Kelly Edwards, Staff Writer, Author, Producer: And my daughter calls me and we had this conversation
and I asked her I said Lily, I think I might want to give this a shot and she said, oh wow, okay.
Film Courage: Kelly, if you were given a choice between working as an executive for
$100,000 a year or working as a screenwriter for $25,000 a year, which would you choose?
Kelly: First of all executives make a lot more than $100,000 a year. I actually had to
make that decision at the top of 2020 when I was offered a promotion at HBO and I was going to make
a $100,000 more than I made currently and I turned it down because also they made me an offer to
take a first look writing deal and I jumped at it and it was probably half of what I was making. So
I’ve actually had this question in real time, in real life and there’s nothing like it. I
think if I went back and had to do it all over again I would make the same choice.
There’s just nothing like waking up every day in pure joy and knowing that the first thing
that I get to do is crack open my computer and the last thing I’m doing all day is still being
wired into that computer, just downloading everything that’s in my head. There’s just
getting paid to write there’s just no question.
Film Courage: Do you think you would have really taken that? I know you had some jobs
out of college where you were an administrative assistant or helping agents things like that,
but the lure of six figures or more, do you think it takes time to realize what is important?
Kelly: Let me see if I understand your question, if you’re saying did it take me
30 years to know that I wanted to be a writer? I don’t think I was consciously aware in all
of that time that I was an executive that I was planning on making a transition. I think I had
started out as a writer's assistant when I was you know just coming out of college it was one of my I
think it was my third job that I'd ever had in the entertainment business and I knew that I wanted
to do that I wanted to be a part of the creative process and I tried casting and I knew that that
wasn't really it even though I loved the process I love the people I was working with and I think
I was looking for my place and I it felt right because I'd always been writing I'd been writing
you know since I was a kid you know creating short plays and short stories and you know doing
all those things actually creating a magazine so for my family so I knew that I wanted to somehow
channel all that into writing but when I was coming out of college the world was very different
than it is now there just weren't a lot of places for an African-American young woman who wanted to
write in in the ecosystem and when I looked around I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me
either in either in executive ranks or as a as a writer on staff of a show so I felt as though
there were not a whole lot of doors that were open for me there were not a lot of places that I could
go so I think if if the world had been different if I had come out now as a writer if I was doing
that you know when I was 20 something years old and doing it now boy sky's the limit but at the
time I made the best choice that I could with the information that I could and with the knowledge
that I needed to make a living and that there were not going to be a lot of opportunities for me so
so I do feel as though going into as an executive route was the perfect place for me because I could
still work with the creative I could still be a part of that writing process only from the hey
let me help you you know let's talk about your project let's figure out where you want to go
and how to get there and and the packaging part that you do as you're in a network executive or
as a feature executive so I do feel as though it really satisfied a lot of those
cravings of working with material and I think I was really good at it
and I got a chance to see the industry from a very very different perspective than a lot of writers
do so I saw the in inner workings and realized oh there are so many different decisions that get in
you know that are part of the of the creative process that are on the business side
that you don't see as a writer you only know the work that you've put out but you don't
know all the other things that make into the decision-making process of why this thing moves
forward versus something else that doesn't move forward and then once it does move forward well
what else do you have to do in order to support that piece of material you know from the marketing
and and advertising and all of the other aspects of it so I think I got a really great insider view
into the business on both the feature side and the tv side that I probably wouldn't have had so
I kind of feel like I got baked in a different way I was always writing though and I think that that
that that need for me to express myself on the page was always there so I don't think you have to
go through 30 years of you know how I did it that was just a kind of a a weird way to you know for
me to do it but I know that there are there's also a very long legacy of of executives who
turned writers I don't know that they talk about it but but it's not like I blazed a whole new path
and I do feel like you know I sort of got to the right place at the right time
okay so maybe not the 30-year journey maybe if you were to give advice to someone on
a paycheck versus feeling creatively fulfilled
well I think that's always the balance isn't it you know I was actually just talking to a group
of people recently about that you know art versus commerce and how much you know can you survive on
while you were fulfilling your dream and how and what does success look like to you so you know
there might be writers who are are completely content having you know doing plays in in
regional theater you know and that's a success as a writer so I think whatever you feel as though
your calling is in this it doesn't have to be that you're winning an Oscar doesn't have to be that
you're making a marvel feature you know you can write and be satisfied by that writing and create
in so many different ways and yeah the money thing is is it's hard it's harder when you get
older it's certainly harder if I did this when I was 24 years old and right out of college and
my I think my rent at the time this was back at 80 something my rent at the time was 450 a month
that was it that's all I had to make to cover that nut now it's like I got a mortgage I've got three
kids there was college education you know there's a lot more that you know there's there's car
insurance there's homeowners and shares there's so many things that just become so much more
oppressive and you have to make different choices based on what's coming in and what's not coming in
I have the luxury now of having an expertise in something that people want that thing can
support me as I also pursue this writing so if it's not if it's a lean month you know i'll have
something to fall back on that's the benefit you know and I think also my age you know at
at my age now there be there's a as I don't know if it's it's like a feeling of being settled
and knowing that you have worth and you have value that I don't think I had when I was in
my 20s in my 20s I thought oh it's going to be my last job ever it was always the thing
oh my god they're never going to hire me I'm never going to work again you don't have that
when you're in your 50s because you know you've got something that you're bringing to the table
what about peer pressure family pressure to make money or maybe it's not even spoken it's just oh
hey it's a family get together and so and so they just now their partner at a new firm and what are
you up to you know that kind of thing where you know you feel like you have to explain yourself
I think I have the benefit of coming from a family that's incredibly supportive and my mother who
is my biggest cheerleader and and every single morning you know calls me up and says you know
calls me her precious child and just thinks that I'm a genius so I think that that's that helps
and when I made this decision to to jump off the edge of the cliff I happen I know exactly when it
was I could probably even pinpoint the day and the moment because it was very very important to me
I happened to be at Sundance I was in the episodic lab this is 2019. It was in October it was
the day before we were going to finish the program and and it probably was a Saturday actually if I'm
really being specific and I was in line to get my to get dinner it was a buffet line and my
daughter calls me and we had this conversation and I asked her I said I said Lily I think I
might want to give this a shot and she said oh wow okay she said if not now mom when
and for me I was like I birthed the right child because I said look it
we might actually end up having to have you know make some choices financially
because look I was coming off of a really nice svp job at a major studio you know network and
and she just said hey we'll be okay we'll figure it out and at this point I think my my kids were
I think I was probably I don't know I'm trying to think if I just graduated from my MFA program or I
think I had just graduated from my MFA program and they my kids were still in school so they
were still you know it was their last year of college and I think her last year of maybe of
her graduate school and and again I feel like there was just this understanding that we could
all figure it out together and that it wasn't that important that the trappings of life the cars the
house the whatever the vacations that we would go on were just not that important compared to
mom finding herself and I just couldn't have asked for a better support system so I do feel as though
when you're when you're somebody who doesn't have that when you have to really struggle and you
have to do that for yourself you do need to find people who are going to acknowledge your dream
and support your dream and to encourage your dream because I think that a lot of writers
I think that's probably the biggest thing that's the that's one of the biggest hurdles
I think imposter syndrome and the the fact that no one's in your corner saying hey keep going
that's what makes us give up right that's what makes us feel like
you know maybe we're you know charging in the wrong direction or we're
we're not on the right path because there are all these pressures they're all these people who
who you know until you until you've made something until you've until you've gotten that
acknowledgement you don't know if you're doing the right thing you just don't know and I've I think
I've seen a lot of interviews with a lot of people who have made it and they still don't know they
still worry they still don't know if what they have created is anything that's worthy of being
seen or shown or read so I do feel as though there's a there's you got to close that gap
someplace and luckily I had I had a whole team of people who were willing to help me close that gap
does Lily want to be a writer creative you know I keep asking Lily if she would if she would do
it she's a beautiful writer she had to write she she went to college and got a a degree
in American studies and film and the the pieces that she wrote were just wonderful it drives her
bananas she doesn't love the process but I think that's also maybe a factor of age as well because
at that age for me writing was a chore and and I did not enjoy it now I enjoy it now I enjoy the
cracking it open trying to figure out the pieces of the puzzle that make it work so it might be
that she will get there eventually which which she is amazing at and by the way she's my assistant
now and I’d be lost without her but what she's amazing at is finding material so she will because
she's an avid reader and I'm I believe her she and her sister Sarah last year read between 35
and 38 books just and that's just them that's they just turn and consume material and she found me a
project that ended up getting an offer from a studio so she's really good and I really trust
her instincts so I would love it if she would right I'm not sure that she will but I'm also
seeing if she I would push her to if she wanted to be a development executive she'd be great at it.