Photo: FX

Louis CK not only breaks new ground in comedy, but he teaches as well. After the announcement this week of Louis’ CBS pilot sale – of a script he wrote with Spike Feresten 13 years ago –  the website Third Beat found a long post that Louis wrote on Usenet back in 2006, when he was still working on his HBO show “Lucky Louie.” It lays out, in great detail, the process of selling a show to a network from pitch to pilot, and after reading it, it couldn’t be clearer why he insisted on going the “just give me money and leave me the hell alone” route with FX. Because the way Louis portrays it, every step of the process is an absolute fucking nightmare.

Not only does Louis give us an up close and personal view of his creative mental process, such as here…

 …take as long as you need to churn out a first draft. I think this took me a couple of months. Only about three days were spent actually writing. The other fifty seven were spent driving myself nuts while ruminating about what the show is and how to do it. That’s me.

…but he makes clear the anguish involved in every step, as with…

So you do another rewrite and pass it in. Now it’s time to break out in hives and hit your children for no reason, because you have to wait….The network presidents take a bunch of pilots home to read over the hollidays, while you spend the hollidays not knowing your future. It’s torture. And the Holiidays, in Hollywood are a LONG FUCKING TIME. These people go away from about Haloween to New Year. So now you hate all of life and it’s about the second week in January.

What I find amazing about this is knowing that while Louis makes this seem like a real piece of hell, many aspiring Louis C.K.’s will take this as inspiration – memorizing every step and looking forward to every indignity, while also trying to figure out how they can possibly do the same, but while somehow skirting the aggravation. And to them I say, best of luck. You’re gonna need it.

(Third Beat, via Slate)