Optioned

So, at long last I got a greenlight from my sister to announce the big secret we've been harboring for months.

As of the end of October, our tv series "The Protector" is optioned by Tig Productions, better known as Kevin Costner's production company.

It is an 18 month option, which we agreed was warranted since the strike was breathing down our collective necks at the time. We are being packaged by a major agency in town...and that's about all I can say.

Of course, the option was signed two days before the strike. This of course means that all of the work from June to October came to a screeching halt.

It started in June when I finished writing the pilot. My sister Julie is credited as co-creator on the series with me. We sent the script out to a couple of people who had shown interest at management companies. As a strange coincidence, she happened to meet up with the producers of our project that night and casually mentioned that we had sent out the script in an effort to get me representation. They expressed interest in us coming in to pitch.

We didn't think they were serious. They were.

So, we pitched. Left them the bible and the script. We had prepared our seven minute pitch, but they wanted a casual meeting and we ended up chatting about the show for an hour. The told us they were very interested in working with us, and on the whole I felt lucky to just have an opportunity to pitch a project as *practice*.

A week later they wanted us to go to Big Agency #1 to pitch our project to the head of the TV Lit Department. The producers had a couple of other projects they were working on with this agency and thought it would be good to have us in to talk specifically about ours.

We freaked out a little bit, yes.

Then in August we met with Kevin and got his notes. Yes, that was weird and I'll supply details at some date in the future.

Finally, we pitched to a packaging agent at BIG AGENCY #2 which Tig was talking to. And by October we were optioned.

And now we wait. But this is what I've been alternately stressing and giddy about for the last half of the year.

Now I hope that 2008 will be THE YEAR for us to really make some headway.