I feel a ba-billion times better. I am currently sitting in my suite at the Hotel Commonwealth, where I will dread checking out of tomorrow. I want to believe heaven is like the Hotel Commonwealth. More on that later.
THE LITTLE DEATH died a quick one. It went out for the week and everyone quickly passed. All I was hearing from my manager was, "so and so passed. Have to run. Call you back later." And in this town when they don't call you back, you're dead.
So naturally my mind went to the dark place. Why did I move out here to write? Why am I continuing to shoot myself in the face time and time and time again. It's been almost three years to the date I quit casting to write. How long are you supposed to hold on to a ridiculous dream. Am I going to be the person whose friends are standing around the side of a Runyan Canyon with my ashes going, "wow. He really should have stayed in casting. Sure he would have been dead a lot sooner, but at least there would have been money for us to all fight over. But oh, no. He wanted to be 'a writer.' He wanted to 'make up stories for a living.'"
I then imagine everyone spitting into their little bag of my ashes before tossing them into the air.
I contemplated moving. San Francisco? New York? Iraq? Back to Atlanta? No clue as to what I would do. It would have to be nothing related to the entertainment industry. I considered working for a coroners office. No reason as to why. At least the people I would be working with wouldn't judge me or talk back to me. I wouldn't have to wonder why THEY aren't returning my phone calls. And the best part is, I would be cutting them open and chopping in their chest cavities with garden shears, so talk about a stress reliever.
Oh, it was a dark place.
And there was a lot of stress with the documentary. Our director's brother died. Amazing story about him. CLICK HERE TO READ IT. So I was left to schedule and plan the entire 18 day shoot. The schedule is planned to the minute - so we can't be late for anything.
We're in 8 cities in 18 days.
So we left for San Francisco. Great first two days of shooting. I took the red eye to Boston. I got to carry a hundred pounds of lighting equipment and a hundred pounds of other bags a mile, because my plane was not at terminal one, but terminal three. My arms and chest are beyond beat.
I slept on the plane. But if you've read my blog for a while, you know what that means. What was in the seat right in front of me? Come on, it wouldn't be a cross country flight, unless it was there. Let's all say it together...
Rosemary's Baby.
Fortunately, I was able to pass out again every time I woke up. Child screamed and cried the entire flight from what I was told by the passengers around me. No one could figure out how I slept through it.
After an hour at the Budget Car place where they gave me three wrong cars, I got lost on my way into Boston.
I wanted to shoot myself by the time I got to the hotel. While I had slept the entire flight, it was by no means restful.
I got the hotel. "I just wanted to check... I mean, I'm sure it's not ready because it's only 9AM... but.... is my room ready?"
Sophia, the desk attendant told me no. "But since your room is not available, I can give you a complimentary upgrade to one of our suites. Would that be okay?"
I nearly kissed her.
My room is bigger than my house. There is a bathroom in my bathroom.
I took a nap then met up with some wonderful old friends before calling it a night. Oh, I also walked five miles in the wrong direction to find said friends.
Went to bed with the intention of getting up and running 18 miles. I kept waking up and thinking, wow, I'm getting such a restful sleep. It's still dark out.
It was still dark out, because the curtains were closed and it was 12:30 in the afternoon. I went running, but it was way too hot outside and I kept thinking that my flesh was getting burned by the sun.
I only did 7 miles, so I will have to run 10 in the morning. Then 10 and 10 next weekend.
It's also strange being in Boston. I feel like I'm in a story. Like I've stepped through the television screen. I'll see things like Copley Square and think, "oh I know this!" And I don't. It's just that I lived with so many references on CROSSING JORDAN, that I strangely feel like I'm on a live set. It's like being in Munchkinland. Like in Technicolor. Can't explain it properly. I just keep seeing images we used in b-roll and establishing shots and I will immediately think, Oh this where that pregnant lesbian died in the bathroom... and then realize, no, that was on the backlot at Universal dummy. But for some reason, it feels REAL here.
Oh - so I also talked to my manager in the middle of last week. Turns out, that everyone who had read LITTLE DEATH were the higher ups. She said that I was fortunately in the position with all my past meetings that I jumped the readers and went straight to the decision makers. And they all read it immediately, because they consider me a great writer and someone they want to work with.
She said that they all loved my writing, but the story wasn't for them, or they had something like it in development, or something like it in production, or they just didn't "get it." But they all said, they want to find something to work with me on. AND - more importantly, these people have now read three scripts in the span of four months, so they can see that I can write good scripts, FAST.
Warner Bros. passed on MERCY. She sent MERCY to another studio as a writing sample for consideration on television show as a staff writer. They were all staffed up, but the development head in question wants to see me as soon as I'm back in town. Turns out THEY are interested in developing MERCY as a series.
Seriously, that script has had more lives than a cat.
It's had to hear, "hang in there." It's harder to hear, "it's going to happen." And if I hear one more time, "you just need to be patient," I will cut someone.
At least I'm too busy to think about it. And it's weird, because right now... this past week... this is the longest I've gone without writing in three years. Everyone has told me not to for a month. To take a break. In the mean time, my head is spinning with ideas. It's hard not to. But I do feel so much better.
And the next script is a feature called MEAN.
I need food. Bad.
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