This is Ottavia Paluch and you’re reading Things You Otter Know.
Happy December, Otters! Can you believe 2023’s almost over?! Ridiculousness.
Because it’s the holiday season and also finals season (and then after that is New Year’s and then after that the start of a new semester, good god) I’m keeping my posts here to a minimum until probably mid-January. Ideally I’ll send something out every Friday, but the stuff I do plan to send out will be quite sick as frick (year-end lists, tomfoolery, etc).
A while back I teased the existence of something very cool and surprisingly not Substack-related. I called it the “fulfillment of a pipe dream I’ve had since the sixth grade.” The other day a press release for this mysterious thing came out, which is why I finally feel comfortable telling you about it—
I’M WRITING FOR A TV SHOW!!!!!!! (Technically.)
You can extra extra read all about it HERE, but I will also sum it all up below.
The show is called The Squeaky Wheel: Canada. It airs on AMI next year but is also slated for a worldwide release!! It’s inspired by the popular American website of the same name, which is basically the Onion but for disability satire. Def worth your time.
What’s amazing is that basically every person involved with this show, from the directors to the cast to the writers, are all disabled Canadians. To my (albeit limited) knowledge, there has been nothing like this on Canadian TV. My sense is that with enough traction this thing could be a game-changer.
I could not be more thrilled to have been offered the opportunity to be a very tiny part of this thing. They had an open call for writers back in August and the requirements were that you had to be Canadian, disabled, and funny. I check all three of those boxes, so I couldn’t not apply.
I sent them a packet of jokes and stuff on the last possible day, thinking it wasn’t good enough to warrant a spot. But then in late September one of the producers emailed me saying the team wanted to bring me on as a “Story Contributor”!!! I know, I couldn’t believe it either.
The role would essentially involve me hopping on a Zoom for a few hours a day over the course of one given week and working alongside the full-time writers to flesh out an episode of the show. They told me they’d contact me when they needed me, but as you can tell from my verb tense, they haven’t needed me yet, and today is December 1st.
So essentially I’m jumping to conclusions by announcing that I am a part of this thing without actually officially being a part of it. Hopefully no one sues me.
Regardless of how things play out—and I have a feeling enough time has passed that they no longer need me—I’m still super proud of having achieved this W. I’m still going to claim that it happened even if it ends up not really happening.
I’m not a flexer. I could never be a LinkedIn Girl™️. I’m honestly kind of sheepish about my 3.4 achievements. But you know what? Eff it. This time I’m not going to attribute things to a stroke of luck. Unlike every other time anything cool has ever happened to me, I know this was something I deserved. I spent a long time on my application packet for the show, but I’ve been at this writing thing long enough that I know I’ve earned a role like this. I’ve worked really friggin hard to not only become a good writer, but also to become a funny writer, even if (let’s be real) only 1/10th of my jokes actually land. This Substack literally exists to serve those two purposes.
How many 20-year-olds get to say they were technically supposed to be a part of a professional writers room filled mostly with folks twice their age?
I can. I did that. I made that happen.
Like, I’ve never had plans to push towards a career in the TV industry or anything. Especially because everyone who writes for 22 comes from a standup comedy background, and I’m just not extroverted enough to pursue that type of grind. But ever since I was a kid watching the Rick Mercer Report on Monday nights instead of doing my math homework, I’ve had this pipe dream of writing for a show like Rick’s, something akin to Saturday Night Live or the aforementioned 22.
Now, it’ll never happen because it’s not realistic. New York and Halifax are too far away. But I’ve always thought that if a smaller-scale, closer-to-home opportunity ever arose, I would aggressively throw my hat in the ring. I’m a terrible actor and I don’t have the money or time to study improv at Second City, so I thought having my name in the credits through a writing role would be pretty awesome.
But I thought I’d have to be a lot older and have 15 books out and an actually developed network of people in the industry to simply be considered for a role like that.
Except right now I’m 20. I’m a disabled twenty-year-old woman from a suburb of Toronto with maybe 5 friends total… and I’ve already made this dream of mine come true. I have already been thought of as good enough to contribute my lived experience and stupid puns to an actual, real-life, professionally produced. green-lit TV series. I belong in a paid Zoom writers room with some of the funniest people all across this country. I have the ability to win over legit TV producers who are total strangers looking for the best talent around. I am good enough!!! People find me funny and smart!!! What the fuuuuuu—
With that I bid adieu. Dream big dreams, Otters. Sometimes they come true.
oh my god i'm so excited for you dude this is the beginning of something i can feel it
NO WAY CONGRATS <33333