(Bearing in mind that the majority of this site’s audience are web crawling search bots, so this will not apply to most of you. For all the rest, read on!)

If you’re interested in writing for a multifaceted entertainment talk program, this is the wrong guide for you. Today we are going to explore the process of writing a single episode of Occult Talk, the sensation that rocked the late-night Walmart parking lot nation, and, as you may have guessed, the process is a bit different than your Conan O’Brien or your William O’Reilly.

To begin, you have to be Brenden Simpson, or you have to be employed by Brenico Media Group. If you are neither of these things, do not lose hope: You can volunteer your services using our E-Z Bribe system.

Once you have been employed to the task of writing for Occult Talk, you will be introduced to the writing staff, which will be used on you during the initiation rite of the Tellmen. As the Tellmen rite will vary from writer to writer, and because the space afforded to me is short, I will skip the details of all the potential ways that you could be tested for the virtues of Loyalty, Resiliency, and Life Force. Just remember to stay firm, stay strong, and wear black underwear.

The first step to your new career as a member of the OT writing coven is the PITCH. This is where you, with your many ideas at the ready, all unrefined but especially precious to you, offer your treatments to the scrutiny of the producers or your fellow writers. If you speak to a producer, you may find your ideas will be ridiculed, your character slandered, and your commitment to making a revenue rich program questioned. This is why, as an OT writer, you must never speak with the producers about anything. Instead, it is suggested that you go over their heads: Brenden Simpson is an easily influenced scoundrel, and he has a good deal of authority over the process of what goes into each episode. Being president (and CEO) of Brenico has its perks!

With the approval of the coven, you may now proceed with the next stage of your project: the PROCRASTINATION.

It takes time to limber up before you get to work on anything, and, besides that, you really do need the time off to contemplate just what is going into your Talking Point segment. Your fellow writers will understand, and many will even enthusiastically support you. After all, the less you write, the more money they can make! So just relax, play some Nethack, have a few drinks, smoke a little with your peeps. Always remember that a rushed writer is a bad writer.

Having gone through that phase, and with the hours before the show fast running out, you will now take the leap to the second to last step of writing a segment for Occult Talk: the PANIC. The show is going to begin very soon, and the guests have been completely rotated out (remember: occultists tend be flakes), and you need to have something done for the opening NOW. What are you going to do? There isn’t any time to think, and the producers are just waiting to shove a pink slip in your mouth after the guards throw you into the alley behind the set! There are HOBOS back there, and they’re hungry for your weak flesh! If only you’d invested in an exercise bike!

The last step: the FURY. You can now angrily berate yourself for incompetence, throwing every single idea at the page. There’s no time for editing when the deadline is fast approaching, my friend! If you don’t get this done on time, there are a million other aspiring writers out there, all of them who would be happy to steal your job from you. Are you going to let them do that to you? You, the genius, whose ideas are sublime, whose very pen burns with the flames of a thousand suns? Of course not! Say, didn’t you have an engaging conversation with someone a few days ago on AOL? When you should have been writing? Grab those old chat transcripts, piece them together as quickly as you can, and throw them into an op-ed!

Another episode complete. Just barely on time, almost entirely illegible, but finished. . . The audience, they loved every scrap of it. Who can blame them? You are, after all, a genius.

There you have it, Occult Talkers. It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?