Welcome to Pitch, Please!, The Christy Maz Network series where you can promote your product here and reach women now!
We wanted a space for women to be able to promote their latest products/projects and let other women be the first to know about things that are new and exciting! So Pitch, Please was born.
CMN sat down with freelance writer, copy editor, and occasional TV producer who somehow survived her very confusing adolescence as the lone female Star Trek fan in middle school, Laurie Ulster! She writes about TV and parenting in equal measure, and co-hosts the weekly podcast All Access Star Trek. Born in Toronto, LAURIE now calls New York home.
Book she is here to promote: Gilmore Girls Life Lessons: The Official Guide to Love, Friendship, and Coffee
Available in bookstores now and at Amazon
Hi Laurie, welcome to Pitch, Please! For those who don’t know you, tell the folks who you are? Great question. Maybe one day I’ll figure out the answer! For now I am a freelance writer, copy editor, and occasional TV producer, plus I’m a huge Star Trek nerd with a weekly Trek podcast. I’m also a mom starting to do college tours with my youngest, which is… daunting.
What is your background? Why did you decide to do the Gilmore Girls Life Lessons: The Official Guide to Love, Friendship, and Coffee book? I’ve co-written a couple of books and worked with different publishers. I’d co-written a book about the show Brooklyn Nine-Nine (which still hasn’t come out!) and I reached out to one of the editors I worked with to see if they had any other TV shows they wanted books about. He didn’t have anything, but asked if I knew anything about Gilmore Girls. “I’m in the middle of yet another rewatch,” I told him, since I like to do that regularly, and he passed my info to a colleague, who wanted a book about life lessons and tips all based on the show. This could not be more up my alley! I love the show and I love telling people what to do. (Or at least I love thinking about telling people what to do.)
Any fun story about concept to completion? I did get to come up with some concepts for the book. The show is famous for its snappy dialogue, so I pitched starting each section with a quote, which meant TONS more work for me, but it was fun. And I also suggested a “What Would Kirk Do?” bit, knowing everybody should do the opposite. I made myself laugh out loud when I came up with a pro-cons list about making pro-con lists.
Were you scared to do it? What were your fears and how did you overcome them? I am always scared! I get very excited about a project and then I’m completely convinced I can’t possibly do it. My trick with writing is to just START it, long before the deadline, and accept that it will likely be terrible and can be deleted later. That way the biggest obstacle—getting started—is already overcome immediately. When I’m feeling stuck, I go back to my research and add to it so I’m still being productive but not beating the crap out of myself while I do it.
Was the process hard or easy? Both! It was easy to write and very difficult to cut down, since each page had a strict word count limit.
Best thing about what you did? I finished it! On time! Also, I watched Gilmore Girls all over again and never got sick of it.
Do you have any take aways or anything fun you want to share? Getting paid to watch TV is one of the greatest things ever. And it keeps happening! I hope I get to write more & more books about TV for the rest of my life. Also, there’s no such thing as too much TV. Watch more TV!
Be sure to grab your copy of Gilmore Girls Life Lessons: The Official Guide to Love, Friendship, and Coffee! 
And if you want to keep up with the latest on LAURIE you can catch her here:
https://www.instagram.com/floobish/
https://trekmovie.com/category/podcasts/all-access-star-trek-podcast/
