How do you write about hard times without trying to fix them?

“Maybe the work I did, mulling over the show and creating order out of chaos, imagining character beats and plotlines that would make better use of the cast and ring truer to established stakes, forced the show and its characters into my soul.”

I thought about the elements of a thriller, as a genre: danger, death, uncertainty, violence, crime, corruption. Certainly all of these things are in the ether as we speak; and suspense, well, we are all undeniably suspended in some way right now.

Despite some dapper pretension, there is a basic ridiculousness in "the person of letters" making the rounds on a game show, which, in theory, ought to be a real dignity-leech. Most of these authors seem amused to be on television, as if they can't believe that a network executive signed off on such a thing.