Writer seeking writer

UNTIL I GOT TO Los Angeles, I did not know that writing could be a group activity. But most of the scriptwriters I’ve met here have a partner, and often those writing partners are hired to sit in a room with other writing partners so that they can all write one script. It was as if I’d moved to Paris and discovered that eight hands simultaneously hold every paintbrush. Which I think was a scene in the best “Emmanuelle” movie I ever saw on Cinemax.

So when the Writers Guild offered a “Speed Partnering” session, I signed right up. The Saturday afternoon event was run just like speed dating: You switch tables every five minutes to meet a new person, or, as the flier called them, potential “collabor-mates.” I was pretty sure I didn’t want to pair up with the writer in charge of that flier.

Before we started, we were given lots of cookies, brownies and other sugar-laden treats to hype us up, much like an actual TV writers’ room. Then, just as in speed dating, we were advised to always use a prophylactic, only in this case it was a stack of Writer’s Collaboration Agreements. Apparently, at the guild’s first speed-partnering event, a guy kept a woman’s ideas and she felt burned. I couldn’t wait to start, because this sounded like the most exciting relationship I could have with my wife’s permission.

For the next 2 1/2 hours, I enjoyed a blitz of flirtation incredibly similar to what I remember of actual dating. Everyone wanted to know what TV shows and movies I watched, where I lived, what kind of writing partnerships I’d had in my past and how they ended. Most people refused to consider anyone outside of their demographic: The cop-show guy dismissed me right away; the woman who writes thrillers had no need for me.

Considering these were writers who didn’t know enough other writers to find a partner through non-humiliating means, I was impressed at how smart everyone was: There was a guy who writes jokes for “The Tonight Show”; the man who co-created “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”; a neurosurgeon who writes as a hobby; a lawyer who writes as a hobby and was about to fly to Las Vegas on a ticket purchased by a lady friend; a writer who worked for “My Two Dads”; and a woman who not only wrote for both “BeastMaster” and “Walker, Texas Ranger” but also has been in some sort of recent professional contact with Lily Tomlin.

While some people immediately pitched me their projects and told me what they were looking for in a collabor-mate, most people just wanted to chat. It is shocking how much you can learn about someone in five minutes. In fact, about half the time, I felt like five minutes was way too long.

Much like in real dating, there were some obvious signs to stay away. When I told people that I had absolutely no ideas for scripts, many responded that it wasn’t a problem because they had “too many ideas.” Several even said they had “hundreds of ideas.” Which is a way of saying, “I have no ideas either, but I would enjoy spending a lot of time boring the crap out of you.”

At the end of the session, wedding-tired and unable to remember anything except that somewhere there are women willing to buy middle-aged lawyers plane tickets to Vegas, I struggled to fill out my sheet about whom I would like to pursue further. If they also selected me, the guild would give us each other’s e-mail addresses and, if we liked each other, we could then form one super-efficient writing team that, instead of sitting alone at home, would gather to surf the Internet and decide where to eat lunch.

To my shock, eight out of the nine people I checked off also selected me. I felt incredibly popular. Even slutty. The worst part was, because of my poor note-taking and the guild’s policy, I couldn’t find out the name of the one person who didn’t want me back. And he/she is the only one I want.

The first person to ask me to lunch was a screenwriter named Marc, and because I had absolutely no idea who he was, nor anyone else on my list, I instantly agreed. When I e-mailed him to pick a restaurant, Marc told me that he doesn’t like Mexican food. At this point, the meeting was just a hopeless charade.

I asked him why he was interested in me, because that’s all I really cared about. Marc said, “I’m always partial to East Coast people.” And I felt that special tingle that only 55 million Americans could ever feel.

I really liked Marc, and I liked his idea of how a writing team would function, like being workout partners and forcing you to meet deadlines. But that just made me realize that what I really want is a writing trainer -- someone I would pay to alternate between yelling at me to work harder and complimenting me on really nice paragraphs. And my pecs.

But writing itself I need to do alone, even if it’s isolating and frustrating. Because when it’s good -- when typing transforms into meditation and time ceases to exist -- it’s a wonderful feeling. And, more important, you don’t have to split the money.

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