I recorded this - years before I was actually "busy, busy, busy." My friend tease me about it all of the time. My friends who mediate would say that I manifested my schedule. The rest of the people I know would say that I was full of shit and at a certain point it just happened. Neither group is particularly wrong. I was actually busy. I was writing a lot before I actually got paid to do it.
When I was in grief counseling, I complained to my counselor that I wasn't really a working writer because I hadn't get gotten a paycheck for writing. He looked me in the eye and said, "Yes you are a working writer. You write full time. You just don't get paid yet."
A common conversation among writers is either about the next job or the first job. We're obsessed with what is to come. And I suppose we should be - that's what gets us up in the morning to write. Right?
For a long time, I didn't get up in the morning to write. I got up in the morning to go to my day job as an assistant to a successful TV literary manager. I worked 10-12 hours a day, answering phones, reading scripts and generally feeling pretty productive. But none of that productivity was geared towards anything I really wanted to be doing. I was helping out my boss or the other managers in the office. I was an amazing assistant - kind, thoughtful, helpful, attentive and smart. I say smart last because I felt like that was the thing that mattered the least. It was a given that I would be smart, but not essential. I just needed to do my job with a smile. It was a good job for about three years. Then it was a bad job for the other four years I stayed on. I don't think I wasted any time being there - I did for several years after I left the company. But now that I'm writing on a show and co-running a theatre company and juggling my own projects, I see that it was an extended course in multitasking and splitting my focus. It taught me a lot - of what I don't want. And I learned that lesson repeatedly for a long time.
Once I started working for bosses who appreciated me, I understood my value and worth. It was that job that showed me that I had a lot to offer as a producer. And thankfully, that wonderful job only lasted six months. Lots of life happened in between and I started teaching about three months after that job ended. And that only lasted three months. Then I was on my own again, collecting unemployment and writing a lot. I kept at it - despite needing to work other jobs. I stayed afloat somehow. The Universe didn't present a lot of opportunities to work day jobs. I had put my time in. It kept giving me free time and I kept using that free time.
Eventually, I realized that I don't love free time either. So I started writing a lot more. And now I wake up in the morning to work out, then have breakfast, then write, then send business emails, then have lunch, then do some more work or run errands. On the days I'm in the writers room, I'm up at 5 AM then I drive to the gym closest to my office and I work out. Then I have breakfast and get to the office early to get work done. Then I spend 8 hours pitching ideas and feeling my brains ooze out the side of my face. I drive home in traffic - or I wait it out - and I tire out on the drive home and watch You Tube videos before going to bed. When I'm teaching, I either start my morning in LA and then drive down to San Diego around 11 AM or I drive down at 5:30 AM (which I'm doing tomorrow) and I go work from my office. I grab lunch on campus and I have office hours before teaching back to back classes.
So now I actually am "busy, busy, busy." I keep a strict schedule - strict-ish. I like routine. I didn't always. I used to HATE routine. I used to think it inhibited my creativity. I used to also think outlines hindered my creativity. Now I love them - for TV and screenplays. I love order as much as I love the disorder. I think I spent a lot of my formative years in disorder as a desperate cry for help in trying to find order. I was incredibly unfocused as a kid in a lot of ways. Where I was focused was on TV and on my comic books. I was also a good student. But I didn't care about it much. I knew I was smart. I didn't feel like I needed to be the smartest guy in class. I settled for #2 or #3. I'm probably being very generous with myself.
I felt myself propelled towards things I LOVED. I loved words and images. I loved to be entertained. I knew from a very young age that I would be working in Hollywood somewhere. Even as a kid, I knew that I wanted to choose the stories that would show up on TV. I didn't know how that would manifest itself. But I was a young kid and I'd record TV show theme songs. I was fascinated. Eventually, I would go into theatre because I also loved the expression of pure creativity. I loved dance and theatre. I loved things that existed in real time.
Somehow all of that got me to this moment. I'm at a Peet's Coffee in Larchmont Villlage on my new MacBook Pro waiting to drive downtown to go to see FUN HOME with my friends at the Ahmanson. For so long, I wanted to be surrounded by the same smart people I was around in college and graduate school. I moved to LA and got involved in the business. I networked. I schmoozed. I did all the things I thought I had to do to be successful. What I didn't do was write enough. I still thought that my charm was enough. Eventually I realized that hard work was everything.
I'm living a life that I'm pretty psyched about. I have great colleagues. I have peers who inspire me and push me. I knew quite a few writers who are better than me. And that makes me better. I also get to write for a living. I'm in awe. By my colleagues who are smarter than me in the room. By my showrunner. By my friends in my theatre company who have a deeper, greater vision than I do. I'm constantly amazed by all of this greatness around me. I don't feel like I'm the best. I know I'm pretty damn good. But I don't look around and feel like I'm better than everyone around me. That would scare me. I need to be inspired and challenged. I don't need to be the best. I just need to be better than yesterday. And that could be spiritually, emotionally, physically as well as a better writer. I'm happy to be more thoughtful and enlightened than the day before. That's enough. And that's plenty.
My intention is growth.
My intention is to shine.
My intention is to smile.
My intention is to speak up.
My intention is to ask.
My intention is to wonder.
I am grateful for friendships.
I am grateful for this beautiful machine.
I am grateful for my body.
I am grateful for my schedule.
I am grateful for the work.
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