From Robert McKee’s “Screenwriting 101″ class at USC, to co-developing a successful spinoff of a John Hughes classic, to writing on some of the most well-known shows of the last two decades, writer-producer-author-director Alan Cross has a lot of great stories to tell!

There was a time when late-night shows accepted unsolicited jokes and packets. Those days are gone.

If you want to grab an agent or executive’s attention, your script doesn’t need to be as good as professionally written scripts … it needs to be BETTER than professionally written scripts.

There is no bigger sign of an amateur than someone who’s worried about their stuff being stolen. If you worry your show can be stolen… you haven’t written it well enough.

While it’s exciting to watch TV’s new shows and schedules being unveiled during Upfronts Week, this week is actually—for the networks, the kingpins of the TV world—just the beginning of an even more critical period.

You don’t have to travel the world to have a smorgasbord of life experiences. You can have an infinitely rich life—full of fascinating characters, conversations, interactions, adventures, relationships—without ever leaving your hometown.

A TV writer’s job is NOT to dream up the best stories possible. It’s to dream up the best stories possible within the creative and practical confines of the show.