MY NEW SOAP JOB - AND HOW I GOT THERE

I am writing this blog post on the 5:55 a.m. train from Manhattan heading to Stamford, CT (after having taken two subways to get to Grand Central Station, first). Because, for the first time since before my daughter was born, I have a job that requires reporting to an office.

Seven years ago, pregnant with my third child and too sick and tired to keep making what, in retrospect, was a ridiculously short, five subways stops commute, I gave up my office gig for the freelancer’s life. I was, however, remarkably fortunate in that my then employer, Procter & Gamble Productions, producers of the soap operas “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light,” promptly hired me to keep on doing more or less what I’d been doing up to that point, only from home and at a lower salary–which I deemed infinitely fair.

Alas, the bad economy struck a number of industries, and my area of expertise, television soap operas, proved among them. First “Guiding Light” was cancelled, then “As the World Turns,” and then even ABC’s “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.” So there I was, with a fantastic 15 years worth of experience to my resume… and no shows to work on. (The remaining soaps taped in Los Angeles, and I have a husband who believes that if you leave the island of Manhattan, you fall off the edge of the Earth, “There Be Monsters” style.)

So for five years, I hustled in other fields, writing and producing enhanced mystery novels and romance ebooks, and taking freelance assignments for a variety of parenting and education publications.

And then, something that I thought would never, ever happen… happened. A production company picked up the rights to “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” intending to broadcast them over the Internet (they premiered April 29, make sure to watch!). I knew I had to get in on this (one of the benefits to being so narrowly specialized is that when an opportunity presents itself, there’s no mistaking it). I worked for almost 18 months, sending unremitting emails to everyone I knew–and people I didn’t know, either; I’m very shy and retiring that way–to get my foot in the door. And then I got my foot in the door. Except that my foot, along with the rest of me, needed to report to Stamford, CT the following week.

Read the entire piece at: http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/back-to-the-daily-grind-after-seven-years/