Obnoxious Younger Sister's Big Fat, "I Told You So!"

During my recent period of unemployment in which I quit my job in L.A. and moved back to Michigan to spend some time writing while I waited for the right film job to come along, I decided to work on a project that had been gnawing at me ever since my little sister, Patti, had turned thirteen while I was living the span of the country away from her. I remember wanting to give her a meaningful present, but feeling sad that I wasn't going to be around for her on a daily basis with big sisterly advice about coping with her teens. That's when I came up with the idea for a story, Obnoxious Older Sister's Know-it-All Guide to Your Teens.

Six years later, I finally had the chance to spend some time working on it. I finished up a draft around Christmas. It was VERY dark humor - so VERY my style. But it wasn't quite there yet, so I did some retooling and found the basic premise and style were more suited to an ABC Family-type script. At first, I shuddered at the thought. Seriously. Have you seen The Secret Life of the American Teenager? OMG - the worst writing I've ever seen on non-reality TV. This is a real line of dialogue from the show. "You had sex, and now our dad is dead." I'm not shitting you.

But guess who LOVES that show. Patti. Guess who once auditioned one of the lead actors on that show for a PSA she did. Moi. So I went with it. And it didn't turn out half bad. It's got the prerequisite ABC Family dose of cheese and a long ass title. It's certainly marketable, unlike some of my other ideas.

Patti certainly approved. I wasn't entirely sure, but her vote's worth a million bucks.

I got a call yesterday from Matt over at Script Pipeline that Obnoxious Older Sister's Know-it-All Guide to Your Teens had made the finals of their TV Writing Competition. Woo Hoo! Prize money = still getting to claim I'm a screenwriter on my taxes! I was a finalist a few years ago in their Feature Writing Competition for my script, The Well.

On our call, Matt said, "Now don't be offended, but-"

I interrupted, "It's ABC Family, right?"

"How did you know that's what I was going to say?"

Because I'm the obnoxious older sister and a know-it-all.