I need a bigger plate

So, I was chatting with a friend last night, discussing an idea I've had for a while about a TV series.

I'm not going into details about the idea here, except to say it's sort of in the same vein as Supernatural--sort of a weekly horror show. Anyways, while I was discussing it with my friend something inside me (talk about a horror show!) woke up and said, "Why the hell not?"

So, I'm going to be hammering on the pilot script for this thing--I don't even have a name for it yet--over the next little while. This, in addition to The Harvester of Faces novel and the screenplay I'm going to collaborate on. Needless to say, that plus my regular day job pretty much take up all my free time. Fortunately, for most of these projects I don't have a deadline, so there's no hurry.

I've never really thought about doing a TV show before. I've got ideas that I think would make good shows that people would watch, but I've never actually tried to develop one before. So, this is new territory for me.

I picture this one as lasting about five years. There is an overriding story arch that will come to an end as the series climax. In the meantime there will be some episodes that advance the story arch and some that are pretty much stand-alone.

I like that format, instead of one where a show can go on indefinitely, for a lot of reasons. Mainly it's just satisfying, from a story-telling perspective, to tell a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, over the course of around a hundred individual episodes. It's like writing a really long novel.

You also have the marketing angle--people will stick with it after they get hooked if they know for a fact that there is an ending coming up where their questions will be answered and the story will come to an end. I got fed up with X-Files and other shows like this because the revelations regarding the back story came at a glacial pace and didn't seem to be completely thought out. That won't be the case here.

Also, at least for this story, it'll be a lot of fun to write. There are just not enough horror-based TV shows right now.

Anyways, I have no idea what I'm doing, or even if I'll get a chance to pitch this thing to anybody who could potentially make it, but I'm diving into it anyway. Maybe, one day, I'll be able to bring it to the small screen for your viewing pleasure.