More Lies

I haven't been doing this long enough. Everyone who I admire started doing this young and I didn't start early enough.

Lies, lies, lies. Lies-a Minnelli lies! (I stole that from a drag queen on RuPaul's Drag Race). I am reading a great book of interviews by Judd Apatow called Sick in the Head.  I love comedy. I love hearing about process. But the interviews I'm most fascinated by are by the writers. Of course. And I'm reading Judd's interview with Louis C.K. who I love. I am also watching Aziz Ansari's Master of None and I feel like both of those shows come from the same vein. As does Chris Rock's film Top Five. And they are all the sons of Woody Allen's 70s heyday and Seinfield's 90s heyday. All men of color, by the way. Aziz is Indian. Louis is Mexican. And Chris is Black. I love that.

But that's not my point. I'm reading this interview with Louis C.K. and I know that people like him and Marc Meron have been at the comedy game for awhile. They had an earlier part of their career where they were out there doing it and not fully formed. But they were at it and learning the things they needed to learn. Like craft and form. When I was in my 20s, I really had to learn how to write. I didn't really know. But I did it and I kept doing it. I went to graduate school and I thought, "Oh, that's where I'm going to become fully formed." I really believed that. I laugh at it now because that's not what happened. I couldn't have been more confused. Would I have been better served if I did grad school in my 30s? No. I was in school. I needed to be young and fully unformed. Or un-fully-formed. Whatever.

My time in graduate school was like a comedian's early days in the comedy circuit. Trying stuff out at clubs. Amateur nights. Open mikes. Okay, maybe undergrad was like open mikes. And then grad school was like getting those first unpaid gigs where I would just go out and bomb. Comedians talk about bombing for two straight years, but still going out there. And that was graduate school for me. I bombed graduate school. Oh, absolutely bombed it. And I thought I was ready to go out and tackle life. I thought Playwrights Horizons and the Public and the Atlantic and Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Mark Taper Forum and all of the big theaters I had heard about were ready to produce me straight out the gate. I admire that chutzpah. But that's all you're running on when you're that green: guts and naivety.  Just being too dumb to know better. And it's great to be young, gifted and stupid. I've had so many adventures in my life because of that. It's when I thought that I knew stuff, that false sense of experience, when I really got into trouble.

And ever since then I've been trying out new material. Some of it worked. Some of it didn't. I got so almost close to so many things. Like the time when a play of mine shot up the ladder and I thought it could have been produced at Second Stage Theatre in New York. There was the time that I met on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There were so many times that I was a cockroach's breath away from my dream. And it didn't happen. Louis C.K. said something in his interview that I found so interesting:

"I'm glad I didn't get it. I'm glad for every single thing I didn't get."

He was talking about not getting a shot on Letterman early on in his career. That struck something in me. Because he's basically saying thank you for what he didn't get. I'm getting there. I'm mostly there. But there's that tendency to think, "What if I got that thing right when I got to LA and I would have been a comedy writer?" And there's no way to rewrite history. It didn't happen. Then I wrote something amazing. Then nothing happened with that. I still feel like that play is still way ahead of its time. It's starting to feel a bit more real now. But still nothing was happening career wise. Then I got a shot of hope when a literary manager at that theatre really loved that play. Then somewhere else liked the play. Then someone else said that they couldn't produce it because it was so big in scale. Then someone else said there wasn't an audience for it at their theatre. I thought, "Well, they didn't say they hated it."  But I kept writing things. There was that brilliant spec of The Office that I wrote that almost got me a job. There was that play about my grandmother that was a finalist at the O'Neill. Still not produced.

As I'm reflecting on all of this, it's remarkable that I didn't quit. I was writing great things. And that's not a delusion from me. It's seriously not. Listen, there are amazing plays, award-winning plays that people hate and poke holes in. So it's not a stretch or even egotistical to say that I wrote a bunch of wonderful work that no one wanted. I just didn't have the right person at the right time say, "I like that." But I keep going for that three-pointer. And every time I shoot for the thing that's just right beyond my reach, every time I stretch a little further, I get closer. What would be the point shooting for the thing that feels very comfortable? I might not get that either. I'd rather reach far. If I haven't quit yet, it means that I'm pretty dedicated to all of this against all of the odds. Because trying to have a writing career is an exercise in having all of the cards stacked against you.

Then I decided I wasn't writing enough things that I loved. I wanted to go back to writing plays. So I wrote three plays in quick succession. All bad. Maybe not bad, but not fully thought out. I was writing to write. And that could have been a waste of time. But I sat and wrote those plays straight through, even though I was feeling shitty about myself. I went back to an old idea from graduate school. I wrote about magical tigers and natural viagra. I wrote about a mother who fucked her son to help him get better SAT scores. I don't have any of those plays anymore. I erased them from my hard drive. But they were important because I wrote all three plays in six months. I had some pipes to clean out. It's not like I ever stopped writing. During this whole period up to this point, I wrote specs of The Bernie Mac Show, Entourage, The New Adventures of Old Christine, 30 Rock, The Office, and True Blood. I've also written specs of Glee, House of Cards, and other shows as well. I wrote spec pilots. I pitched ideas. I was working on a web series. I never stopped writing. But then something happened to me.

I took some drugs and went into the woods. Then I came back and outlined a play. I'm not advocating the taking of drugs to inspire. At least not as the main source of inspiration. That would be like taking Viagra or Cialis every time you wanted to jack off or have sex. No judgement.

I had an idea for a complicated play that took place in three different time periods based on a painting I saw. I went from idea to outline in less than a week. Then I had a break up. Then I picked up the play idea that summer for a three week workshop. So many things in me had changed. I was a new writer. Suddenly, all of those things I written felt like they had led somewhere. Then I wrote the next play. And I started writing new pilots. Then I fired my managers because I didn't want to have to listen to people who didn't understand what I was doing. I finally knew I didn't deserve that.

Last year, I wrote five new scripts: one new play, two pilots, a spec script and a screenplay. This year I worked on a new play from idea to workshop and final reading in eight months. I wrote a pilot. I'm working on a redraft of one of the pilots I wrote last year. And I started a new play. Those last three happened in the past month.

Wait a minute…I've been at this for a long time. I've been working on this long enough. I don't need to pay my dues. I've been paying them. I'm ready now. And maybe it won't happen for another year or five, but I'm ready now. That doesn't change the fact that I'm ready and I've been ready for a while. Not for the entirety of the years I've been in LA. But at least for the past several years. I don't have anything to prove to anyone. My writing is for me. My getting better is for me. But any step along the way, I will be ready. I used to think it hadn't happened yet because I didn't deserve it yet. Like the Council of Entities That Make Things Happen hadn't decided yet. There is no Council. And if there is, they aren't bean counters. It will happen when it happens. But I could happen right now and I would be ready.

The lie I keep telling myself is that it hasn't happened because I'm not ready. That I haven't been doing it long enough. That I wasn't Louis C.K. or Marc Meron or Kathy Griffin or any of the writers I admire. I kept comparing myself. I kept saying that if I had started earlier…or that they were doing it in their 20s and of course they're finding success now because they have been working on it for a long time.

SO HAVE I! I STARTED IN MY TWENTIES!  No one knew who they were. They were doing it for years before anyone knew who they were. Same as me! It's only now that I know who they are that it feels like they were on the radar for years. And by the way, I'm on someone's radar. I'm not totally anonymous.

I had a tarot card reading years ago that said that I didn't realize how close I actually was. And at the time, I thought that card was right. I had no idea. I also thought that reading was crazy. Am I close? But I realize now that it's true. If I go through my history and write it out like I just did…I'm on the precipice! Any day now…

And I am grateful for everything I didn't get. I'm trying to do something so unique to me that there are fewer blueprints. Maybe that's why it's taking longer. Maybe it's just taking longer because it's taking longer. Maybe it doesn't make sense. There isn't necessarily a rhyme or reason. It's not my fault. I can't control it.

I just know that I started doing it. And I'm still doing it. And I'll be doing it tomorrow. And that's fine.

I am grateful for everything I've ever written.
I am grateful for the trees that died for the drafts and drafts of scripts I've printed out over the years.
I am grateful for the electricity I used.
I am grateful for the hours and hours of sleep I got letting my ideas percolate in my head.
I am grateful for the hours and hours of conversations with friends I've had trying to figure shit out.
I am grateful for the water that made the cups of tea and coffee.
I am grateful for the songs I've listened to for inspiration.
I am grateful for every penny I spent on iTunes.