0451471075 (N) by Jen Lancaster Page A

producers who asked me questions such as whether I preferred to work with Reese or Jennifer.
    Um, wait, which Jennifer? Aniston or Garner?
    Guess what?
    NOT PICKY.
    Another spoiler alert? Nothing ever happened.
    In terms of bucket list items, selling a book to Hollywood would have been at the very top of mine for many years, because I assumed that was my segue into wealth and power, or at least out of taking the bus to work. Yes, I liked the idea of cashing a Tinseltown check and finally bringing all my past-dues current, plus who wouldn’t want to sit in a dark theater and see their name on the screen.
    (Sidebar: If so doing happened to get back to everyone who went to my high school and called me a drama nerd? In your face, A-list. In your face.)
    Every morning back then, I’d wake up with the lines to The The’s song “This Is The Day” in my head while I showered. Iwould hope against hope that this really would be the day that my life would truly change, and that this would be the last time I’d have to answer phones and schedule meetings for anyone other than myself.
    I quickly learned that Hollywood operates on the basis of whatever is new is best, so I was the flavor not of the month but of the minute. I spent two more years fetching coffee and making copies as I built my writing career to the point I could quit taking temp gigs and write full-time.
    I kept writing while waiting for Hollywood to call.
    They never did.
    So, when my film agent Tiffany called me out of the blue in April 2012, shortly into my Tao of Martha experiment, I never expected to hear her ask, “How do you feel about doing a show with Martha Stewart? Is that something you’d want?”
    What kind of question is that?
    She may as well have asked, “Would you like to have your high school waistline back?” or “Is it okay if Channing Tatum gives you a foot massage?”
    Yes, yes, and hell, yes.
    Tiffany had me write up a summary of the whole project, which began with what Fletch dubbed The Drawer of Shame, given that it was filled to capacity with free-range antacids, old dental floss, and broken hair bands. I also catalogued each and every Easter disaster, from the science behind what happens to a Reese’s Cup left to incubate for three hours in a plastic egg in eighty-degree sunshine to my best tips for cleaning exploded yolks off the ceiling.
    Over the next few months, Tiffany tried to entice Martha’s team to come on board, and meanwhile she hooked me up with a talented screenwriter named Austin. Austin took the concept of the Tao of Martha and turned it into a sitcom, using portions of my life for inspiration.
    He showed his first draft to his production team and they loved the idea of someone trying to improve her life by living via Martha’s rules. Unfortunately, they hated everything about the condescending, egomaniacal, self-centered, smart-ass protagonist, so he had to change the “Jen” character into a single mother who was younger, thinner, and nicer than me, with bonus bigger boobs, and who was not named Jen.
    Again, in theory this was fantastic, but I had other things on my mind.
    In September, two significant events occurred. First, we lost Maisy, and such was my love for this dog, I thought my heart would never mend. I’ll always look to Martha as being a sort of salvation at that time. Not only did throwing myself into Martha-type projects help me manage my grief, but in the second stunning turn of events, Martha herself agreed to costar in the sitcom.
    (Sidebar: We also adopted Hambone in September. This is significant in that her arrival marks the last day of my ever having clean carpeting.)
    What happened next was so surreal that to this day it feels like a dream. Within a couple of days of Martha agreeing to be part of the show, meetings were scheduled with the heads of all the networks. And on the day Tiffany, Austin, Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment, and Martha herself were going from ABC to NBC to CBS to FOX