-ian Here-Sue” at LACC. Genuinely, I’m so grateful to know Tini, and her book, Marian Heretic, firmly solidifies her as one of the smartest people I know, while also being an incredibly fun book. It’s a scary thing, to put something new out into the world. But I am absolutely in love with Marian (and Raveena) and you will be, too.

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

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Let’s go!

This week… Tropes.

Tropes may be the best way to find your fandom friends. For me, tropes become the thing I’m known for in a fandom, my special interest that reminds people of me (and so it should).

Because it’s late when I’m writing this and I don’t want to go in too deep of a dive, I’m not going to get into the history of tropes, even if it’s fascinating. (All I ever want to know is when certain tropes stopped being a novel concept and became a sub-genre.)

But for the uninitiated, what is a trope? You’ve heard the phrase enemies-to-lovers? Girl-next-door? And-they-were-roommates? These are all tropes. It’s a significant or recurring theme or motif in a story1. For those of us on the internet, tropes are how you find your favorite fics on AO3, the tags you search, the self-identifier for whatever you’re into.

Tropes are like astrology signs - they say a lot about you. Are you a friends-to-lovers sun with a hurt/comfort moon? Ride or die for a slow burn or pining? And don’t get me started on AUs (we’d be here for DAYS).

Below are some examples of tropes:

• Idiots in Love: Lots of miscommunication and complete unawareness of the other’s romantic feelings. Usually comedic.

• Fake Dating: Pretending to date for a wedding/dance/family.

• Accidental Marriage: Got married in Vegas or participated in some sci-fi/fantasy ritual which means you’re dating.

• Mutual Pining/Pining: Long, insufferable silences and glances.

• Slow Burn/Slow Romance: Similar to mutual pining, will take 100 years to complete.

• Soulmate/Soulmate AU: A “destined to be together” kind of story. Like there was no choice but to fall in love.

• And They Were Roommates: Roommates turned lovers.

• Only One Bed: Arrive to a hotel or guest house and OOPS, either they thought you were a couple or you’re fake dating.

• Pregnancy: Controversial, and most hate it, but someone is pregnant and everyone has to deal with it.

• Enemies to Lovers: Spicy banter turns to sexual tension.

• Friends to Lovers: Comforting banter turns to sexual tension.

• Rarepair/crackship: Who asked for this? Doesn’t matter, you deserve this.

• Hurt/Comfort: Someone in the ship has a booboo and the other fixes it with chicken soup or sex. Or both!

• Sex Pollen/Fuck or Die: Something is in the air, literally, and we must bang.

• 5+1: Five times X happens and the one time it doesn’t. Usually for shorter fics.

• DubCon: Dubious consent, see sex pollen.

And so many more — let me know if I missed your favorite!

So, what are my astrology tropes?

I’m an Only One Bed Sun, 5+1 Moon, with a Sex Pollen Rising.

I’ll always read an Only One Bed, I love a short 5+1 fic with a structure, and Sex Pollen is such a guilty pleasure.

For fun, let’s break it down.

Sun - If the sun is the core, and Only One Bed is intimacy forced by circumstances, there is a tension between two opposing forces that can only be solved by forced proximity. Therefore, at my core, I believe intimacy leads to revelation.

Moon - If the moon is my inner world, how I feel and nurture, and 5+1 is about delayed gratification and structure, then my emotional world is tied to patience, yearning, and delayed (but promised) gratification. Therefore, love shown through acts of repetition, culminating in a satisfying payoff.

Rising - If rising is how I appear to others, I can only assume Sex Pollen means I appear chaotic and irresistible. Embodying an inevitability. I bring big passions and heightened emotions into a room, despite being more reserved in my internal life.

Let me know your own Sun/Moon/Rising tropes in the comments!

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week for MARY SUE.

Bless the rains!

Meghan

I was thiiiiiiiiiis close to not writing an update this week. Between getting ill on Friday, working on an undisclosed amount of projects, and a spontaneous trip to the British countryside, I’m doing my level best to stay afloat (literal and metaphorical).

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

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Let’s go!

This is a weird one, folks. Today’s fandom topic: RELIGION

You may say, “Meghan. Religion is not a fandom. Stop being weird.” But I think I’m extremely qualified to talk about Religion as Fandom.

I’ve talked about it many times, but I grew up in a very religious household, with strict rules on what I was allowed to watch. It was a drag, sometimes. But really, when I look back at that time, I don’t find that my love of story was stymied. If anything, it was encouraged. I was drawn in by Bible stories, the emotions, the thrills and chills (shoutout Judges for those early nightmares.)

I went to school to be a youth pastor, while secretly harboring a serious fanfiction addiction. I was tied to both fandom and religion at one of the most formative times in my life, and I became struck by just how… similar the two were.

Similarities between Fandom and Religion:

1. They both have fan art.

I don’t care if the Renaissance was an important artistic movement, it was also a massive boon for fan artists. Michaelangelo? One of the best fan artists of his day. And if you go on tumblr dot com, you’ll find pieces of art that transcend, that are the launching off points for many careers (much like how many artists became famous due to their commissions for Biblical characters.)

2. They both have fanfiction.

No, I’m not talking about the foundational texts. Supernatural the TV show isn’t fanfiction. The Bible (or the Torah or the Quran) aren’t fanfiction.

But sometimes some people treat the fanfiction as more important than the canon. And some people add things to it that weren’t there. Fanfiction is interpretation of the canon… which means I have a whole bookshelf that’s full of Bible fanfiction.

3. They both have warring factions.

I grew up very Presbyterian. What I mean by that is, I could listen to someone do an hour long sermon on the Greek translation of one word in the Bible. I was never interested in the worship music part, unless we had a really juicy hymn we were singing. And I appreciated there was a structure, an agreed upon order of service.

And then I went to an Assemblies of God University. I knew very little of the… doctrinal differences between the two denominations. But when I went to the first chapel service… I very quickly discovered the four basic tenants:

• Services last as long as the Spirit lead, in whatever direction the Spirit wants.

• It’s 99.9% music.

• The sermon is an afterthought.

• Everyone speaks in tongues.

I thought I made a huge mistake. But I refused to admit it. I was in it, for better or worse. And I will say, it led me to a really useful discovery that I’ve taken into fandom spaces — everyone is allowed their opinion, but ultimately the doctrine doesn’t matter. What matters is the message.

Essentially, I realized that every denomination of a church could be boiled down to a Buzzfeed Quiz. If you like singing, you might be Pentecostal. If you’re an academic, you’ll fit right in with the Presbyterians. And if you’re a wacko… you’re likely Baptist.

Much like church, everyone in fandom knows the specific diagram of fandoms, who they get alone with, and who they avoid. And with every new show or new season, that landscape changes.

4. They’re both ultimately about community.1

We are creatures of worship. It is our default setting, to show adoration and reverence for things that matter to us. To share in the vastness of joy and sadness. It is only natural we surround ourselves with those who worship with us. It is only natural we try to get others to love the thing that we love, to share the things we enjoy.

Favorite Fan Media

So, what’s my favorite fan media for religion? Since I’ve called Michaelangelo a fan artist and Dante a fanfic writer, what could possibly top these as a piece of fan media for something that was created for religious reaasons?

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week, when I’ll be back in the US and getting ready for LACC.

Bless the rains!

Meghan

A month. 30 days. We’re getting close.

I’ve been on a bit of a podcast promotion journey — want to hear about Mary Sue? Learn about the glorious fashion in the movie Honey Don’t? Hear Jordan Morris and I go head to head on global comic knowledge? Do my level best to sound coherent… in the midst of a bonkers schedule? Check out these interviews!

Troubled Waters: Reed Richards vs Mr. Mxyzptlk

Jordan Morris and I go head to head on global comics knowledge, and I completely forget The Smurfs exist for a hot second.

Maximum Film: Honey Don’t

We talk the film Honey Don’t, featuring inspirational fashion and a confusing sex cult.

In Defense of Fandom: Bonus Interview with Meghan Fitzmartin

I met Sadie at SDCC this year and had a blast talking about my favorite topic - the importance of fandom.

The Mystery Spotcast: Socialized Supernatural Season 16

I’ve already shared the clip of my most surprising achievement (telling the SPN room about ABO), but the whole podcast was a delight.

Aaron was great to chat with, even if my ability to focus during a convention is challenging!

Chatting with Ray was so fun, I love talking about the strange variety of projects I’ve worked on, even if I look a little hungover (I probably was, but from exhaustion not alcohol, THE WORST KIND OF HANGOVER.)

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

Subscribe now

Let’s go!

I’ll be honest with you, this past week was a lot. Between my MIL in town, friends coming to perform at the London Podcast Festival, being on the ground for all of London Podcast Festival, I feel my metaphysical rope is frayed.

So, as a gift to myself, and to engage with my most embarrassing secret, we’re celebrating the fandom of REST. Because apparently I am human. Annoying.

(The idea of just a rest post was a joke, but then my brain became filled with all the studies I’d done on the importance of rest, especially as it relates to what the Bible says on rest - from honoring the Sabbath to resting a field every seven years, there’s a lot of religious text on the topic, which seems directly in conflict with capitalism…

Guess what fandom we’re talking about next week.)

Bless the rains!

Meghan

Thank you to all the friends who read this. Still in shock from the kind and lovely words.

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

Subscribe now

Let’s go!

FANDOM SPOTLIGHT: Supernatural Part 2

I’m two and a half drinks in to writing this post, which is probably the right alcohol level to delve into the professional side of Supernatural.

Let me pick up where I left off last week.

I started watching Show (a colloquial I used to talk about SPN) fairly regularly after 2011, keeping up through season 8 to 11. This also intertwined with my early LA life, which is a blur of frantic working, writing, and making friends in a new world. I put myself through the paces, volunteering with my church, attending community groups, house parties, mixers, classes while also working full time. My goal was to meet every single person that lived in LA.

Supernatural became a comfort show, something I would watch in the quiet, when my body completely shut down and I couldn’t speak to anyone. I started working for Warner Bros in 2015, which made it easier to catch up on Show, because I had access to the final cuts of episodes. This was when I started to meet folks who worked for Show; Bob Singer’s assistant Brigitta, the Writer’s PA Kelli, and the Post PA, Mary. They were nice, friendly, hanging out while I covered the desks in the accounting department. It was the first green flag I had about the job, because I met other PAs on other shows who… were not as happy. Early signs that maybe things weren’t healthy on some of those shows. (Nothing is a secret amongst assistants.)

January of 2016, I knew I needed to jump onto a show. That was nine years ago now, things were very different in TV. There was an actual ladder. I knew, if I wanted to write for TV, I would need to get an assistant job on a show. Ideally, a prime time show that ran for over 20 episodes, as it was the best way to learn. I had a list of shows that employed people I knew, or people I could ask for an introduction.

Supernatural was on the list, but surely I wouldn’t be able to work there.

But Kelli, the wonderful Writer’s PA (and now superstar writer in her own right) was moving on, and they were hiring a PA. I applied, heart in my throat. I had a number of interviews, but ultimately didn’t get it. I was crushed. Until… I got a phone call. The current SPN showrunner, Jeremy Carver, had a show up for pilot season. Frequency. If that show went, he would have to leave, and the new showrunner would need an assistant. Was I interested?

Long story short, I became the showrunner assistant to Andrew Dabb on Season 12 of Supernatural.

To say the moment was surreal does not do it justice. The show smashed records, was a peak example of long running genre, important to everyone, but barely recognized. (The running joke was that, when I would tell people in LA I worked on Supernatural, they would say, “That show’s still on?”) It was the kind of show that taught legendary writers, the dream show to work on.

I joined at a time when there was a shakeup in the post and writing staff — half the writer’s room left, replaced by people I still admire to this day. We learned a lot of lessons together, trial by fire. I would throw myself in front of a train for every single one of them.

It’s strange, for a job to inspire so much loyalty. But I would not be the person I am today without every single person I had the privilege to work with.

I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t mean job wise, thanks to my eldest daughter syndrome I absolutely smashed being an assistant. But I’d never been on the other side of fandom before, where decisions and tweets were life or death, and power was clearly evident.

Maybe Mary Sue is my attempt at processing that strange, heady power.

There were two options I saw, when working on the other side of the fandom line: 1) you allow the power to go to your head, believing your own hype and letting it change you as a person and a writer or 2) you fight fight fight to keep a clear head, focusing on the story, on the characters, on why these stories matter, on who you’re writing for.

The biggest arena for this fight? Social media.

I’m a big supporter of creatives reading the reviews, with one caveat - you don’t let it change the plot. Social media can be a crucial real time data collection if you use it correctly. And what does “use correctly” mean? It means not taking it personally, filtering the personal from the practical. Seeing what works and what doesn’t in real time.

Take Misha Collins — Genuinely one of the best humans I had the pleasure of working with. When I went up to help produce my first episode of television, it was Misha who recognized it was my first episode, Misha who offered me a kind word of encouragement in the midst of a night shoot. And then, years later, when one of my siblings approached him in Atlanta as an extra on Gotham Knights, he was kind to them. I will always remember that.

Anyway, my personal story aside, take Misha. A one off character in Season 4, it wasn’t until dailies came in that he completely knocked the role of Castiel out of the park. You can tell, if you watch the first few episodes of S4. He wasn’t written in much… until dailies started coming in. And suddenly it was clear how well cast he was. How fun he was. He started to get brought in for more episodes.

But you don’t know if the audience feels the same until the episodes air. Positive support started to roll in, and suddenly there was a third lead.

There’s a real copacetic relationship between audience and creatives — and I will forever fight for the creative gray area of social media.

Supernatural taught me how important the audience voice is — creatives teach audience what’s important, what to pay attention to, how to engage. But it’s audience that tell creatives if their gambles work or don’t work. And we, as creatives, are poorer if we don’t have a way to listen and learn.1

Because aren’t all creatives from the other side of the fandom line? I say this as a woman on the internet who has gotten many a death threat. You’ll get those. Fine. I will still fight for the in-between space of fandom and creative.

I think that’s ultimately why I wanted to write Mary Sue — because we’ve forgotten that being a creative is just a form of fandom. Something worth preserving, honoring, and championing.

I learned that from Show. I learned that from all of you. I learned that from myself.

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week for… well, something fandom related to be sure.

Bless the rains!

Meghan

Which means WE STILL HAVE FIVE DAYS LEFT BEFORE FINAL ORDER CUTOFF! Haven’t ordered yours yet? Here are couple shops you can order from!

Midtown Comics, US: https://www.midtowncomics.com/product/2450613

Forbidden Planet, UK: https://forbiddenplanet.com/subscriptions/series/boom-studios/mary-sue/

ALSO solicits came out for MARY SUE ISSUE 2 and I am DYING to show you these covers!

First up, artist Lisa Sterle’s cover—

And for the variant cover — the one and only ! With one of my very favorite fandoms—

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

Subscribe now

Let’s go!

FANDOM SPOTLIGHT: Supernatural Part 1

So, I just got back to the UK and the pressure drastically changed so I have barely had the energy to get out of bed, let alone cover this fandom in the excruciating detail it deserves. And, since we’ve added a week to our fandom countdown, I figured we can do a bite sized take on Supernatural before, you know, really knuckling down deep.

So today I’m just going to get into my personal history with Supernatural and the fandom, pre professional life. Because it’s weirdly quite short. And then next week I will tackle… the bigger stuff.

Longtime readers will not be surprised to find that Supernatural was not allowed in my house growing up. Or, it wouldn’t have been allowed, if I told my parents about it.

I remember the night Supernatural premiered. It was 2005, we had gotten a TV about three years before (referenced in my last post) and I was still on a quest to find -MY- TV show, especially since it was looking less and less like The Lost World was coming back. I was intrigued by The WB - genre shows often featuring dramatic romance and high emotion? I had watched season 4 of Smallville and liked one of the actors on it. I knew he was going to be on a new show that came on after Gilmore Girls, a show I was not allowed to watch because, I quote, “I don’t like that the mother and daughter are friends.”

But my parents were gone for the night, I was in charge of the siblings and the remote, and I was feeling rebellious. I watched the season premiere of Gilmore Girls and stuck around for the series premiere of Supernatural.

I think I made it twenty minutes in before I turned it off.

It was scary! I was a repressed church kid who read This Present Darkness at a very young age and was afraid of demons!

Did a couple prayers, apologized to God and looked for the next TV show.

Little did I know, the show would take over my life.

I didn’t watch Supernatural again until after I graduated college. I knew about it, knew it evolved beyond the premise. I had a boyfriend in college that loved it, especially Season 4 and 5. It was very cool for Christian kids to like Supernatural then.

What you have to know about Christian kid culture in 2007-2011, we were all learning about Brian MacClaren and Rob Bell, leaders in the Postmodern Christian movement. It was the precursor to deconstructing, possibly to stop kids from leaving the church. And Supernatural fit right in, asking us the important question:

Genuinely, I think Supernatural had a large hand in current-day deconstructing. It opened the possibility to explore and question concepts we all had, until that moment, taken as law.

But I didn’t start watching then, I was overwhelmed by the idea of becoming a youth pastor, then realizing that wasn’t going to be my life plan, and what if my life plan was very different than what I had just gone to school for and what if the thing I really want to do is write stories to tell people they are loved and how do you even do that?!

My brain was too full to take on any new hyper fixations.

Then I moved to LA, where I knew six people, had no idea what I was doing, living in a brand new city and brand new state, in a field I had not studied.

I was desperate for a distraction.

And there was Supernatural, waiting for me.

2011 was a great time to get into Supernatural — not only was it much easier to binge a show that had been out for six years, there was this newer site called Tumblr where you could catch up, find other fans, and consume all the memes.

I fell in love not just with the show, but with the world the show had accidentally built, both on and off screen.

So, like that, I became a person who watched Supernatural.

And next time we’ll get into how I became a person who worked on Supernatural.

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week for Supernatural Part 2.

Bless the rains!

Meghan

Anyway, the marketing trail continues where I talk both Mary Sue… and explaining Omegaverse to the SPN Writers room.

@mysteryspotcastat some point the #supernatural writers knew about the #omegaverse. WHAT?! listen to ep. 66, featuring special guest @Meghan Fitzmartin, wherever you get your podcasts! #spnfamily #spn #deanwinchester

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I also got a chance to go to Chicago FanExpo this weekend, which was an absolute blast. I met some truly wonderful humans and had an amazing time with colleagues. 10/10 would do again.

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

Subscribe now

Let’s go!

FANDOM SPOTLIGHT: The Lost World

Chances are, you’ve probably never heard of this show. A Canadian/Australian co-production about a 1920s band of explorers based on a Sir Arther Conan Doyle novel (you know, the Sherlock Holmes guy), with an insane syndication ensuring it would play at 7:00am weekday mornings on TNT. Three seasons, made from 1999-2001, and truly one of my favorite shows of all time.

The Lost World is based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle book about a band of explorers in the 1920s that travel to a plateau in the Amazon to find proof of dinosaurs. The explorers were Challenger, a scientist with no work/life balance, Roxton, a posh British lord-turned-soldier that’s real salty about being posh, Ned, an American reporter doing his best to be more than white toast, Summerlee, the opposite of Challenger, and Marguerite, a mysterious benefactor. Once on the plateau they meet Veronica, a woman raised by previous explorers who have long been missing. But when the explorers get the proof of dinosaurs they were looking for, they quickly realize the plateau has trapped them, and each episode has them looking for a way home. Think Star Trek: Voyager meets Indiana Jones.

When I tell you this show had everything, I mean it in the early 2000s way that TV managed to cram every genre into a 45 minute period. One episode of The Lost World (or TLW as fandom called it) was about a Roman Lizard society. Another, was a Western. There were Ice Aliens and Amazonians and tourists from the future and GIANT BEES.

We didn’t have TV until I was about thirteen or fourteen. My mom was very strict on media consumption, which is why we didn’t have TV until then. We could watch Hercules or Pocahontas, but we couldn’t own it. We had to fast forward through the Poor Unfortunate Souls song in The Little Mermaid because it had spells. She still doesn’t allow Harry Potter in the house. Sesame Street was socialist, etc.

So, when we finally got TV, the rules only got more precise, and seemed to exclude any show that was made after 1960.

We had two TVs in the house. One in the living room, where Mom could see everything. And one in Mom and Dad’s room, on the second floor at the back of the house.

Away from Mom’s watchful eye. Especially school mornings, when she had four other kids to wrangle.

The show had been off the air for about a year before I stumbled onto it in 2003. I would have been 14-years-old, starting high school. Because we’d just gotten TV, I was desperate to be like the other kids who had favorite shows and a recurring watch schedule. I sampled shows like adults sampled wine, taking in each show to see if they would be a good fit for my interests.

The first episode of The Lost World that I saw was a gothic ball where the main characters were possessed by (essentially) the spirit of Anne Rice-types deep in the middle of some operatic drama. They danced in ballgowns and suits in the middle of the Amazon forests, eye f***ing each other until Challenger broke the spell and everyone ended up naked.

I was hooked.

The four different focuses for my TLW Fandom:

1. JOHN ROXTON AND MARGUERITE KRUX. When I mentioned I was sampling shows, what was I looking for? A good ship, obviously. I refused to watch anything unless I knew there was potential kissing. I’m personally partial to an immediate kiss, followed by an enemies to lovers escalation. Roxton and Marguerite are the blueprints for my personal romance preferences. But as an adult, I’ve realized that one of the biggest reasons I loved this relationship was because they fought. They fought hard and big, swinging insults at each other that were painful and sometimes mean (usually due to a possession of some kind, but still). Growing up in the South, where no one spoke their mind and hurt feelings festered like mold, Roxton and Marguerite’s dogged determination to fight out their feelings showed me a different way to communicate.

2. MARGUERITE KRUX. Okay, listen, I know I talked about her above, but like… as a young girl with horrendously curly hair in the 2000s, I can’t express to you how important it was to see a woman with hair like mine. And the romantic lead! Plus, she was interesting, when so few women in genre stories were at the time. Created by the showrunners because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book features NO women and really suffers because of it, Marguerite was an invention for the show. An orphan with a shady history who funded the expedition to the Amazon in order to find out who her parents are? She’s the prototype of every D&D character, and I love her. I wanted to be her. I wanted to cut off every emotional bone in my body so I could be cool and unaffected. But, just like Marguerite, it was all a facade and I had to reckon with my wounded inner child. Marguerite taught me how to shield myself, but also how to be vulnerable when that shield no longer worked. Whenever those “what 3 fictional characters are you” meme comes around, Marguerite is always on the list.

3. Fandom Edging. Right, so, this is probably unfair, but this was certainly my first experience with being strung along on the idea that I would get more of my favorite show, only for those hopes to be dashed to the ground. I didn’t really know anyone from the TLW space, not the way people know each other in fandom today. I was too shy and too anxious to try and talk to anyone… which became a frustration when I wanted to find out if the show would EVER continue.

   

   TLW ended in 2002, then entered into an elongated hiatus while the producers tried to find funding for the show. In fact, TLW was probably my first education in how TV shows were made, because the writing team were very upfront with why some characters weren’t on the show as much (couldn’t afford them) and why they were waiting to announce a season four (funding was pulled). It wasn’t until 2005 that the show was officially declared dead. But how was it declared dead? I’m so glad you asked…

4. FUN WORLD BUILDING. The Lost World was LOST before LOST. It was the first puzzle box, except the showrunners had answers planned well into the seasons. There were some insane episodes (I say again, GIANT BEE) but the Amazons? The futuristic tourists? Those all were actually important to the overall plan and plot.

   

The TLW writers could have given Taylor Swift a run for her money on Easter Eggs. Everything felt important and thoughtful, while still being entertaining. Each episode showed a new facet of a character, while also revealing more mysteries. The Lost World taught me that world building can be fun and whimsical. That you can have serious storylines but also you can have GIANT BEES. The level of planning was intense and even though we didn’t get the last two seasons to conclude the series, the TLW Packet felt like a gift to me and the other fans. I won’t spoil the ending, but we do find out about Marguerite’s parents, how Roxton’s life has been intertwined with Marguerite’s in a destiny-type way, where Veronica’s parents disappeared to, if Summerlee was alive, how Finn fits into everything… answers that proved I was right to invest in this rich, lush world that still haunts me.

Favorite Fan Media

This one is a little bit different today. That’s because today’s favorite piece of fan media for TLW… is mine.

When I was in high school, I started writing more. I always thought of myself as a writer, though I didn’t think I’d make a career out of it. But I definitely loved the idea of story, and the work within the craft of writing.

So much so that I compiled a binder full of writing advice that I still have. But that’s not all that’s in this magical binder.

This binder also contains the many stories I wrote in high school (and some in elementary school!)… including fanfic.

So today. Well. Here’s a two page sample, probably handwritten in 2003 or 2004 with both pencil and pen. (And hey, maybe one day I’ll post all the pages that I’ve written. Who knows.)

Ah, the 17-year-old girl with chocolate brown hair in a ponytail. Chocolate brown was an important color when you’re a young girl with brown hair. It evoked a much nicer and darker color. Spoiler alert, the plan was going to be that she was Veronica’s younger sister. Of course she was.

In retrospect, that’s not too bad for a first draft, little Meghan. I’m proud of you.

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week for a new side of fandom - the professional side. That means… Supernatural, of course.

Bless the rains!

Meghan

Also, co-creator/artist of Mary Sue, the brilliant Lisa Sterle, shared a little snippet — PEEP THAT GORGEOUS ART!

So, you know the drill, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs.

Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

Subscribe now

Let’s go!

FANDOM SPOTLIGHT: Star Wars

It’s difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what my first fandom actually was — I was always an intense kid who hyperfixated on every piece of media she consumed. Was it Nancy Drew, and the obsessive love of kidnapping it created? Talespin, where the kidnapping continued? Speed Racer, Chronicles of Narnia, Darkwing Duck…

I guess the question is - what constitutes a fandom? We tend to think of it as a group of people, but I also think you can be the lone fandom of something. Ultimately to me, fandom is a feeling, one that feeds off of other fan created things.

And if we define it that way - then Star Wars was my first fandom.

The year was 1999. Or maybe 2000. Definitely before 2001 and after 1997. We’d gotten a computer, with my dad having long AIM conversations with my aunt that he we print out for us to read (it was a legitimately good time, my dad and his oldest sister are very funny). I was finally allowed to watch Star Wars. My dad liked it, but it was one of my mom’s favorite movies. I remember being scared at first, it definitely felt more adult than what I had been allowed to watch before (only Disney or Gene Kelly movies).

The first movie ended and I discovered… there was a second movie. We watched it the next week… Darth Vader was Luke’s father?! And it just ENDS?! I don’t even think I made it to the next week, I had to watch it ASAP. I remember watching the end, having had an absolutely wonderful time and thinking… that’s it?

There has to be more.

So, I went to ask Jeeves. (The real ones remember.)

Are there other Star Wars stories, I asked. How can I hang out more with my new friends?

Now… there were books. But that’s not where Jeeves took me.

Jeeves took me to…

This is what it looks like now. But back then? FanFiction Dot Net was a treasure trove. A gully full of stories. It certainly wasn’t the first of it’s kind, it owed a lot to the geocities and angelfire sites that came before. But I didn’t know about those.

All I knew was that I stood at the doorway into a completely new world, a subculture much more accessible than punk to an introverted kid like me. This is where I learned so much about myself as a writer, as a consumer, as a person. Through these incredible stories I found a community full of people like me who also thought, “there has to be more,” and, “I just want to hang out with my friends,” and, “what if there was more kissing”.

From that ambiguous year until about the modern canon (which I will not go into), I went FERAL.

The four different focuses for my Star Wars Fandom:

1. Mara Jade. That was when I realized there were books I could read — because I kept seeing this Mara Jade character in some of the fics. You mean this woman exists in other media?! In books I can read?? Actually, I realized I needed to read the books, because all the best fics kept referencing things about Mara that sounded SO COOL. I had to read the books. AND THEY DIDN’T DISAPPOINT (like many of the sci-fi books I read did, like, was it impossible to write women?!). I fell hard for Mara and Luke. Mara made Luke INTERESTING for once. She brought out the farmboy fighter pilot that the canon kept INSISTING no longer existed, as if the boring jedi-ness burned all personality out of him. The number of “lightsaber sparring” fics I read… delicious.

   

2. My very first (I think) Mary Sue - Mira. Yes, that sounds a lot like Mara. I don’t think I knew about Mara when I created Mira. Especially since it’s such a different name to me. I might have seen the name before, but my mind warped it. I truly have no idea. But I loved creating a character to play in the Star Wars world. The Skywalkers/Han were interesting… but not as interesting as the rest of the world! I wanted to experience the other planets, meet other people! Though… I do think the first fanfic I wrote started with her on Tatooine. I’ve been looking for it, I’m sure I have it somewhere.

3. A canon ship. Remember when I talked about how much I loved a canon ship in Fantastic 4? It was like permission for a little repressed kid to be horny. You’re allowed to watch them kiss! It’s fine! It’s meant to be sexy! The Extended Universe Han and Leia were SO DOPE and I loved that they got married and had twins + a little Anakin (we don’t talk about the Yuuzhan Vong - I love sad, but that was too sad even for me). Some of the best fics were just Han and Leia being a badass couple, working things out together, and being a healthy example of a strong relationship. I still Stan (this version, obvi).

4. The FanFic was PEAK. I think that’s why I got into Star Wars and ultimately fandom - I found some well written work EARLY. I still remember snippets of different fics to this day, how evocative they were, how engaging. I think seeing so much fanfiction gave me permission to write, to play in the spaces I love. Fanfiction taught me SO MUCH about what sticks with readers. It’s not a new phenomenon that some fantastic writers come out of fanfiction spaces, but no one ever seems to give early Star Wars fanfiction the flowers it deserves.

Favorite Fan Media

Hahahaha I’m so going to blow up my spot for this but LETS GOOOOOOO

Okay. There’s one fanfic that has HAUNTED me. For YEARS. I thought about it CONSTANTLY. I’m going to do my best to recount the memories of this fic before I reveal the title.

It’s a Luke and Mara fic ofc. Luke has joined Mara on a smuggling job for ~~REASONS~~ and they end up in this… I want to say crime den? I remember it being… swampy. Or maybe, I was growing up in Florida, and most places were swampy. But Luke and Mara had to pretend to be in a relationship OF COURSE and stay in the same room OF COURSE and Mara had to put on full body paint because she was presenting as a different species (which, I wonder now, is that, like speciesist?).

And there was this MOMENT. It LIVED IN MY BRAIN until I could find the fic again. The Moment: Mara needed help putting this gold shimmery body paint on her shoulder to go down into the lion’s den that was very much like a casino and she had to be all “come hither” to get information and Luke was STRUGGLING. It was rated M but wasn’t super smutty, I don’t think I was allowing myself to read the really lemon-y NC-17 stuff yet. I just remember how vivid the description was. So much so that I remembered it for years, kicking myself for not saving it.

I thought it was lost to the annuls of the internet… until.

I found it.

I don’t know the legalities of sharing fanfic on substack, but I’ve given you more than enough to read for yourself, if you so choose. And if you need more recs… you know where to find me. Think of me as your intergalactic spice dealer. 😏

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week for my most formative fandom (including a handwritten fanfic excerpt of my first attempt at publishing a Mary Sue).

Bless the rains!

Meghan

We also have a gorgeous Tula Lotay cover that’s just to die for — featuring Jessica, our eponymous Mary Sue!

So, in honor of MARY SUE, my love letter to all things fandom… let’s dive into my personal fandom favs. Each week I’ll be going into a different fandom, often revealing my more embarrassing secrets.

Subscribe now

Let’s go!

FANDOM SPOTLIGHT: Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four certainly isn’t my oldest fandom, or in the more traditional understanding of “fandom”, but in the intersection of “Meghan’s fandoms” and “Meghan’s professional comic life”, this is really the kickoff. I barely remember picking up the book, but it likely would have been at Coliseum of Comics in Orlando, after my dad took me to see Spider-Man 2 in 2004. I had already dabbled in the comics world, via animation and movies. It was time to take the relationship to the next level.

I don’t know what it was that drew me to pick this particular comic up. My dad liked Fantastic Four, but those weren’t his comics growing up. Maybe it was the fact that there were four of them, like The A-Team. Maybe it was because there was a film coming out the next year. Maybe (likely) it was because I had an idea that there was a ready-made ship I could dive into.

Whatever the reason, I picked it up… and I’ve been reading Fantastic Four ever since.

There’s definitely not a “traditional” fandom for Fantastic Four — it’s often been me and a bunch of dudes twenty years older who care about very different things. So I had to be my own fandom.

Because I went FERAL.

The four different focuses for my F4 Fandom:

1. The deep, fanatic obsession with Reed Richards. I would spend hours dissecting his personality, his motivation, what makes him tick. I can (and have) written essays on the character, long text threads that all basically boil down to—

   

2. The canon horniness of Reed and Sue. I read Fantastic Four at a specific time in adolescence, and this relationship shaped quite a few expectations. There is an ease, a friendship. But also, Sue Storm wants to DEVOUR Reed Richards. The woman is SO DOWN BAD that she WILLINGLY STOLE A SPACESHIP WITH HIM. And Reed adores her. Doesn’t understand why she likes him, which is why he’s constantly nervous about Namor. ALSO, Marvel (usually) doesn’t shy away from the fact that THEY CANONICALLY BONE (except in the movie, which I really enjoyed, but needed 100% more horniness).

   

3. The absolutely inexplainable relationship between Reed and Johnny. Listen, I’m no stranger to a slash ship, but I didn’t ship Reed and Johnny. I was obsessed with whatever this weird “brother-in-laws but also trauma bonded” relationship is. Reed and Ben are best friends, Reed and Sue are in love, Reed and Johnny are… also there. Except, they aren’t. Reed has no expectations of Johnny, when everyone else gets on Johnny’s case. Johnny gets Reed to play pranks, when everyone else thinks Reed is serious. They don’t have to care about each other, but they choose to. I think my favorite panel summarizing this doesn’t even come from a F4 comic, but from Iron Man. Tony needs some firepower from Johnny. And Reed, rather than just accept the request—is suspicious. He better get his brother back in one piece.

   

4. FAMILY DYNAMICS. I sort of touched on this with Johnny and Reed, but I love dynamics. I love exploring what people mean to each other.

The Fantastic Four have so many stories, but there remains a thousand possibilities. I think that’s why they are so endearing, why they stand the test of time — they’re just a family doing their best. Caring about each other when everything feels hard.

Favorite Fan Media

Only recently have I even started to delve into actual fan made content for the F4. I remember looking for fanfiction after the 2005 movie came out (which was ALSO not horny enough), but there wasn’t a lot of people in the fandom who would write fic (read: not a lot of teen women who would do the Lord’s work).

But I will give you my two favorite runs!

• The Waid/Wieringo Run - As previously mentioned, this is the GOAT. If you’ve never read F4 before, this is your in. Don’t need to know much, don’t have to know what’s happening in the rest of the Marvel universe at the time. You can dive right in and get completely caught up.

  • I have tested this, and I’m currently texting with a friend who started here and has bought in HARD.

• The Jonathan Hickman Run - I was nervous when there was a new writer on Fantastic Four. I didn’t particularly get on well with the previous run, and was so nervous. Hickman starts his series with a three issue arc about Reed and how he needs his family. I knew I was in good hands.

Honorable Mention

• The John Byrne Run with Future Valeria Richards in the 1980s. I think about that wild ride all the time. Comics are great.

That’s all for this week! Tune in next week for the fandom guided me towards fanfiction dot net.

Bless the rains!

Meghan

• Mary Sue!

• Mary Sue Inspiration

• Champion Corner

• On Sale Now

• The Crochet Report

Mary Sue!

After many years and many shakeups, I can finally talk about my first ever creator owned comic!

MARY SUE - Despite what her mom thinks, Cassie has lots of friends—they just all happen to be online, where she can talk to them about her beloved favorite show, Riverview, and get their feedback on her fan fic WIP, starring Jessica, her very own hot Vampire OC.

But her fic writing persona is revealed to the entire school when her former best friend finds it and can’t resist reading some of it out loud to their classmates.

Cassie thinks things can’t get any more humiliating, until her very own Mary Sue pops right out of her fan fic to save the day—or make it much, much worse…

I like to think of it as Life-Size meets fanfiction.

The amount of TALENT on this book, from the amazing artist Lisa Sterle, to my wonderful editor Elizabeth Brei, to the ABSOLUTELY STACKED VARIANT COVER ARTISTS.

Mary Sue Inspiration

I don’t remember the exact moment I found fanfiction, but I’m pretty sure it had to do with watching Star Wars when I was nine. The trilogy finished, the credits roll, and I thought, “but… I want more!”

I come from a pretty sheltered background, it was a surprise that was even allowed to watch Star Wars, so I didn’t really know there were extended universe books (also, I was nine, the adult sci-fi section of Barnes & Nobles looked very boring). I went on the internet, to this new-fangled help site called Ask Jeeves!, and desperately looked for “more Star Wars stories”… and I stumbled onto the website that would consume my every waking hour (and some non-waking ones).

This wasn’t just the beginning of my love affair with story, it was access to a community. To fandom. Since that fateful day, I’ve found myself in multiple fandoms, reading multiple fics, engaged in multiple shipping wars, I’ve even written a Mary Sue or two. While fandom is often disparaged, usually because of sexism, I have always found solace, safety, and support in these communities.

Mary Sue is a love letter to fandom, but it’s also a love letter to the early ‘00s. Though it’s set today, the vibes are millennium core, pulling from some of my absolute favorite pieces of media.

Especially…

Excited to talk more as we get closer to drop date!

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Champion Corner

Things I’m reading/watching/loving. Some of it will be big budget, some will be indie, but all are worth your time.

Have you listened to Wooden Overcoats? It’s a British audio sitcom about warring funeral homes. It’s absolutely brilliant, a fun listen, and they’re having their TEN YEAR anniversary show at the London Podcast Festival on Sept 7th. If you’re in London, you should come see it (I will 1000% be there, wouldn’t miss it.)

Watched Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning and LOVED it. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about the submarine scene, and it’s such a good example of just… what if movies were fun? Anyway, with the “final” Mission: Impossible movie out, I decided to rank all the movies. I wrote about this on BlueSky, what I love about ranking franchises is that I end up learning so much about what -I- love about a story.

A little off the beaten path, but I started playing a Switch game I’ve been SO excited for - Loco Motive! It’s a point-and-click adventure game in the style of Agatha Christie-meets-Monkey Island. I love the aesthetics, though the answers are sometimes a little out-of-the-box, it’s such a fun world to live in.

On Sale Now

All-Star Superman Audiobook - Just in time for the Superman Movie, make sure to grab a copy wherever you get your audiobooks!

The Crochet Report

My spouse got me some spectacular yarn that contains the wool from ten different London farms, including the sheep in the farm close to us! It’s very precious to me, so I wanted to make something very special with it.

I’ve had my ups and downs with London, but the city farms and the Thames are the two pieces that are very special to me — so I crocheted a small bag for when I walk along the river!

It’s a pattern I came up with myself, with a bed of shells symbolizing the foreshore, and the sort of bubble pattern representing the waves. I also learned how to do an i-cord strap for this, which seems to be very sturdy, though I plan to reinforce it with some canvas.

I also have gotten obsessed with bag charms, but they’re all outrageously expensive, so I used the yarn to make my own bag charm — a piece of London for when I’m not in London. (I have to figure out how to actually put it on a bag, if I want it on a keyring.)

That’s all for this week. Bless the rains!

Best,

Meghan

• All-Star Superman Audiobook

• Our Main Story Tonight

• Champion Corner

• The Crochet Report

All-Star Superman Audiobook

In a year where work seems scarce, I’ve had a couple exciting projects. You may have seen one of them announced:

As that gets closer, I’ll absolutely be talking more about it. It was a beast of a project. In a good way, in a really interesting way, in a really cool way. Because… How do you adapt a comic for audio?! One is all visual, one is… not.

Pre-Order All-Star Superman Audiobook

Look forward to me breaking down the process.

And… maybe a REDACTED??? (stay tuned)

Our Main Story Tonight

If you’re an avid John Oliver/Last Week Tonight fan, you’ll notice a similar structure. And I love a structure. I may present as an emotion girlie, but I’m a structure rising.

This won’t be a long main story. Mostly because…

As I write this, aware of at least four other projects I should be working on, aware that it’s been months since I’ve written a substack, aware that I’m in the middle of a “STATE OF THE INDUSTRY” study that I haven’t gotten back to (and next up is comics!), I lift up my glass of wine and shout “I AM DOING MY BEST” with all my heart.

It’s been a difficult 2025. I’m sure I said that about 2024 (and 2023), but gosh. GOSH. A dear friend visited London last week and she said that those who were living through their Chinese zodiac were considered unlucky. And, as the year of the snake is my birth year, I feel that.

I say all that to encourage you, if you’re struggling right now. It’s a tough time to be a creative. There’s a lot of fight against the arts. Heck, against science. Against what we’ve been taught as necessary and decent. Against what is important and crucial. I feel crazy at least 80% of the day (and 20% of the day I’m trying to sleep).

BUT HERE’S THE THING. THIS IS CRUCIAL. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Don’t give up.

No, this isn’t toxic positivity. No, this isn’t a desperate plea. This isn’t even delusion.

We won’t get through this period of history without art. Story, art, it’s all still vital, still incredibly important. Necessary, even when the uphill battle turns into straight up rock climbing out of a very deep, dark hole.

So, how do we survive?

There is only one way. Community.

When things get dire, no matter if it’s the arts or other industries, places batten down the hatches. They lean on “known” talent, circle the wagons, protect whatever they are holding — as if that protects them.

With layoffs happening constantly, places tightening the belt left and right, and companies like Warner Brothers getting labeled a “Junk Stock”, we can see that closing off does nothing. Hiding does nothing. Relying only on ourselves does nothing.

It’s counter intuitive, but what we should be doing right now is taking chances. Engage with each other. Build community. Make things with friends. Ask for help, as friend Kris Simon literally wrote in her newest Substack.

I’m always reminded of the importance of community at conventions. Being a creative means we don’t get to see people as often as we need to, but finding ways to engage with each other, to not hide, to not be alone, it truly changes our brain chemistry.

Look, I am scared of not making money. It’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise. But the best way to fight that fear is to support others. To get excited to hear about the projects others are working on (while holding back the green-eyed monster). To fight against our fear reaction so we can be enthusiastic for each other.

So let’s make things together. Let’s support each other. Share Kickstarters, go to the free shows, watch the short films. Read. Give feedback when asked for it. Let’s fight fear with enthusiasm.

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I’m not saying this lightly. I’ve not been feeling up to reading much, to looking for new things to read or watch. What I’m suggesting is not an easy thing to do. When the whole world around you is screaming about the sky falling (and when chunks of cloud are falling into your hair), it’s difficult to not let that affect you.

But when all the clouds fall, we are left with clear, beautiful, blue skies.

Champion Corner

Gonna start putting my money where my mouth is and tell you about the things I’m reading/watching/loving. (Also so that I make sure I am engaging and not hiding!) Some of it will be big budget, some will be indie, but all are worth your time.

Dear friend Lauren Shippen (of The Bright Sessions, which you absolutely need to listen to) is doing something VERY COOL, and launching next Monday. Trust me, I will be screaming about it all over socials.

Y’all, I love Speed Racer. Like, so much. So, when friend David Pepose announced his Speed Racer book, I lost my mind I was so excited. AND WHEN I TELL YOU THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING, KNOW THAT MY EXPECTATIONS WERE HIGH.

Went to a friend’s live show of his comedy sketch podcast Crowley Time - It’s extremely absurd, but I had a genuinely fun time. There’s a bit in the live show that was pure genius.

HOUSE MD - lol throwback from 2004, but wow. Just finished rewatching the first season (for the first time in ten years???) and it’s so good? Such an amazing example of my favorite type of storytelling: Episodic narrative with serialized emotion. They also play with form in a really fun way that second to last episode. Just STELLAR work. I went and found some scripts from the first season, I cannot wait to read them.

What are you excited about??

The Crochet Report

I have been SO slacking on my crochet this year. It’s been incredibly stressful and I haven’t had the brain space.

BUT you should go look at the gorgeous crochet art that Tini Howard is doing (link is to her Substack, which is also an extremely good read).

Here’s to blue skies!

Best,

Meghan

(*Specifically US Animation)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• TAG Negotiations

• Rise of Indie, Fall of Studio

• FUTURESCAPE

• So What Do I Do?

• The Crochet Report

TAG NEGOTIATIONS

It’s been a little while! I’m sure you weren’t surprised… I’m notoriously bad at consistency in anything other than my corporate deadlines. But in this case, I’ve been waiting on something super important before talking about the next medium in my State of the Industry series.

I was waiting for news about the TAG Negotiations.

What is TAG? That’s The Animation Guild, a guild not just for animation writers, but storyboard artists, 2D and 3D artists, technical directors, timing, color designers… a varied group. If you’ll remember the Writer’s and Actor’s strikes of last year, the WGA and SAG are earlier in the negotiation lineup with the studios, and this year it was finally TAG’s turn to negotiate for a new contract.

(Why aren’t animation writers part of the WGA instead of TAG? What a good question! In part, that’s due to how animation was written in the past - by storyboard artists! There is still some animation that is written that way, very similar to cartoonists. But it’s also thanks to Walt Disney, which you can read in this Polygon article.)

You can imagine, with so many different crafts within the guild, it can be a very complicated negotiation. There’s still not much that can be talked about yet — but I have the utmost faith in our negotiating committee.

I wanted to wait until there was a bright light somewhere in the tunnel… because everything else is pretty grim.

RISE OF INDIE, FALL OF STUDIO

If you’re currently paying attention to animation… well, first of all, I wish you a large glass of whiskey. No matter how difficult things are in live action, it’s almost ten times worse in animation (and with less pay!) There are less shows being made, no actually staff writing (which means all episodes are freelance, no one is getting paid room rates, and ultimately studios are trying to make things on no money), and much of the actual animation itself is getting made in Vancouver, Toronto, Ireland, Australia, France, and South Korea.

Why does it matter where the animation is getting made? This TikTok video does a great job of explaining.

@no_the_robotDon’t say i didnt warn you. Animation will change forever after Moana 2 becomes the highest grossing animated film of all time, moetly because Disney is trying to get away with spending as little money as possible. #moana2 #disney #disneyanimation #pixar #cartoon #standwithanimation #theanimationguild #moana #insideout

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Essentially, because unions have the “audacity” to demand studios like Disney pay for “crazy” things like healthcare, increased pay rates, pensions, etc., studios end up hiring workers outside the US. There’s nothing wrong with workers outside the US (in fact, there’s a lot of talent!), but Disney is not hiring outside of the US to grow the industry or raise up new talent — they want to work people to the bone and not pay them the rates the union in America has fought for, rates that are much higher than most countries.

So, essentially people are doing more work for less pay, the animation industry professionals are all suffering, and studios claim there is no audience.

Which brings us to the current rise in indie animation.

Indie Animation is not new, but I’ve definitely not been paying much attention to it the last few years. I remember enjoying things like ‘Making Fiends’ and ‘Homestar Runner’, both from the early 2000s flash animation boom, and of course RWBY and Red vs Blue, both from the now bust Rooster Teeth, but I had largely been unaware of the recent culture on sites like YouTube that have been fostering and developing young career animators.

I think the current boom of indie animation can really be credited to the 2020 pandemic. Though things had been starting to ramp up, with creatives making pilots even before Covid, 2020 left people with a lot of time at home — and with HBOMax and Disney+ not yet launched, YouTube was often the streaming service of choice (it still continues to be for most younger audiences).

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Now, in 2024, popular indie animation shows are starting to gain mainstream attention, and, in some cases, amassing more views than traditional animation channels. Shows like:

• Helluva Boss (and it’s sister show Hazbin Hotel which started as indie, but then A24 and Amazon came in to make the rest of the show - but you can still watch the original Hazbin Hotel pilot.)

• Lackadaisy (based on a webcomic, their official first season is coming next year, but there are a number of shorts and a pilot up currently)

• Murder Drones (from Glitch Productions, with a little bit of spicy controversy from a casual google search)

• The Amazing Digital Circus (also from Glitch, with a Netflix licensing agreement)

How are the shows funded? Most have been crowdfunded through Kickstarter or Patreon, with new shows and crowdfunding campaigns popping up every day.

Some other shows I’ve been enjoying/supporting:

Heavencore

Tiny Angry Witch

It’s really exciting to see new, exciting animation like this - so many people I know have desperately loved animation, but have not known how to get into it. LA gets more expensive every day, and jobs are rare. Indie animation is proving to so many that there are no limits.

FUTURESCAPE

So, what’s next for animation? (Hint: It’s not AI1!)

I don’t see things at studios getting much better in 2025, unfortunately. As we’ve seen with live action, studios will continue to move production to different countries. That means, a lot of people are about to be out of jobs and out of the industry — which is a damn shame.

However.

Indie Animation is doing some really amazing stuff right now. All the creative freedom that many of the studios refuse to embrace? It can be found in the indie space.

And, for the moment, it seems studios are moving towards a “make your own IP” model, anyway. So, let’s make IP.

The pay is not going to be comparable, not at first. But the truth is, studios are becoming less and less likely to pay for a thing that isn’t proven. And until that tide changes (it always does), we need to prove to the studio that the original ideas we have are good.2

If people are doing more work for less pay, the animation industry professionals are all suffering, and studios claim there is no audience, at least you can make something you own, that you control (rather than an IP that isn’t yours, and you will never see any royalties from in the course of your life).

Making your own IP doesn’t necessarily mean fund it yourself (though, the chances are high that you will). If you want to make your thing, there is money out there. You’re just going to make the pilot first. Or a bunch of shorts to create interest.

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A standard plan for many is to crowdfund a solid pilot, then use the push and audience from that, along with YouTube ad revenue, to make approx. 10 minute episodes. You can also make a bunch of shorts, creating buzz, to launch a kickstarter.

Take a look at the campaign for the show Horizonauts run by RubberGum LLC, that has a pretty stellar mission despite being a seemingly brand new company. As of writing, is currently crowdfunding for it’s pilot.

But the truth is, audiences want community. They want to care about the story, the characters, they want to feel like they’re in on something. They will buy merch, they will cosplay, you just have to give them the chance.

We, the animation creators, have an amazing opportunity to build something new. It will take a lot of work, but we can do it, as long as we work together.

SO WHAT DO I DO?

My advice on this is two fold. First, if you’re already an animation professional, stay in the game — you won’t have as many jobs, but you’re still needed. And the truth is, as excited as I am about indie animation, right now it does not seem like a sustainable model for anyone who was already making a living working in animation. I do think things will get better in animation, but it’s going to take five years. As we discussed in the TV/Film post, it’s not new for the industry to ebb and flow. Animation is not dead. But we cannot rely on the studios for our jobs. Keep pitching, keep writing, keep drawing, keep animating, keep pushing for better working conditions. And if you’re starting to feel… low from the circumstances mentioned above, revisit what makes you love animation in the first place. And please, watch indie animation. Reach out to some of the indie animation folks. Now, more than ever, we need each other. We need to work together.

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And if you’re new to animation — make your own stuff. Now is the time. Take a day job and work on your project on nights and weekends. Make friends, and work on the project together. If you’re a writer, connect with animators on BlueSky/Discord/YouTube. If you’re an animator, vice versa. Make. Your. Thing. Ask questions, reach out, whatever you need to do, just make stuff. Because that’s the only piece of advice that I know to be true in this particular state of the industry - there will always be an audience. And you never know who is watching.

And if you’re an indie animator, I love you. Truly. Keep doing what you’re doing and I can’t wait to work for you one day.

THE CROCHET REPORT

I made an Anne Boleyn doll a while ago for a friend’s daughter who saw the picture in one of my crochet books when she came for a visit.

It was suggested that I make the head removable, but I did not do that. Best let the child become traumatized on her own. As you can see, I ran out of green for the arms, but I think the black works nicely. And I’ve since received word that Anne Boleyn is well loved, which goes to show that British children have weird taste in toys.

That’s all for this week! Next will be State of the Industry: Comics.

Have a great week!

Best,

Meghan

Check out the trailer!

The team at Phantom Four were absolutely amazing producers and Wolf at the Door did the directing and recording (knocking it out of the park!!).

So grateful to everyone at WB, DC and Spotify for this exciting show.

Tune in November 26th for the ENTIRE SEASON DROPPING!

That’s all for this week! I will get back to my State of the Industry series... soon. (Hopefully once TAG has a deal with the Studios!)

Have a great week!

Best,

Meghan

In the interim, it’s New York Comic-Con!

I won’t be announcing anything this year, not quite the right time yet. But I will be signing, and on a panel for Celebrating Queer Joy!

Come by and say hi! I will be elbows deep in my laptop most of the convention, since I’ve got approximately 103293742 deadlines. But I am so excited for my last convention of 2024.

Love you, byeeeeeeee!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Why Does Everything Feel Like Shit?

• (Brief) Hollywood History Lesson

• FUTURESCAPE

• So What Do I Do?

• Final Caveat

• The Crochet Report

* PERSONAL NOTE: Thank you everyone for the kind responses to my personal news last week. Everyone’s responses on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter were so respectful, avoiding mention the word ‘marriage’ which managed to keep the news private. I’ve been holding this close to my chest, because it’s such a beautiful, personal thing for me and my spouse. Being able to share with you and feel respected has been an absolute blessing. You’re all wonderful.

Now. To Business.

WHY DOES EVERYTHING FEEL LIKE SHIT?

As we covered last week, it’s not you. Things absolutely feel like the worst it’s ever been. Because, for many of us in Film and TV, that’s true! Scroll through Screenwriting Twitter or Reddit. Look up your favorite TV writers. Talk to friends— Everyone is moaning right now. It feels like the death of everything.

So, what happened?

I won’t get too in the weeds of how things in Film and TV work, there are plenty of other people on Substack with excellent newsletters that go into more detail.

But, to hilariously oversimplify, Hollywood doesn’t have any money.

“But Meghan, movies make so much money! Deadpool and Wolverine made over $1 billion! How could Hollywood not have money?” A fair question, one that I hear quite often. I especially heard this kind of thing during the strike from other folks not in TV/Film or folks in other countries: “Don’t you guys make loads of money?”

It’s a really complicated answer. For the owners of Warner Bros, Disney, Sony, etc. the answer is yes. But for the rest of the entertainment industry, the people who actually make the movies, the ultimate answer is no. But the paycheck doesn’t often appear that way, much like a box office budget.

I wrote a whole part in this newsletter going into the box office numbers of 2024, analyzing them and comparing them, and frankly found it boring. The numbers boiled down to this: sequels to IP franchises are the only movies in 2024 making enough money to keep the lights on in LA.

TV isn’t much better — few networks (places like ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.) are buying new shows that can’t guarantee eyeballs to their ad sales, so advertisers an advertisers have realized they’ll get a better bang for their buck if they go to the socials. (Read about Ken Ziffren’s recent annual lecture to the Entertainment lawyers if you want to thrust yourself into an anthill.) And don’t get me started on the Streaming Services.

How did that happen? How did Hollywood rise to such high monetary highs and now descend into concerning financial lows?

Frankly? Progress. Which is also what will save Hollywood. Just like last time. And the time before that.

(BRIEF) HOLLYWOOD HISTORY LESSON

Let’s talk about the many Bankruptcies and Deaths of Film/TV in Hollywoodland.1

1930s - The Great Depression. A hellacious time for the US in every industry, but specifically for the new upstart — Hollywood. After a successful boom with silent films, studios were suddenly faces with extreme losses of income. Audiences were no longer going to movie theaters, because they just couldn’t afford it. Not for one silent film. So to survive studios innovated, creating new genres (such as gangster films), adopt double features, and embrace the brave new world of “Talkies”.

1950s - After a solid two decades of being top dog, there’s a new kid in town — TELEVISION. It was expensive, modern, and brought the world right into your living room. And it absolutely terrified Hollywood. With a TV in the living room, audiences won’t go see movies anymore! But… we still have movies 70 years later. So, what happened? Hollywood innovated once again, with new technologies like Cinemascope and 3D films. These spectacular films couldn't be experienced on a small TV screen.

1980s - Another couple decades of quiet as the Vietnam War took center stage. But as the 80s found a renewed sense of calm, Hollywood once again had a new villain: Home Video. In fact, the creation of Home Video led to a writer’s strike in 1984 over Pay TV and Home Video royalties. The fear from studios was that if audiences could purchase movies, why would they go to the theater? But, instead of killing film, it helped finance it, ultimately leading to a new revenue stream for studios and expanded the market for films.

1990s - Early ‘90s had a recession, putting a strain on finances yet again. But the recession led studios to cut costs, focusing on lower-budget films, laying off folks, delaying or canceling projects. Sound familiar?

Which leads us to the 2000s. From the 2008 Financial Crisis (not to mention a Writer’s Strike), rise of streaming TV, a Global pandemic, and Venture Capital takeover, you’re pretty much caught up.

In almost every instance, progress heralded the end of Film and TV. But also, it was progress that brought us back from the brink of death.

Film and TV will never die. But they will change. They will progress. The trick is to persist, to grow, and to anticipate.

FUTURESCAPE

But how can you anticipate when the future of TV and Film is about as clear as looking out the window of a train in the middle of a rainstorm.

True, things are enigmatic at the moment, but allow me to make some predictions on Film and TV in the next ten years.

• Global Industry - I’ve been preaching this for quite some time and we’re starting to see it. Film and TV production have almost completely moved out of LA, union rates are high in the US due to high cost of living so studios are outsourcing, and, frankly we are ready for more new voices from structure that isn’t informed by ads.

• Independent Film and TV - We’re seeing a bit of this in other areas like animation, which I’m discussing next week. (The only reason animation is not included with Film and TV is because The Animation Guild is in the middle of negotiations, which deserves a whole separate newsletter.) Now more than ever, Audiences are hungry for content, and they are willing to support the creators who make the content they love. That doesn’t mean you can just launch a kickstarter without doing your research, but as studios and networks tighten their belts, the best course of action is to make your own stuff.

• Everyone’s an Entrepreneur - This flows in a bit with the above, but the 2030s are going to shift almost entirely to gig economy. Which means everyone’s a business. Some people like that, but most of us (including me) hate that idea. However, until countries value people over companies, this will not change.

• AI - The dreaded AI conversation. Let me cut to the chase and tell you, AI is not taking creatives’ jobs. Oh, sure, for the first couple years we will see AI-”written” movies and TV. But once AI becomes a part of the next wave of technology (and it will, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the bottle), it isn’t the writers, directors, artists, etc. that will lose their jobs. Much like automation decimated the factories, AI will eradicate the “entry” level jobs. The once bustling studios will become much quieter, as the studios and networks become forced to operate on a quarter of the staff they once had and training opportunities will be erased.

• Focus on Craft - As all the above changes become implemented throughout studios and networks, a real value will be placed on craft. Again, going back to the factories of the early 1900s, after woodworking became automated, craftsmanship bloomed. Consumers learned to value quality woodwork because the factory made chairs were so basic.

“But Meghan, what do I do right now?” A great question…

SO WHAT DO I DO?

This is something everyone from studio execs to showrunners to PAs are asking. If you’re established, how do you not lose your standard of living? If you’re not established, how do you make a name for yourself and get the dream job?

If you’re established, you’ll be okay. And if you’re not established, you will also be okay though maybe not in Film and TV.

But if you want to remain in the Film and TV, you need to take the next ten years into consideration.

• Global Industry - You don’t need to be in LA anymore. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I was such a stalwart LA Truther. And for writing, that is still somewhat the case. But only somewhat. For other aspects of the industries, it might be better to live in other places. If you think of Film and TV as a skill, you realize that skills can transcend location.

  • Side note - A UK friend mentioned that she’s only heard US folks say, “Survive until ‘25.” Meanwhile, in most countries, things are actually picking up. Looking outside of LA and learning how to operate in other' countries’ Film and TV industry is crucial for the next ten years.

• Independent Film and TV - Investigate Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Patreon. Research and apply for grants. Don’t wait for Hollywood, BBC, CBC, anyone to come to you. Ensure you have people around you who are both brutally honest and unwavering fans who will help encourage you and while also telling you the truth. Look into co-ops with other writers, other actors, other directors, where you can join together to help each other make short films, pilots, etc.

  • When it comes to crowdfunding, I highly recommend having a proof of concept to show your potential audience and get them on board. That includes a short film, a scene, anything. I don’t just mean written, but also show your hand at what you have.

• Everyone’s an Entrepreneur - Chat with a financial advisor about your options to make yourself either an LLC or an S Corp, keeping in mind you might not make money in the first year. Most financial advisors will have a free session up front to chat about your options. But you need to start your own business now. If you’re an actor, operate like you’re a production company for your brand as an actor. If you’re a writer, operate like you’re a studio for your projects. Research directors and actors, make friends, nail down what your most obscure and niche interests are and reach out to others that have that same interest.

  • Pro Tip: I’ve made different secret Instagram accounts to keep track of different artists I like. This is a great option for directors, writers, and actors as well.

• AI - Listen, keep fighting for AI regulation. I think most people know it isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps the best thing we can do in the next decade is to treat AI like a parent trying to get their kid not to drink - take all the power out of it*. AI is an extremely boring thing that is not the magic answer to life’s problems. It’s a tool, one that needs to be well regulated, but ultimately a very boring tool.

  • *A better phrase here is the British “take the piss out of it”, but I tried to translate it to be a bit more American.

• Focus on Craft - When I first started working in Film and TV back in 2015, there were men who said to my face that it was hard for white men in Hollywood. I’m sure they felt that way, but what they meant was: it was hard for mediocre white men. (I know they were mediocre, because I read their scripts.) This is going to become true for all of us. It will be hard for mediocre creatives. Mediocrity will be your death knell. Grow. Go to classes. Read books. Talk talk talk talk talk about craft. The only way to survive is by being truly inspired by the magic of cinema, and an absolute nerd about what makes good Film and TV.

FINAL CAVEAT

You may have noticed I didn’t say something like “make comics” or “make a podcast”. Frankly, you should already be thinking about that, but also there are so many people that think it should be “easy” to “jump down” into comics or audio drama. In fact, some people think animation is even “jumping down”. I assure you, not only is that incorrect, it’s incredibly damaging. Each medium has it’s own craft.

I want everyone to be making the things I love, I want you to check in and make sure you’re writing because of the love of the thing, not because you’re feeling desperate.

You will be okay. Don’t bring your fears and baggage into someone else’s industry without seeing the value in that industry first.

THE CROCHET REPORT

So, even the crochet project I’m working on is redacted. In this case, it’s a gift for a friend who does not know I’m making this for them. I will say it’s another little figure, and I will also say that the coat for this little figure is proving to be the bane of my existence.

So instead of pictures of this project, I will show you a cropped photo of me at WonderCon in a sweater I made earlier this year. (Cropped because I didn’t get the person’s permission to post their face.)

I’m really proud of this sweater, I used yarn I found from a wool dyer on TikTok named Arcane Fibre Works. I enjoyed using the more chunky yarn, and, one again, I forgot to save the pattern. This one I have more hope finding, but it’s an oversized sweater that was very cozy in the colder months. I really like the border along the edges and around the cuffs!

That’s all for this week! Next will be State of the Industry: Animation.

Have a great week!

Best,

Meghan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• EVERYTHING FEELS BAD - It’s Not Just You

• Exciting News: Personal + Professional

• The Hobby Crochet Report

EVERYTHING FEELS BAD - IT’S NOT JUST YOU

It’s August 2024. I’m 7 days back in London after seven weeks in the US. The weather oscillates between dreary rain and stifling heat. Fall whispers sweet nothings in the wind, the cygnets almost have their white plumes, and there’s been reporting of more layoffs from the major studios. It feels like these layoff announcements are as a part of nature as any aquatic bird.

No matter what area of the entertainment industry you exist in, it currently feels very Darwinian out there.

I want to say three things to those who are similarly in the trenches, no matter if you’re an audio producer, TV writer, comic artist, animation director:

• You’re not the problem.

• You’re not alone.

• You’re doing enough.

There’s a phrase going around LA at the minute: “Survive until ‘25.” I hate it. I know some people cling to it like a lifeline, but the truth is, every year is hard. Each month brings it’s own challenges. I don’t like getting my hopes up for a thing that won’t happen.

I don’t think things are going to get better. And that’s good.

Things are changing. This is the nature of life, not just the different entertainment industries. There is progress happening, even if it doesn’t feel like it. There is so much to hope for, to look forward to on the horizon.

And, spoiler - part of that hope and change is in no longer relying on studios and networks. But the audience is still there. People still want stories. We just cannot do things the way they’ve ‘always been done’. It’s time for something new.

I’ll be getting into it later in the month. The next four weeks will have STATE OF THE INDUSTRY run downs for:

• TV/Film - Spoiler: If you’re a lower level writer and your reps are pushing you to write a new pilot, fire them. Time to write that feature, babyyyyy.

  • Substack I really love: Leila Cohan’s Room Snacks about TV writing and snacks

• Animation - Negotiations for this next contract between studios and TAG haven’t come to an agreement yet. They’ll meet again next month.

• Comics - Spoiler: People keep saying comics are dying, but what that really mean is nostalgia.

  • Substack I really love: Honestly you should be reading Kris Simon’s Editor Girl because she’s brilliant.

• Audio Drama - Spoiler: Rumors of it’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

  • Substacks I really love: there are sO MANY AUDIO DRAMA SUBSTACKS TO FOLLOW!

    • Felix Trench’s Newsletter on acting for ALL mediums but if you like audio drama then you know exactly why he’s the right person to write about this.

    • Gabriel Urbina’s Controlled Chaos which so many new followers came from Gabriel’s recommendation :)

    • David K Barnes’s Serious Whimsy

But just know that things are weird right now. Personally, I don’t think I’m going to make my monetary goal for the year. Which means finding assistant jobs, taking on non-writing work, whatever I can do to make ends meat.

There is no right or wrong decision right now. Maybe you feel like you need to go back home. Maybe you feel like you need to take a different job or career altogether. That’s okay, you have not failed.

THE DECISION YOU MAKE TODAY DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THE DECISION FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

We often let our fear in the moment rule us, creating a narrative that life is a straight line. But life isn’t linear. It’s a labyrinth.

This isn’t your fault. You are not alone. Surround yourself with others. Go to events with friends. Do non-work-related things. You are enough. You are okay. You will get through this.

EXCITING NEWS: PERSONAL + PROFESSIONAL

Professional - Let’s start with work first. End of June I found myself in Florida for an exciting project I absolutely can’t talk about. July was SDCC, where I was on a couple panels, crammed in as many meetings as possible, and managed to only buy two meals for myself (corporate money bought the rest). And last week I signed a contractor a project I once again can’t talk about… but has been a major goal for this year.

Personal - GOT MARRIED. That’s all I’ll be saying on the topic. Except… I’m really happy.

THE HOBBY CROCHET REPORT

I’ve done it. I’ve found a hobby. And, as I do with most things, I have dived in head first. The Hobby Report is getting rebranded to the Crochet Report where I can show off what I’ve been making.

Today’s Project: Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing

Part of the joy to living in London is theater. Specifically, theater at the rebuilt Globe. I saw Othello back in March and as I was wandering through the gift shop (one of my favorite past times), I found this—

I made an enthusiastic purchase, because you can only make so many sweaters and blankets. What if I gave people the gift of SHAKESPEARE CHARACTERS.

But the book sat on my shelf for months. I didn’t try to make them. I was too scared, afraid it would be too hard. Then, a dear friend came to town and wanted to see what was playing at the Globe.

It was Much Ado.

Fun Fact about Meghan: Much Ado is my favorite Shakespeare show (look for the Substack newsletter where I break down exactly why I love the show, from a writing standpoint). But more than that, Much Ado was the first Shakespeare I saw performed. I was living in Orlando, and a friend of my mom’s was a sign language interpreter (she’d do things like the Candlenight Processional at Disney, etc.). She told my mom about a theater production of Shakespeare she was interpreting. I don’t think my mom particularly likes Shakespeare, so I don’t know what compelled her to bring me, an incredibly impressionable teen, to see Shakespeare’s horniest play. But I loved it. The whole show imprinted on me, becoming a huge part of my personality. And ever since, I’ve been chasing the wonder and joy that experience brought me.

So, in honor of seeing Much Ado at the Globe, the Mecca of Shakespearean theater, I decided to make Beatrice.

For my first attempt, I think she’s pretty good! I’ve given her to a friend’s child who seems to like the doll, although she said it looks like she’s crying. So, I guess this makes her Act 4 Beatrice.

What character should I attempt next?

That’s all for this week! Next week will be State of the Industry: TV/Film.

Have a great week!

Best,

Meghan

As you may have noticed, I struggle with consistency when it comes to social spaces. It’s something I don’t wanted to admit to myself, especially when it seems so many other people manage to be online without any issues. Not only without issues, but they thrive online! And, horror of horrors, have a plan they stick to! Could never be me. 

I’ve always been a happy hermit who would hole away in my home, writing as the dishes pile up, hiding away from the outside world as I type from morning until night. Since I started my freelance career during the pandemic, my normal has lived only in the critical. It’s difficult to realign myself, to find a new normal. Especially since my new normal also exists half the time in a completely different country. 

So, welcome to 2024, the year of figure ourselves out. What does that mean for the newsletter? It means things will be a little more casual. I’m going to be a little more honest. And as for the premium content? We’re going to still do that as well, but I think it will be more of a break down of what I’m looking at, reading, or writing. I hope you stick around. 

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program. 

WELCOME TO THE LABYRINTH: WELCOME 2024!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Available Now!

• Announcements!

• State of the Industry

• What I’ve Been Working On 

• Premium Preview

• Rejection Report

• The Hobby Report

AVAILABLE NOW! 

Gosh, a load of things happened in the last few months. 

Justice League x RWBY Part 1 and Part 2 are out! I am so so proud of this series. I had a blast writing it, truly one of the easiest experiences of my life, the girls came to life all on their own and I will always love writing the Justice League.

You can buy the collected edition of Tim Drake: Robin Vol 1, containing issues 1-6! It features Riley Rossmo’s fantastic art, I am sad the series didn’t continue, but we’ve still got one more edition coming out April 16th. 

I had a new story come out with DC Comics, in TITANS BEASTWORLD TOUR: ATLANTIS, in connection to the Teen Titans: Beast World Tour event! I got to play with Jackson and Mera, which is maybe the closest I will every get to Mira Jade, my absolute favorite character in licensed fiction. Mera is a close second. 

I finally made my triumphant entry into the Marvel universe in the exercise game Marvel Move: Captain America’s Turkey Trot! Featuring friends like Briggon Snow and Felix Trench (who has a great substack on Acting), I wrote a running game in which you help Captain America during a Thanksgiving Parade in New York City! I’m delighted to finally play in the Marvel universe, and to have written a character my dad actually reads is a plus! 

COMING SOON!

Coming soon, also in April, I have a story in DC’s Spring BreakOUT anthology! When discussing the story with my editor Andrew Marino, we were thinking of different ideas for the theme of spring, and, coming from Florida aka Spring Break capital of the world, obviously I had to send World’s Finest Teen Titans to Cocoa Beach for spring break! Finally getting to write Dick Grayson means the Robins I’ve written for 4/5! 

✅ Dick Grayson - Spring BreakOUT 2024

☑️ Jason Todd - ???

✅ Tim Drake - see above lol

✅ Stephanie Brown - Tim Drake’s Pride issue

✅ Damien Wayne - the DC Superhero Girls episode Kid Napped

Just gotta write Jason Todd now. I almost wrote Jason Todd back in the Future State days instead of Tim Drake, but that’s a story for a different time. 

As I mentioned above, Tim Drake: Robin Vol 2 comes out on April 16th! Featuring issue 7, which I think is one of the most fun things I’ve written, given Bernard a bit of personal backstory and seeing things from this precious Himbo’s point of view. 

And that’s all I can talk about at the moment, though I will hint at what else I’ve been working on down below. 

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Woof. Possibly part of the reason I haven’t gotten back onto the substack is because things are ROUGH out there, no matter what part of the entertainment industry you’re in. 

• TV - I’ve seen a few headlines saying something to the effect of “The Industry is being punished for the strikes” which… isn’t true, but certainly feels true. Something like 20% of jobs have been lost, layoffs don’t stop, and agencies like A3 are going under. The truth is, the issue isn’t the writers strikes. The issue is that venture capital has weaseled its way into the entertainment industry, making bets without recognizing the most important rule of the industry: the industry is personal. Since the creation of the industry, it has always been about “who you know”, and while that certainly is an unfortunate gatekeeping method that we are actively working against, venture capital takes gatekeeping to a whole new level. Venture Capital is like Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life, sweeping in and offering to “rescue” the whole town, which means owning the whole town. And, while this is not all inclusive, most of the men who come in with their venture capital money don’t value the humanity that makes movies or TV. They don’t recognize that you can’t make bets with people’s lives. They don’t understand the crushing agony of giving your life to a project that gets written off for tax purposes. And to anyone who says, “That’s business” — why? It shouldn’t be. Money should never be more important than people.
  

• Comics - Oh boy. Tom Brevoort talked about this on his (very good) substack this week. Everyone has said it’s “the end of comics” for the last forty years. Things are certainly “dire” in that something needs to change, but that doesn’t mean the end is nigh. It means those of us in the industry need to make changes, we need to be daring, we need to make things that are different and new.
  

• Animation - The layoffs are hitting animation harder than anywhere else, I think. I’ve had a number of meetings the past six weeks and every single person has said, “Well, we are waiting to see. Check back in March.” I will say, I’m starting to see more people looking for adult animation. That seems to be where the money is. Not surprising, though I have a concern with this - it means we are valuing adults over the middle and teen grades. The reason this is concerning is because TV is also skating over these ages. I believe it’s the same reason you don’t see many laws focused on teens, or why school shootings don’t change laws — it’s about teens. Teens can’t vote. They can’t vote with their voice or their money. So, they get ignored or forgotten, unless those of us make an effort for them. I understand that people have to go where the money is, especially in this time. But, something I feel very strongly about, is that you cannot make decisions with a starvation mentality. Even if you are starving, and so many of us are. So many of us are scared and have no idea what’s next. But I will not make decisions with a starvation mentality. That is the death of art. That is the death of progress.
  

• Podcasts - Look. Podcasts haven’t hit like they should. Not yet, at least. Especially not audio fiction podcasts. What needs to happen is the Serial for audio fiction. And we are close, I can feel it. But budgets are getting cut left and right. All my podcasts, even the nonfiction ones, are pleading for money or support. 

So, it’s a scary time. If you’re trying to get into the industry, I don’t blame you for being terrified. If you’re new to the industry, I don’t blame you for being terrified. But hang on. We will get through this, together. Look for friends. Look for those that are also in the trenches. We can’t survive on our own, we need each other to hang onto, to remind us that we are doing this for a reason, a purpose. This isn’t the first time things have been dark, and it won’t be the last. The trick has always been survive together. 

WHAT I’VE BEEN WORKING ON 

I feel like the past three months have been focused on pitches, pitches, pitches. I spent the end of December and beginning of January reaching out to folks in my network with purchasing power and asking, “What are you looking for?” Then, sent them some loglines and waited to see if anything sparked for them. What has been helpful is a google spreadsheet I made of my various different ideas and loglines. 

The above is an example of a pitch I’ve been working on/sent out. It’s for a comic series I’ve already written the first issue for, and had it drawn by the amazing Yasmin Flores Montanez. But I can acknowledge where else the idea can live, and if I’m talking to someone in animation or TV, I can send them this logline to see if it’s something they’re interested in. 

So I’ve been working on a number of original pitches, including a TV pitch for an original idea that I just pitched to a production company. No idea if they’ll choose to move forward with it, but pitching an original idea at all is exciting, so I’m taking the win. 

I’ve also got a creator owned comic in the works! The contract is still getting signed, so I can’t talk too much about it, but this is something I’ve been working towards since the run on Tim Drake, and I cannot wait for it to see the world. 

I’m also working on two really exciting podcasts that I can’t talk about yet! They’re so incredibly different from each other, which I love. I find that I am the happiest when I get to work on two juxtaposing projects, because they both sharpen me in different ways and continue to make me a better writer. 

Finally, I’m working on two original samples - one for feature and one for TV. The feature is interesting, it feels a bit like It’s a Wonderful Life meets The Hangover, and I’m hoping to actually make it as a vehicle for some actor friends of mine. And then, the TV sample is… well… it’s my first comedy sample. Famously, I’m not a comedy person. I love making people cry. But my ideas are almost always funny. This is sometimes good for drama, because you need to have that break in the tension. But often I get asked questions about tone that don’t live up to what people expect. So, we’re trying something new. Which is why… 

PREMIUM PREVIEW

The premium preview this month will be a deep dive into the SEARCH PARTY pilot! I have had not one, but two projects compared to Search Party, so it’s finally time to give this a watch, a read, and a study. I’ve already read the pilot, which has revealed some surprises, but I need to watch the pilot again, since it’s been quite a while. 

I will say, the main takeaway from reading the pilot is that it isn’t necessarily laugh out loud funny. At least, I didn’t think so. It doesn’t have any jokes, it’s actually pretty stark. Also, it’s set in New York, which is a massive change from what I remember of the Los Angeles based pilot. So, look out for that later this month. 

REJECTION REPORT

I’ve started a new “fun” project this year, where I give myself $1 for every reject. My aim is to have $100 by the end of the year, which means I have to get rejected 100 times. This also means I have to put myself up to be rejected even more times! So far, this is where my rejection list sits, and how much is in the Rejection Pot.

1. The Superhero Project - This is something I applied to back in December? I totally forgot about it. 

2. Star Sisters - This is a pitch I send to different animation companies because I believe in it with my whole heart. But it got a pass from someone, which made sense as they’re going in a more adult animation direction and this is not that. 

3. Project Kiwi - This was something I was sort of “auditioning” for with my writing work. It was a cool project, I’m sad I won’t be working on it, but it was fun. 

4. Sunshine Motel - Devastated this didn’t get picked up, but I think I can find another good home for it somewhere.

5. The Old Jail - Less of a surprise this didn’t get picked up, but I’m excited for the time to actually refine this, because it feels a bit hurried. 

Rejection Pot: $5

95 more rejections to go! 

THE HOBBY REPORT

This is going to change slightly, as I found a hobby in 2023! I started crocheting in August, and I honestly haven’t stopped since. I made gifts for my entire family, and now I’m working on sweaters! So, the Hobby Report will now change to The Experience Report, where I talk about different experiences I attempt. I realized recently that Mindful Exploration is very important to me. So, as I focus on navigating and noticing experiences, I will be chronicling them here. And I hope to hear your experiences, as well!

That’s all for this month. I hope you’re well, and that you’re taking care of yourself. I’ll see premium members in a few days.

Until next time,

Meghan Fitzmartin