"I used to race home from school to watch Disney Channel and now I’m helping MAKE one of their shows. I’m 😭 … LITERAL DREAM COME TRUE."

Sometimes there are little gems among all the tweets in the Twitterverse, and the one written above stuck with me. Coming from James Alexander (@ScriptsByJames), who is a writer Twitter regular with positive encouragement and writerly quips, it was particularly pause-worthy (enough so to drop a heart). His easygoing presence, professionalism, love for television, and all of the hard work that goes into it were evident when we met in person (on Zoom, naturally), making it immediately clear why he was hired into a writers room. 

As a kid born and raised in South Florida, Alexander was a huge sports fan and went into sports media as a communications major at Florida Atlantic University. 

"I wasn’t a big TV kid, but I was a huge sports fan. I wanted to work in sports media as a writer and in my freshman year I had an internship doing that — and quickly realized I didn’t like it at all. So, there was this period in the second year of university where it was like, well, what do I do now? At that point, I restarted watching the show that I fell in love with as a teenager, which was Degrassi."

He smiles, "It’s an interesting thing whenever I bring that up, especially here in the States; people either know it, or I have to be like, 'It was the show Drake was on.' So that was the first thing that made me ask the question, 'can I write for TV?'"

Turns out, he definitely can. Alexander wasted no time in focusing on samples and — just as importantly for screenwriters — started making those all-important connections, while finishing his degree.

"Communications felt broad enough that you could get into a lot of the things I was interested in, but my school didn’t really have a film program. So, a lot of it was taking typical creative writing classes that were prose-based to really hone my craft as a writer, while I was working on TV writing samples on the side." 

And how did he navigate the particulars of screenwriting, exactly?

"This’ll probably be my favorite answer," he smiles. "I’m one of those weirder people, I don’t have an issue reaching out to anybody. So I woke up one day and thought, 'I’m going to find all the writers on [Degrassi] on Twitter, and follow them.' To this day, I still do not know why they would follow back, or at the very least, I’d tweet to them and they would take the time to answer it. It was kind of a fun journey because a few of them I became really close with and they became my mentors. Over the last three, four years I’ve been back and forth to Toronto and been able to meet with them and have coffee, and they would read all of my work," he said.

"It’s one of those things, I look back and I still don’t believe that really happened. I was learning from the people who worked and are working on my dream show so it was kind of this full circle thing. Over the next couple of years, I would start reaching out and follow all TV writers I could find. It’s one thing I’ve learned, that a lot of people in this industry are very generous with their time, especially writers, and will help out people on the ladder who are still trying to climb up." he said. "I try to do that same thing."

One of those Twitter friendships — developed thanks to one of Alexander’s Degrassi tweets that caught the eye of a Disney writer — turned into a notes session that, unknown at the time to Alexander, ended up with one of his scripts being passed to a Disney exec. Four months later, he was in a general meeting with the studio.

"That went very well. The exec said that I would be on their list for staffing for the future. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t think it would be this quick." 

That was October 2020, then "February of this year, she reached out and had something I would be a good fit for. The showrunners liked my script, which lead to an interview in March, and the room started in April."

While that all might seem like an overnight success, screenwriters will understand that it was also only possible after an incredible amount of work. You can’t meet an opportunity if you don’t have the scripts.

"You wanna have that thing that you tell people [about you and your work]," which is why Alexander found it helpful to adhere to that idea of writing within one genre. "It did impact how I went about my ideas, what I wanted to have in my portfolio."

Alexander, whose passion is writing in the tween, teen/coming-of-age space in the vein of Teenage Bounty Hunters, Never Have I Ever, and On My Block; "I love that journey of somebody’s life ... the fun and scary stuff in that time," he said.

"It was a great experience in terms of never being too high or too low. Another story I like to tell — from a place of encouragement — another popular way into the industry is screenwriting contests. But then people get discouraged if they don’t place or don’t win, and I just like to tell people that the same script that got me this job, didn’t make quarterfinals in two major contests last year. It’s a great reminder that it only takes one person; to keep putting your work out there because eventually, it’s going to connect with somebody."

A lot of how Alexander seems to operate is from this place of graciousness and respect for the industry and his fellow writers, which is why so many of us see his tweets: "I guess my method there is I figure whatever I need to hear, other people need to hear."

To him, Twitter should be "genuine, rather than transactional. It’s about trying to build relationships that way, not 'what can you do for me?'"

His No. 1 rule? "Don’t pitch something to people who are on projects. There’re legal things. Do follow the people that work on the stuff that you like. Showrunners post about meetups in L.A., writers tweet about their experiences."

He also spends a lot of time listening to podcasts about writers rooms.

"I love listening to writers talk about writing. I am one of those weird and annoying people that likes talking about the craft of writing."

It was that collaborative aspect that drew Alexander to television writing in the first place. As for his own experience in the room so far, "Oftentimes writers rooms are rostered like a sports team, where everyone has a role that they are very good at. So I went in anxious about what my role would be. I was scared of pitching ... but I found once I got comfortable, I started to enjoy that. It’s been one of the pleasant surprises. Also, if there’s something that’s really important to you or you want to see in the show ... maybe it’s not exactly what you pitched, but the core point makes it into the show; that’s really exciting. Getting to see your imprint on a show, that’s really fun. It's a surreal thing."

Alexander’s advice to others looking to make the climb: Write specs. Sure, they might not be popular anymore, but they’re certainly a master class in themselves when it comes to writing in another person’s voice, which is vital to working in a room.

"You are there to help the showrunner make the show they want to make. That’s not to say you can’t contribute, but to help achieve their voice and vision ... that’s where I think writing specs is helpful. The second thing ... have your own process, but when you’re on somebody else’s show, leave the ego."

Excellent advice. In the meantime, looking forward to the tweet announcing that Disney show soon!