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.
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