Living Your Best Encore: Billy Mernit

What is or was your prior job/career, and how many years have you spent there? Are you willing to share your age?

I'm 72 years old, which I find hard to believe, and I had the amazing good fortune to land a record deal as a singer-songwriter when I was a high school senior. Around that time, I became friends with Carly Simon when she was preparing to begin a solo career. We wrote together, and she subsequently recorded some songs we'd co-written (and one I'd written on my own) over the next few years. 

When my recording career (one album on Elektra) tanked, I continued songwriting and working with singers and musicians as a keyboard-playing sideman. But by the early '80s, I needed steadier work to support my first marriage, and through a friend who was an editor, I was given the opportunity to write a romance novel under a female nome de plume. I ultimately had 20 romance novels published (Harlequins, etc.).

That career (and that marriage) ended in the late '80s; during this time, I'd also been pursuing work as a screenwriter (and did write for NBC's soap "Santa Barbara" for a year). A friend working in the industry hired me to do coverage on screenplays… and so, after trying to get a musical produced (which felt like trying to move the Alps a few yards to the left), hearing a rumour that they were paying screenwriters in Los Angeles, I moved out there...

What inspired you to pursue your current path (whether actively working, retired, or starting a second act), and how did you arrive at that decision?

In my 40s, I got one script optioned in Los Angeles. To support myself, I started teaching at UCLA Extension and continued doing screenplay coverage, eventually ending up at Universal as a studio story analyst. The job entertained me (we readers do notes on the movies Uni develops, and I've left some phantom fingerprints on many a feature) and sustained me enough to live in Hollywood while I pursued getting works of my own produced. I've now been at Universal for 27+ years.

The teaching led to my writing a textbook ("Writing the Romantic Comedy"), still in print, with a revised 20th-anniversary edition coming out a few years ago. None of this was part of any "plan" or goal. For better or worse, I just did whatever paid the rent and kept me interested, and that's still pretty much the way it's going.

 What achievement or milestone are you most proud of, looking back on your life?

Two things: One, I gave Carly the line "clouds in my coffee" for her song "You're So Vain" (she acknowledges this in her memoir, which is a nice thing after years of some folks rolling their eyes when I made this claim). That's probably what'll go on my tombstone.

And two, after that musical I was trying to get produced in the late '80s went nowhere, I kept working on its story in many mediums over the years, never finishing a draft… until this year, when I finally licked it as a play (with music). After 35 years, the story is finally in good shape, and some theatres I respect are looking at it, so (fingers crossed) it may finally see the light of day while I'm still here. Wouldn't that be nice?

What lesson did you learn later in life that you wish you had known earlier?

I wish I'd known earlier to take bigger risks in my work and life. I played it too safe on both sides, too often being ruled by fear and caring too much about what other people might think.

Reflecting on your life journey, what are you most grateful for...

I'm most grateful for the people I've met and the great friends I've made. They - and the love and laughs we've shared - make everything worthwhile. As do the dogs and cats that my third and final wife and I have accrued.

If you could turn back the clock to relive a particular age, which would you choose and why?

You know, I used to play this game, especially when I was in the depths of depression, thinking, "If only I'd done X when I was Y, then I could've been Z…!" But every time I tried to pick a specific time in my life, I'd think, "Wait - then I wouldn't have met him or gotten to know her." Again, the friends. Slowly but surely, over the years, I've come to see my life choices as somehow inevitable and worthwhile for unforeseen reasons, rather than simply failures or successes.

What do you want most out of life right now?

Good health, of course, but I'll instantly contradict myself (see the prior answer) by being wholly honest: I want to have this project I'm working on get produced, even if it isn't a major success, so I can have some sense of creative closure. It would be a great validation for all the years I've spent teaching and supporting other people's work, so I can say: See? I wasn't just talking trash; with a bit of craft know-how and a lot of persistence, you can make something of your talents in the end.

Billy Mernit, known as "the guru of rom-com" for his bestselling screenwriting textbook, Writing the Romantic Comedy (Harper/Collins) has written for television (NBC's Santa Barbara) and is also a novelist (Imagine Me and You, Random House). He was a Distinguished Instructor at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, and while currently working as a story analyst at Universal Pictures, is a private screenplay/novel consultant. In his late teens Billy began his writing career as a composer-lyricist; his songs have been recorded by Carly Simon and Judy Collins, among others.