Maybe later...

I'm really mastering this procrastination thing. This feeling of "why didn't I do this already?" is turning into an insecurity blanket. Three months on the line, I never found time to write. I'd love to say it was in solidarity with the writers. It wasn't. It got to the point that I had to sign up for a class because I needed the deadlines, and the group wasn't meeting much over the holidays, and I really had no interest in doing anything but playing poker.

So, class started. Which is great. I'm rewriting an old pilot that I love the idea, hate the execution. I think once it's finished it's going to be a great sample. And I'm in dire need of samples as I seem to hover a little too closely to various shows' worlds, an end up with a lot of specs where they do my ideas. Many of my specs are now defunct. In fact, I only have one spec of an existing show left.

ANYWAY...

Shortly after I enrolled, the group decided to start meeting again, and since I was feeling that pressure of "why didn't I do that already?" I decided that I'd write a DEXTER in the group. So, two scripts at once. I can handle this. I'm great under pressure.

Then my buddy calls me, he remembers this pilot I'd written a long time ago. He loved the idea (not so much with the execution -- apparently this was my failing as I was starting out). He loves a couple of my other pilots. He's working for a company looking to produce online content. He needs treatments for these pilots ASAP.

So, I'm working on all of these things at once. I really am great under pressure, but sometimes I crack. I'm ashamed to say that I ducked out of life on Friday and headed to The Bike. After weeks of writing on six different projects (I liken it to when you're downloading on iTunes. You download one song, it's pretty quick. You download six at one time, each song takes triple the time to download, it seems), I needed to get away. I'm happy to report that I placed 13/188. I'm happy to report that I may have played the best poker of my life (including a moment where I turned to the guy who was heads up against me in a hand and say, "what do you got, Ace-Three?" (beat) "Call." He turns over his hand, he's got Ace-Three, I've got a pair of fives, I win).

Unfortunately, the loss of the day to playing poker resulted in a couple of pretty bad outlines. Thankfully I'm surrounded by some pretty fucking incredible writers who helped me sort some of my shit out in one of the outlines, and with that bit of confidence I was able to attack the other outline and work some shit out there. The treatments are still there, almost done, but not quite.

There's a common denominator to organizing my thoughts, and looking at these scripts through a different light. I don't know if she wants to be mentioned here, so I won't. But she's definitely keeping me sane, making me look good, and deservedly is reaping the good karma benefits as she went back to work last week.

Post posted? Good. I gots some scripts to write.

But really, I'm headed to The Bike...