He tells, as few great writers ever have, how he set his goals, how he discovered the excitement of using words, how the books he read influenced him, and how he learned to draw on his own experience.

    In the first thirty seconds the pilot should go like this, 'Fifty thousand murderous Berbers are headed toward Cairo, and only you, Dick Daring, can stop them.' Dick Daring, that's our hero, in thase case Jackie Cooper, couny agent." As Miller explains in this book, his account of "how to write one television script and make $50,000,000," as he was soon shuttling between coasts and writing dozens fo scripts that he is told are "beautiful" by executives even as they hire other writers to rewrite behind his back. What ends up being shot is a pointless porridge that has no chance of ever making on the schedule. Miller's painful, if droll, experiences might be hard to belive if they hadn't actually happened - and if virtually the same scenes weren't being played out in writers; offices and network suites today.")