Finding the Target

I remember being in graduate school at NYU with a lot of bravado thinking I was going to take over the world. I was in my 20s and taking over the world meant exactly what Madonna said on American Bandstand in 1984. She was also in her 20s and then she took over the world. For me success meant that I was going to be rich, famous, respected, universally loved, admired, married, perpetually thin, more hung and therefore happy.

There's a song in the original version of Stephen Sondheim's musical Merrily We Roll Along called "Rich and Happy." 

Skies are beaming,

Future bright and prospects gleaming,

Best of all, I don't stop dreaming

Just because I'm rich

And famous

And therefore

Happy, too!

That's the idea I had about success. All of those things would make me happy.

And on the covers of magazines

And in the columns and on the screens

And giving interviews,

Being photographed,

Making all the important scenes,

And at the parties cutting capers

And on the talk shows and in the papers

And unbelievably

Happy, too!

It's like this desperate need to have these things that will validate all the choices and make you happy. I lived that life for five years as a part of a couple. And I was miserable. I was lonely. I wasn't doing my own thing. It wasn't time wasted because I experienced real heartbreak that made me evolve as a person and start to define what I wanted. 

I knew I didn't want to just be the Weezy Jefferson of the operation. 

And then I got in another relationship and realized that the things about me that everyone appreciates, this person felt threatened by. It made him feel like his life experience was invalidated. Then we broke up and my life changed. I suddenly had all the things I wanted in my life. I didn't have all the money I wanted. But I had the first wave of outward success. And I do feel fulfilled. I do feel confident in talking about myself as a writer. It has brought about great things. 

But I still confront my computer every day and I still have to overcome my internal saboteur. I still read my Steven Pressfield books about "turning pro" and "overcoming Resistance." The fight is not over because I have success that is clear and noticeable to everyone. I still have a brother who says, "Well, this year was good. But what about next year?" I still look at my year and only see the things I haven't done instead of the great strides I have made. I still downplay.

So I know that being "rich and famous" doesn't mean I will therefore be "happy, too!" I know that being recognized as successful doesn't mean that all of my problems go away. So, as I said to my friend Carrie yesterday, I'll choose to have more money than less because I know it doesn't validate me. And I'd rather be as anxiety ridden as I always am with the ability to get out of town for a week without freaking out about money.

And right now, I'm at a crossroads. I have many things I've always wanted. I'm teaching at San Diego State for the fourth semester in a row. And I got that opportunity just by making myself available as a substitute. I have two years on our show under my belt. I'm running a theatre company where I have a production coming up and possibly another production as a director coming up. I run the Writers Group. I have a really full life with things that excite me as well as support me financially.

So what's next?

My friend Elizabeth said to me on Saturday, "You need to take it to the next level." There's a moment of time right now where diverse writers are the rage and I need to capitalize on that moment. It's a very pragmatic point of view. She also said to me once that if I want a career writing in network TV, I can do that based on my demeanor and personality. I've got the constitution for it, she believes. And she should know, she has been working in network TV for over thirteen years.

In other words, it's time to pick a lane. I need to decide on a target and head there. I need to have a clear vision. To quote Sondheim again -

A vision's just a vision

if it's only in your head.

It's with that target in mind that I'm working on a revamp of a pilot I've been working on for a minute that I haven't sent out. I've been working on this pilot for a while. I usually don't like to be working on things this long because I also know that if I sold a pilot, I wouldn't have this long. But it's a writing sample and it has to do the right things. It has to suggest story. It's a document that has to suggest that there's more story to be told based on the seeds planted in this pilot. It can be beautifully told, it can have a great plot, but if it doesn't do that thing it's not doing its job as a technical document that shows skill.

If I hadn't spent two years, but especially this last year, on the show I wouldn't have known how to do that.  If I hadn't written a play that caught Elizabeth's attention to the point where she feels like she wants to help me out, I wouldn't have gotten some real practical nuts and bolts advice on how to take my career to the next place. I now have the support of some gay Latino writer brethren. I've got all of the ingredients laid out. The mise en place is ready. Now what am I going to make?

But if my goal is to make the leap to a cable or broadcast show and to utilize this moment, I have to work fast. And fortunately, I only have the summer to get this work done. I've got real time constraints here. I have the opportunity to use my ability to work fast and efficiently paired with my ability to write interesting characters and situations. This is a real Challenge - to use these three months of "free time" to get my samples done for the year. Then I have the rest of the year to revise and then try to get more work.

The target is to get on a broadcast or cable show.

My intention is to focus.

My intention is to zero in on the target.

My intention is not to miss.

I am grateful for all of the experiences that have lead up to this focusing on my target.

I am grateful for the opportunities that have got me here.

I am grateful for what I know now.

I am grateful for the time it took for me to get here.

I am grateful that I have the confidence to say what I want.

I am grateful that I can see the bigger picture and not the immediate thing in front of me.

Success Is A Dirty Word

I worked a long time to get to a certain place in my career.

I moved to New York. I went to graduate school. I moved back to LA. I worked in an entertainment office for seven years. I produced theatre. I wrote ten spec scripts. I wrote eleven full length plays. I wrote at least twelve spec pilots. I wrote countless drafts of all of those scripts. I wrote 1000 pages one year, then 2000 the next and 1500 the year after that. I took an office. I gave up dates. I gave up a relationship. I worked temp jobs. I worked at agencies. I worked for showrunners. I thought about giving up hundreds of times probably.

Then I got my first job last year. And I had some success. I also started teaching regularly. I finally landed where I wanted to. I joined the WGA. I had some money. I could buy the drinks.

And then this year came and was a complete shock to me. I have been struggling to finish a spec pilot I had intended on rewriting already. Because I started working in January, holding down two jobs, I had to pick up and put down and pick back up the script I had started. And each time I picked it back up, I had to start over and rebreak the outline. I finally finished a rebroken version of the outline today. It has taken me so much longer than I intended. But it is much stronger a story than I had before.

I feel like I have finally incorporated everything I learned from being on staff for the past two years to rebreak this pilot. I am getting better at pinpointing the issue and threading an arc through a pilot story. We rebroke story so much this season on our show that it gave me an incredible amount of practice. And I've discovered that rebreaking on your own is so much harder than it is in a room.

All of that stopping and starting has made me feel like I've hardly gotten anything done this year. It's half way through the year and I feel like I have not accomplished that much. Except for making a triple jump in title and writing/producing two episodes of television. Plus teaching two classes back to back on Thursdays. I'm finding that success makes me doubt myself in much more clever ways. I can accomplish all of these things, I can be living out my dream and the one regret I have is that I haven't finished my spec pilot yet.

Yes, it's true that I need to finish this spec in order to give a sample to my manager so he can go out and get me meetings. But I keep thinking that a few years ago, I wrote five scripts in a year. I have written pilots in a month. I have rewritten pilots in a week. I have moved a lot faster than this. Back when I wasn't making any money. Back when I couldn't pay my bills. Back when I couldn't buy the drinks or had to make excuses why I couldn't make it out for something because I was too broke.

Somehow, I was starting to feel nostalgic for those days. Because I was getting more done. In my mind. The reality is that I did a lot of writing in the first five months of the year. And I spent a lot of time during production working on rebreaking story because we had some big emergencies come up. I was also teaching two classes and grading papers. So there wasn't a lot of time for my own work. I didn't realize that success wouldn't be the instant save or the cure all I thought it would be.

I was talking to my friend Carrie today on the phone about how no one tells you that success has its own set of challenges. And how I feel guilty even having that thought that success would be a challenge. Or how I'd even have guilt saying, "I'm successful" without qualifying it with "but there's a lot more work I still need to do" or "but I'm not as successful as I really want to be." Somehow saying, "I'm successful" means that I think I'm better than other people or I'm bragging. But the truth is that I am successful in crafting my life in the way I want it.

I help run a theatre company and last week I was directing a workshop that culminated in a reading this past weekend that went very well. That's success to me because I worked with great actors on a great play and had a great time. I inspired my team. I exercised my ability to bring people together - a skill that will continue to serve me on future writing staffs. I am successful because I have opportunities to do things I had talked about wanting to do. I'm doing the three things I want to be doing: TV, theatre and teaching.

But that means my year is taking on a different structure than years past. One year I might write 2000 pages of all original material. Another year, I might not writing anything of my own because I'm on staff all year. That might be three or four years. This year, I worked on the show from January to May. And now I have until the end of August - my summer break - to finish this pilot and to write two more. That's my aim for myself. Then I have to take that goal and forget about it. I have to just start working on ideas for both pilots. I have to research and listen to podcasts and read articles and talk to friends about the idea. And whatever I have done by August 28th will be a success to me because I know that I will spend every day of the summer being productive. Just like I spend every day all year working. Not every day is spent physically writing. But every day is spent writing through brainstorming, through watching You Tube videos, through conversations, through journal entries, through rewriting and also through actual writing.

This summer is important. Because when I go back and teach in the Fall, it will be all about that moment. It's honestly hard to get as much done when I'm teaching. But that is helping me get through the rest of the year financially. So this year will look like this:

January - May - working on the show and teaching
June  - August - working on my own work
September - December - teaching

So these three months are vital. And I'm finishing up a script now so I can spent the next two months working on two scripts.

My social life has also increased. I am doing a lot more WGA events to network. I have a Gay Latino Writers Group I am now a part of. I have the theatre company. And I have friends I need to see - usually around some cultural event like seeing a play. So sometimes I do get nostalgic for getting to finish a pilot in a month. But that was before I had the skills I have now. So now because I worked so hard on those scripts to land jobs, I can write more in a shorter amount of time. Those three summer months will be more productive than other chunks of time before this.

I'm learning to manage my good fortune. It's a different experience for me. But this is the one lesson I've learned: Money and Outward Success aren't going to make things easier for me. It's all still difficult. But if I have the option of doing this with money or without, I'm going to choose doing it with. It doesn't change my circumstances, so having it is better than not having it, as long as I don't expect it to solve all of my problems. That frees my mind up in a lot of interesting ways. I can welcome that money without thinking that it's going to make my problems go away. Or my insecurities. Or my anxiety. The money is going to come regardless, so I have to get right within myself so that I don't make a mess of things.

My intention is openness.
My intention is expansion.
My intention is curiosity.
My intention is excitement.
My intention is to move forward.

I am grateful for every experience leading up to this one.
I am grateful for expanding my own social circle and outreach.
I am grateful that the reading went well on Saturday. 
I am grateful that people see me as a director.
I am grateful that people see me as a writer.
I am grateful that I did my friend proud.
I am grateful that I am living the life I have been intending to live.

Balancing Act

I constantly have to remind myself every day of how lucky I am. That sounds crazy. But when you start achieving the things you've always wanted, it's difficult to remember gratitude. My whole life I have been used to not getting things I want and I just expected that I would continue to push myself. And often, the way I would push myself is to let myself know that I'm not good enough. About two or three years ago, I started to get real Zen about how my life and career. I calmed myself down and I started to care less about outward success. I just wanted to live my life, do my work, and let the Universe figure the rest of it out.

Then the Universe did. And I got some of the things I had wanted. Then I found myself with this real tension between letting go - which is how I got here - and then really wanting it again and trying to replicate success - which never worked. I had things and I wanted more and I wanted to grab on to it. I find myself in a space where I'm afraid I won't get the next job, which is natural of course. But I'm trying not to live in that space. Three years ago, when I didn't have any money, I lived in the space of not worrying. And I was really proud of that. I do worry less now than I used to, but I'm worrying more than when I was in that Zen place of "let it go."

I'm also trying to accept that everything has a season. And I don't mean that in some sort of philosophical sense. But every year is different. Some years I write five scripts. Some years I work on a TV show. Some years I teach. Some years I do all of those things. It has been hard to wrap my head around this year so far. Last year was such a game changer for me, that in some ways this year feels anticlimactic. But at the same time, I'm now doing what I've been wanting to do. So this year is a result of all of that hard work and game changing. Now this is my new normal.

So this year means that January through May were about being in production on the TV show I'm a Co-Producer on and teaching two classes. Now through August is about writing scripts, directing a workshop and being in pre-production for a play of mine that I'm producing. Then September through December will be about teaching again. Being so busy makes it hard to stay present sometimes. I'm trying. I'm trying not to be obsessed with the things I'm not getting done and focus on the moment.

We had a great rehearsal last night for this play workshop I'm directing. It's pretty great to sit around a table with actors and with a playwright I respect. It's great to support a friend's vision of his play. It's great to feel creatively fulfilled. And yet, I sit here trying to get work done. I'm feeling pressure to get this pilot rewrite finished that I've been trying to work on for the past several months. I'm antsy about moving on and writing the next two pilot ideas that I have. I feel weird that I haven't written a new play yet this year and most likely, I'm not going to.

But again, everything has a season. Not every year is going to be about working on a show, teaching, writing a new play, getting a bunch of my own stuff done. There will be compromises. That's the thing about having a career. Some years all I'll be doing is writing on someone else's show and banking some coin so that I can have a year where all I do is my own stuff. Some of that will be by choice and some of it will not. But as the past few years have shown, surprises can be amazing. So I'm going to go along for the ride.

My intention is openness.
My intention is to breathe.
My intention is to ride the wave.

I am grateful for the freedom I have to do many things.
I am grateful for fun.
I am grateful for the summer.

The Simple Act of Telling One's Story...

...is the longest journey.

I woke up this morning feeling incredibly vulnerable. This was a shock to me after having a week where I felt empowered. This is a common experience for me. The feeling of invincibility followed by the vulnerability of being exposed. Friends would probably say to me, "Duh. That's what it is to be an artist. Aren't you used to that by now?"

No. I'm not.

And it feels like it's getting worse. The more vulnerable and exposed I get the harder it is to get it up to do the work. Is it supposed to work that way? Shouldn't I be energized and fortified by my journey to my truth? I don't know. I guess it takes more out of me. I guess that's why works of genius don't appear by the same artist year after year after year. That's why people take breaks.

But in this consumer culture - with more product necessary to feed the beast who's never full - that pressure to create and create and create grows more oppressive. I sound like I'm complaining. But I'm mostly grateful for that opportunity to create and grow. But sometimes it's a lot. Last month, I wrote a spec script of a show already on the air - something no one does anymore, according to "common knowledge." That's why I felt I had to do it. I wanted to write an episode of a show that I love. That was the challenge. And I knew I could write it quickly. I needed to write something quickly. So I sent it off to one of the writing fellowships run by the studios. Again, something I've been told I shouldn't have to do because I've already been staffed on a show for two years. I'm coming right off that show. It's not like I haven't worked in five years. I haven't worked in a month or two. But it's the exercise of continuing to create energy around myself. It's a strategic action. I'm turning in a rewrite of a script that I've been working on for awhile to my manager by this weekend (hopefully) - so with the one-two punch of the spec and the spec pilot, I will make an impact.

I already have two ideas for two new pilots - one half hour and one hour long. That's going to be the rest of my summer before I go back and teach in the Fall. I'm trying to get my next staff job. It feels like I'm constantly jumping through hoops. I got off this hamster wheel several years ago and now I find myself right back in the middle of it. Now, I'm on this hamster wheel as someone who has staffed. As someone who now runs a theatre company. As someone who people see as a writer and not someone's lackey. That's a huge step forward. And I have to remind myself of that constantly when I get down on myself.

It's like I make it to the next level of Super Mario Brothers and I feel like I'm starting over again. It doesn't matter that I'm at Level 47, I act as if I'm at Level 1. Now clearly there is something wrong with that way of thinking. That logic comes from the way I was raised. If you keep pushing and keep pushing, you're not going to slow down. You should never feel like you're done. And that's good training for life - you can't ever feel like you've made it. You've got to keep going. But also that way of thinking is soul crushing and exhausting. That way of thinking demands a certain sociopathic mentality - you ignore feelings to achieve. But I also think that's the business I've entered. Somehow my upbringing has perfectly prepared me for this business because I should be an unfeeling automaton who just is an achievement machine.

The kink in that plan is that I'm an emotional being. My writing has only gotten more emotional and more personal as I've gotten older. And it has taken its toll. I have become less social in a lot of ways. I need a lot more time to warm up the car that I used to. Now I think the work is better than it has ever been. But it is more of a struggle. That's not a reason to stop. But I think I need to find a way to be more efficient.

The big struggle currently - in addition to the writing - is that I've got a play I'm trying to produce with my theatre company. It's my most personal play to date. It's hugely exposing. It's doing the thing I've always been afraid to do. That entire play is me. And now I'm looking at spaces to produce it. I'm having to be non-compromising. It's all I'm thinking about when I need to be working on submissions and writing and teaching. But I can't put minimal effort into this. I have to put all of myself into it. I put all of myself into the writing of it. And it's a brilliant play. I can say that because I don't think the brilliance comes from me - it comes through me. It's a play that deserves a lot of attention. Does that mean I deserve a lot of attention? Well, as a person who loves attention, that's a dangerous tango to dance. Since the play is all me, it's hard to separate the work from the person.

And I've been having a lot of art versus commerce thoughts lately. I made this move to apply to the fellowships strictly as a business move. It's a career advancement move - it's a moving up to the next rung on the ladder situation. It's not an art move. The art move is working on this play. And the next two moves are career moves too - I'm writing pieces that are going to get me jobs. I'm looking at it as a different type of writing than the personal writing I do. I see a lot of people working consistently and I want that to be me. There are a lot of opportunities out there - more than ever, they tell us on Deadline. So why can't some of those be mine?

Today's a day where the push is hard. I have to remember that in this time in our nation's history, I have to push. I can't stop. I can't be thrown out by my own worries. Working anywhere in this business as a writer means my voice is accounted for. I have to be in the room, my Latinx brothers and sisters and my gay brothers and sisters and my Asian brothers and sisters have to be in the room. We need strength by numbers. We have to be accounted for in the statistics - we need to grow those numbers. So we need to be everywhere - kids shows, web shows, cable, network, streaming. We'd all love to work in prestige rooms, but the important thing is that we're working. That we're making that money - that we're using our rising influence to say the things that are important. We need to take that white privilege and turn it into brown, queer privilege. And then we need to be okay with continuing to share the wealth. We can't just hoard that power.

We can tell our stories by telling all stories. It's got to be a back and forth. That's why it's important that I tell my most direct story as well as the story of Dev in Master of None or the characters in my pilots. Or the characters on the show I've been working on for the past two years. Because I still exist in all of those stories - the empathy that makes up my character as a person lives in these fictional characters and expands empathy.

Okay, I feel at least a little bit better now. Onward...

My intention is expansion.
My intention is empathy.
My intention is to do as much as I can.
My intention is to expand my circle.

I am grateful for a college friend who has a space that maybe we can use for our play.
I am grateful for a grad school friend who hired me.
I am grateful for my theatre company that continues to push me.
I am grateful for people who are fans of my work.
I am grateful to have a community of people I respect.
I am grateful for the struggle and the ability to overcome the struggle.