It’s August. It’s hot. There are no movies worth seeing, and unless you get a kick out of watching Under the Dome spiral further away from the brilliant Stephen King book it’s based on with every increasingly tiresome episode, there’s nothing much to watch on TV. The beaches are too crowded, the malls are too boring, and there aren’t any bookstores left to hang out in. What are you going to do with this last month of summer?

How about writing that pilot?

You know, the one that’s going to make you the next Matthew Weiner or Jenji Kohan?

The one you swore you’d get finished by the end of the summer? And that you still can’t get to work?

Writing a pilot is hard work. I think it’s the hardest form of dramatic writing you can attempt. And let’s face it, even the easiest forms of writing are pretty hard to do well.

But this weekend, you can get back to your pilot — and you don’t have to do it alone.

Thanks to my good friends at Writing Pad, I’m giving an intensive two-day workshop this weekend on writing the pilot. All day Saturday and Sunday, from 10 AM to 5PM, I’m going to teach you how to plan a riveting series and give your pilot a unique voice and a specific  world view. You’ll learn how to breathe life into your characters , break your  pilot story, and write an original plot. And then you’re going to put all this into practice, as we dig down into your individual projects, working as a writers room to develop each series.

You can find out more information about the weekend here: http://writingpad.com/classesbydate.htm#PILOT. But you’re going to have to move fast. We’re keeping this class as small as possible, so that every student gets in-depth help. I’m told there are only one or two spaces left.