I'm Not Entirely Sure That I Know What I'm Doing
Sunday, May 22, 2011, posted by Q6 at 6:01 PM
I just turned 42, and I'm working on quite the nifty speech about what that means to me and what the significance of Douglas Adams' infamous number is. At the moment, however, I'm being pulled in several different directions at once, and not in a good way. (In fairness, I must admit that I'm responsible for some of the "not good" pulling, but it's in an ironic attempt to save what little of my foreground sanity is left, so bear with me.)

It's kind of like a screwball comedy without the funny.

I love my life. I hate my job, but I have a kicking home life. Those were oddly reversed several years ago, and it felt a bit strange getting excited to go to work so that I could avoid the hell that was my home life.* On one hand, I like the idea of being back in the mainstream with everyone else who hates their jobs; on the other hand, though, I still find myself working for most of my waking hours, and therefore I'm having all that harder of a time enjoying the home life I'm now deeply in love with. To make matters worse, there are several things I'd like to do in my home life to develop myself personally -- which requires more time I already don't have. One of those, of course, is my writing.

Every so often I will daydream of a time not far off when I will be able to write a screenplay, sell it for enough money to quit my job for two years, spend THAT time writing even more, sell that stuff and buy myself another two or three years, and so on. It's a nifty dream. The problem is that I don't have enough time to get even the first screenplay done (I have three started, and four more as simply ideas; factor in the adage that "90% of what you write is crap," and time becomes an even hotter commodity). It takes me longer and longer these days to even get myself up to speed with my writing, and suddenly time is . . . well, "elusive" seems like an understatement, but I am thesaurus-free at the moment.

And my job DOES suck. It's causing me great stress, physical problems, and taking up entirely too much of those chambers of my brain that are meant for me. Hell, I'm even dreaming about being in the same situations, and my sleep has usually been reserved for creativity and weirdness as recreation. It's not even therapeutic anymore.

So instead of working on the screenplay that has been my joy for a little over a year, I am putting it aside and heading back to my number three script idea (number two isn't going to get anywhere with my head all screwed up, either, so it's off to number three). I'll try that for a while, wait for the school year to end, and then try to get my batteries recharged. Hopefully I'll come out on the other side a better person for the experience, and better prepared to compartmentalize the suck.

If you or someone you know is looking to produce (or even consider producing) a small film, a character-driven piece with little-to-no special effects, let me know. I'm working on it.

*If either of my kids are reading this, they know that this period of hell had nothing to do with them and should not read anything into it. I'm happy to elaborate if they need me to.
 
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