Taking an hour nap on the floor of my office from 2:30-3:30 totally helped.
If someone had found me on the floor, they would have for sure thought I could be dead.
I am not writing this House of Cards spec just to get into one of the studio funded fellowship programs. If I were, I would have raced to finish this spec--come hell or high water, regardless of quality--last week before I left for the Bay Area. And actually that was the original plan. My original goal was to write all three scripts in one month. I had two down and I was on my way to finishing the third. But then I stopped.
I had a major political storyline I hadn't figured out yet.
I was writing these speeches and these news reports, but nothing was fueling them.
The only thing I was running on was my desire to finish because I had committed to a goal and at whatever cost necessary I was going to finish so I could tell everyone that I had achieved this mammoth and nearly impossible goal.
Not a good reason to finish a script.
It just wasn't happening. I was in my office just staring at the screen. I was smoking a ton of cigarettes. I was doing whatever I could to jump start my brain. Was I tired? Was I burned out? I didn't know. But it wasn't happening. And instead of killing myself and hating myself and getting angry at how lazy I had been, I decided to stop.
It was Thursday night and I had worked at the spa all day, trying to get this done. I got there at 7 AM and intended on being there maybe all night. I worked. I thought. I jotted down some ideas. But it just wasn't happening. And finally I had to head to the office here and turn in my friend's rent check. I had to call it a day. So I figured I would just wake up early, drive to Santa Clara and work when I got there. That didn't happen. I was probably going to miss the NBC deadline.
I saw students. I had lunch. I was tired from the drive. Then I went to the night time events I had. And I drove to SF that night. I figured I would wake up in the morning and work on it all day.
And I did work on it. I decided that Saturday, even if I didn't finish the script, I was going to consider all results good ones. I stood at the kitchen counter, laid out all of my note cards, thought of new ideas, listened to music, treated myself to a good lunch, but it just wasn't happening. I was going to miss the WB deadline.
Then I thought about what I had accomplished. I wrote a play in February. Wrote a pilot in March. Rewrote those scripts in May. Already had an idea for this spec by the time I started it in full force on May 18th. I was tired and I was burned out. But I also had to serve a greater purpose. When I laid on the porch of my friend's house in the blazing sun, I realized that this script had to make me a better writer. And if I rushed it, I would not be as good of a writer as I could be for having written this script.
I knew it was a challenge for me when I started. I write things that are much lighter than this. It was incredibly ambitious. So I changed my goal.
My goal now became to challenge myself.
To write better.
To write darker.
To write a version of this script that served the show.
To write a version of this script that did not play it safe.
To push fear aside and to make big, sweeping choices.
I knew I was on the path to doing that.
Then I got an idea for the political story and it was a great one. It was probably 3 or 4 in the afternoon. At that point I knew I wouldn't finish and that NBC and WB would not get a script from me this year. But ABC still would and the National Hispanic Media Coalition would as well. But the most important thing was that I would be a different writer at the end of the process.
I was using notecards.
I was writing characters that were epic in scope and did questionable things.
I was writing in a way I hadn't before.
I knew this would inform everything that I would need to do from this point on.
No one would look at me the same way as a storyteller again, even if they never read this script.
The trio of scripts I was writing had to do with men, with fathers and sons, with friendships, with loyalty and with loss. I was compounding those things into my soul and into my work through these three scripts.
I've always written smart, funny, witty, confusing women.
Here I was writing smart, dark, tortured men.
Not that I wouldn't go back to writing great women, but the men in my life have now made it onto the page. And that's what I'm going through right now.
Even though the next script I want to work on is a comedy, the one after that is really dark. And I'll be writing about violence for the first time. This year I wrote a real reveal into a play that ends act one. I've never done that before. It's not about having weapons in my arsenal. It's about exploring parts of myself I haven't allowed myself to before. The changes I have gone through since my Dad died are making their way onto the page now.
For that, I couldn't be happier. That is the reward.
I am grateful for this sea change.
I am grateful that I got to the end of the script in outline today.
I am grateful that I had the smarts to nap.
I am grateful that I stayed here until 6:30 even though I wanted to leave at 1:00.
I am grateful that I am done for the day.
I am grateful that I have a different goal for this script.
I am grateful that I am listening to what I need, not what the marketplace needs.
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