How To Write Your Show While Working on Someone Else’s: The Dual-Career Creative’s Guide

Posted on: Dec 18, 2025

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto | Bojanstory

By Brendan Fitzgibbons

If you work in production and you’re also trying to write your own show (or film), congrats: you’re doing the artistic version of running a marathon while also chiming in on a work Zoom with your camera on. It’s chaotic, messy, thrilling, and it just might destroy you. But with the right system? You can actually make both work.

Below is a guide for anyone who’s ever stared mindlessly at a laptop or a dark edit bay, sipping stale coffee, thinking, “Didn’t John Lennon say, ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans’? Well … these feel like the other plans. What about mine?”

It’s okay. This is all part of the dual-career lifestyle. It’s hectic, but it’s also how some of the greatest stuff gets made. And the truth is: writing your own project while working on someone else’s is not only possible … it’s kind of the creative cheat code.

Key Insights

Writing your own show while working in production is achievable when treated as a non-negotiable job, not a side hobby.
Production work and creative writing require different mental modes, making it essential to intentionally protect focused writing time.
Working on other people’s shows offers a built-in education that can directly strengthen your own storytelling and leadership approach.

Here’s how to do it without melting into a pile of Post-its.

1. Schedule Your Writing Like It’s a Real Job (Because It Is)

One of the biggest traps in production is believing your own work comes second to the show you’re on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to write your pilot while holding a boom mic. But, you cannot lose sight of what’s important: you.

Your show is not a hobby. Your show is not “when I’m less tired.” Your show is not “after this production wraps,” because “after” never comes. There’s always another gig, another sizzle, another “quick thing” that somehow eats an entire month.

So you have to schedule your writing the same way you’d schedule an interview with the showrunner or a call with network execs. Meaning: you’re doing it no matter what.

Find the pocket of the day when your brain doesn’t feel like pudding. For me, it’s first thing in the morning. I do a sacred 40-minute block before emails, IG messages, my dog demanding cookies, or a producer somewhere asking if we can “just do one more alt.”

Keep the time small and manageable. Not three hours. Not the mythical “I’ll write all weekend.” Just set a timer, go full beast mode for 40 minutes. If 40 feels impossible, do 10 or 20 and find micro blocks to write. You’d be shocked how much gets done when you do it consistently.

2. Protect Your Creative Brain Like It’s the LaCroix at Craft

Production brain and writing brain are two totally different creatures.

Production brain is task-oriented, tactical, efficient. It knows call sheets, locates rogue walkies, and can magically produce an extension cord at dawn in a place where extension cords should not exist.

Writing brain is a creative dream space — weird, abstract, delicate, profound. It takes a passing thought and turns it into a scene that changes lives. They cannot coexist at the same time. You have to protect the creative one.

That means:

Don’t check emails before your writing block.
Don’t open Slack “just to peek.”
Don’t let production problems into your mental backyard until after you’ve written.
Treat writing like meditation: if the world is burning, you will deal with the fire after you finish your page count.

Production will take every inch of your brain if you let it. Guard your inner creative like a tiny, brilliant creature you’re secretly raising in the attic.

3. Use Your Production Job as Idea Fuel, Not an Excuse

Working on someone else’s show gives you a massive advantage: you’re watching the whole machine run from the inside. Every system, every decision, every problem — you’re basically getting a free master class in how TV gets made.

So instead of letting it drain you, use it. Notice what works on set, and what doesn’t. How characters pop. Which structural choices soar, and which crash. Collect everything and visualize how you’ll run your future set. Your future self will thank you.

And try not to get pulled into set drama or let “work” become the excuse for why you’re not writing. You’re there to do the best job you can while still maintaining absolute creative certainty about your own ideas.

4. Remember: Your Show Is the Whole Point

Working on other people’s shows is incredible. You learn, you grow, you become a ninja at solving impossible problems. But you also have your own voice, your own story, your own insane, brilliant thing that only you can make.

Your writing time isn’t stealing from production. It’s an investment in the reason you got into this business. No one is going to carve out that space for your dream. You carve it out yourself.

And when the day comes — when you’re in a room pitching your show, execs nodding, reps smiling, the world finally seeing what you built in those stolen pockets of time — you’ll be grateful for every early morning, every 10-minute window, every protected block.

This is the path. This is how the dream becomes real. This is how you make your show while helping someone else make theirs.

Key Takeaways

Scheduling small, consistent writing blocks is more effective than waiting for large, uninterrupted stretches of time.
Guarding your creative energy from emails, Slack, and set chaos is critical to sustaining original work.
Your personal project is the core reason for being in the industry, and prioritizing it is an investment in your long-term creative future.

Brendan Fitzgibbons is a comedy writer and actor living in Los Angeles. He’s written for Comedy Central, The Onion, NBC, HuffPost and Bravo. As an actor, he’s appeared on Comedy Central, MTV and “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.” His podcast, “Spiritual As****e” was named a Top Indie Podcast by Stitcher.

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