Keep The Pathway Clear

Welcome to The Punch Up

I’m TV writer Brian D. Bradley, and this is my newsletter where I will write about TV writing, the shitshow that is showbiz, and other related musings—or at least that’s the idea.

I’m writing this on December 31, a day when many lightly used journals and notebooks get dusted off so their pages can be filled with hopeful resolutions for the new year. I did it myself just this morning. I imagine many of you probably scrawled something along the lines of “Finish script.” And maybe you wrote it nice and dark, REALLY pushing that pen into the paper to mask the lingering doubts you have about completing that goal. I may have done that too.

As I was planning this newsletter, I made myself write down 20 possible post topics to see if I actually had anything to offer. They had titles ranging from “Is My Idea a Show?” to “Holy Shit! Someone Else Just Sold My Show!” to “Welcome Post,” which you are currently reading.

But for my first entry to The Punch Up on this final day of 2024, I thought I might tell you a little story about tidying up.

I was around nine when I figured out I couldn’t draw. I’d been a committed doodler for the entirety of my short life, specializing in spaceships, roller coaster designs, and, most keenly, superheroes. It was the heroes that did me in.

I loved comic books and animation (formerly known as “cartoons”). The more superheroic, the better. If a character wore spandex and could shoot bolts of energy from their hands, that was my shit. And if they were part of a team that flew around on a high-tech jet, even better. I was 100% certain I would be an illustrator when I grew up, so I busied myself creating a catalog of heroes with names like Flamestar, Nightfire, and The Inferno (my early stuff was heavily fire-based). I filled spiral notebooks, legal pads, and reams of continuous dot-matrix printer paper with my ideas. The only problem was, my drawings sucked. Even worse, I had proof—my own two eyes.

There was an older kid in our neighborhood named Mike who also liked to draw. Mostly badass metal stuff like rotting skeletal astronauts sitting in the cockpits of crashed spaceships and hot girls on dragons. Compared to my drawings, his work leaped off the page. Even adjusting for the age difference, it was clear that my badly proportioned, malformed, unshaded abominations weren’t going to fast-track me to an incredible life as an illustrator. This was my first career crisis. It would not be my last.

But lucky for me, a kid’s brain is more malleable than the grown-up version. Faced with this artistic setback, I simply pivoted. My characters were alive in my head. I knew their origin stories, powers, and weaknesses. I knew who they loved and the nemeses who stood against them. If I couldn’t draw them into existence, I could describe them. Soon that printer paper was filled with words instead of drawings. Long stories of good guys fighting bad guys and saving towns, cities, and entire worlds. And though it would be many years before I’d feel comfortable calling myself a writer, I had, nevertheless, just become one.

I’ve thought of that story a lot over the years—about how simple it was to just begin. There was no fear of failure. My ideas were mine. And because they were mine, they were perfect. I didn’t live in a house where creativity was encouraged, but that was okay because my urge to create was fuel enough. I didn’t ask for permission to write because none was required. All I needed was my imagination and a little time.

Now look, I get it. I was nine years old. All I had was time. And I’m not sure how good those stories were. I’m not exactly sitting on a pile of money from The Inferno franchise. But time-traveling back to that moment is still helpful to me. Because that was about as free as I’ve ever been. The pathway between my impulse to tell a story and actually writing that story was completely clear of doubt, fear, judgment, and all the other debris that blocks it up as we get older. It’s a reminder that keeping that pathway clear is essential. But it takes maintenance. Every once in a while, we need to take a broom (or a shovel… or a bulldozer) and move the junk out of the way.

As I continue The Punch Up my hope is not to inspire you—there are plenty of folks better suited to that task. Instead, I will do my best to demystify screenwriting and the business around it. To talk plainly about how to do the work and what to do with that work once it’s written. But here at the transition between years, I’ll give you just this one bit of advice: go back to your list of resolutions and cross out “Finish script” and replace it with, “Keep the pathway clear”. Resolve to maintain that connection between creativity and action and see if one doesn’t follow the other.

Happy New Year, and happy scribbling!