Last week I mentioned I’d let this blog lie dormant for 490 days. I guess they call that writer’s block. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t sit at the keyboard, staring at a blank screen, pounding my head for ideas. It’s more accurate to say I had 70 weeks of:
“I’ll do it next Monday.”
“I’ll do it next Monday.”
“I’ll do it next Monday.”
And the next Monday never came.
So what caused this void? Honestly, it was exhaustion and disappointment. I had just finished another NaNoWriMo—that’s National Novel Writing Month, which challenges you to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I’ve done it four times, but never without fatigue washing over me in December. That’s where the exhaustion came from.
The disappointment had been longer building—I’m not delusional enough to sit here and tell you, “I’ve been giving 100% towards my writing career for 20 years!” My special sauce is one of addiction, negative thinking, compulsive behavior and probably a bunch of undiagnosed other stuff that gums up the works.
But I CAN sit here and say that up to 490 days ago, I’d given 100% to my writing career for five or six years. The first four years involved building up a body of material I felt confident in. Next was meeting with agents and managers and industry people and taking allllll of their notes. Notes from her, notes from him, notes from them, notes from her again, notes from his brother’s wife over at Endeavor, and notes from her a third time who wanted to see a more likable lead character.
Notes can be an a-ha moment, or they can feel like someone’s sucking your soul out with a straw through your eardrum. I’d say I got 10% the former, 90% the latter.
Her: “This is interesting. LOVE the lead character and his conflict. Just one question—does the lead have to be a musician?”
Me: “Uh...sort of. It’s a modern telling of Robert Johnson.”
Her: “Right. I don’t know who that is.”
Me: “Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the Devil. It’s a famous legend.”
Her: “...just seems like it would be more interesting if he was NOT a musician.”
Me: “Like what?”
Her: “Not sure.”
Me: “...okay.”
Her: “Also, why do you call it Me and the Devil Blues?”
Me: “That’s a Robert Johnson song. About selling his soul to the Devil.”
Her: “Who’s Robert Johnson again?”
You get it. The last few years have been too many of these conversations with the people I call the Gatekeepers.
All the chats have led to disappointment. Disappointed by the Gatekeepers— in him for his lack of follow-up, in her for broken promises of taking me and a project somewhere, and disappointment in his brother’s wife at Endeavor for not knowing who the hell Robert Johnson was.
But the person I’d been most disappointed by was myself. Understand—I had also built up the Rube Goldberg Machine of Resentment towards these people. Mostly, though, I hated seeing myself lose the vision. Chasing a writing career had burned me out. I’d stopped writing for me and instead ran down the rabbit hole of chasing RESULTS: Making this change will please this person, that person wants me to write a medical procedural pilot, and so-and-so promises to publish my novel if I change...everything in it.
2018’s National Novel Writing Month broke my brain. I took my usual December of rest, but then I never wanted to get off the proverbial couch again. I couldn't do it anymore. I’d been working two full-time jobs: the real one that pays me for a 40 hour work week, and then the moonlighting “writing career” that forced me up at 4:20am for years. My real job compensated me, and writing had only paid me a few hundred dollars a year. It felt like a bad joke.
I’m not someone who lacks ideas for hobbies. I can think of two hundred ways to spend my free time. Fun ones. And writing didn’t feel fun anymore.
Now let me take you back to 1994. Morgan Freeman and the Shawshank Redemption. I’m confident no of you missed that movie, so I’ll just remind you of the parole hearing scenes:
Red’s First Parole Hearing: Morgan Freeman plays Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding, who’s been in prison for twenty years for murder. The parole board asks him if he’s been rehabilitated and he does the dog-and-pony show, desperate to convince them he’s seen the light. PAROLE REJECTED.
Ten Years Later. Red’s Second Parole Hearing: The parole board again asks if he’s been rehabilitated. Red tries to sound sober and contemplative. He tells them he’s learned his lesson. He’s no danger to society. That’s the truth. PAROLE REJECTED
Ten More Years. Red’s Third Parole Hearing: Red’s been in prison 40 years. He’s worn out and battle-fatigued. He’s got that thousand-yard stare. The parole board asks if he’s ready to rejoin society.
“Rehabilitated? Well, now, let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means... I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it's just a made-up word. A politician's word, so that young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie and have a job.
What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?... there's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are, but I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that.
Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your forms, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."
PAROLE APPROVED
That’s me today. I’m almost 50 years old. (I used to call myself middle-aged until my father asked me—“Middle-aged? You’re 49. How long do you think you’re going to live?”) Life hasn’t turned out like I wanted it. I don’t have the career I wanted, I don’t have the joie de vivre I thought I'd capture with the right blend of money, alcohol, love, real estate and Amazon purchases, and I don’t have the undying attention of the TV/film industry who would claw each other's eyes out to get to my hot new intellectual property. Instead, my stuff swims in the ocean of countless numbers of scripts, pilots, novels, comic books and haikus.
I reached a point where I had to stop caring. I couldn’t continue to wake up at 4:20am and sand my fingers down to nubs hoping they and you would grant me access to some golden ticket of literary cash and prizes. If I was going to continue to spend time in what I will now call a hobby, a calling, an outlet — anything but a career aspiration— then I had to switch gears and do it for me.
In some ways, I also do it for you guys. But I do it with an open heart and a spirit of service. I’m not doing it as a means to an end any more. I write these little articles because we've all been through, and continue to go through, a hell of a lot of stuff and I need to talk about it. I need to share, hoping it helps someone else. It definitely helps me.
A BIG P.S. here. I swear I’m not saying all of this with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge towards the Universe and the Powers That Be so I get Parole Approved. I'm sincerely practicing letting go of the results. Acceptance.
Acceptance doesn’t mean I’ve quit. Well, it kind of does. It means I’ve quit trying to wrangle life into my terms. It means I’m willing to take it as it comes—greeting the disappointments, the joys and whatever comes up today with equanimity. It's a practice and it's a day at a time. But on the best days--man, what a freedom.
But Red says it shorter and better. Stamp your forms, sonny. I don’t give a shit.
Okay, let me know in the comments which fictional character embodies your attitude towards and life and all its surprises? What movie speech sounds like the way you feel today?