Freedom

I finished!

Turned in my submission package to the ABC/Disney Writers Workshop around 3:30 today.  On the day it was due, but not at the last possible minute.  So that's a good thing.

I remember in year's past I turned it in right at the last moment at the post office that was open the longest.  My post office in Burbank is open until 6:30 PM on the weekdays.

Over the past five months, but especially over the past six weeks, I have really avoided watching anything or reading anything that was going to interfere with my writing process.

I rewrote a pilot and submitted it to Sundance.
I rewrote a play and had a reading of it.
I wrote a new spec and turned it into the ABC workshop.
In six weeks total!!!!

I just had to type those sentences and remember that.  I remember being so hard on myself because I didn't finish the spec in 12 days.  I needed those extra two weeks.  So I wrote a whole spec in a month! Big whoop!  And for the first time, probably ever, it wasn't because of procrastination.

I was working on ideas in January.
I wrote a full length play with 9 sermons in it and at 118 pages long in February.
In March, I wrote the pilot and story bible.
In April I worked so I could have money so I could have time to write.  And truthfully, I was probably recovering from February and March.
In May I rewrote those two scripts and started a new one.
In the first half of June, I finished that new one.

I was not being lazy.
But it's funny that even when I'm not being lazy, I think I'm being lazy.
It's a vicious cycle.

And now it's my job to fill my tank.
That's a good job to have.  I'm going to watch Orange is the New Black's new season.
I have about 48 movies or TV shows on my Netflix queue that I haven't watched yet.
I have a couple of Woody Allen movies and documentaries to rewatch for a play I might be starting soon.
I also have a ton of research to do for another play I want to be writing soon.
I probably will be tweaking my pilot and coming up with some pilot ideas in preparation for another opportunity that will come along.
It would be great to get the pilot tweaking and planning together during the rest of June, so I can start working on researching the new plays in July when I move into my new writing office, which I still have to figure out how to afford on a regular basis.
That's why I need to get back to work.

But right now I have freedom.
I just finished three scripts in six weeks.  That's impossibly crazy and awesome.
I'm celebrating by looking at my Netflix queue and taking it on.
I already got a body scrub at the spa.  I wanted to take off all the dead skin - the stress, the anxiety, the worry and the hard work - of the past six weeks.  Of the past first half of this year, really.

That feels great.  I'm happy.  And exhausted.  I didn't sleep much last night.

I am grateful to be done.
I am grateful for having reached my goal.
I am grateful that I proved to myself what I can do.
I am grateful that certain wonderful things happen when I apply myself.
I am grateful for a change in perspective that just happened by doing.
I am grateful to be living that change.