I had an office three years ago that I kept for about six months, which was as long as I could afford it without having to get a day job to support me getting an office which would make having an office useless because I'd never have time to spend in the office.
It was a great productive time for me. I wrote five scripts that year and probably three just in the time I had the office.
It's 8 AM on a Thursday and I'm in my office. This office is my office on campus at SDSU. It's a room with a door and that leads into a hallway. In a deserted part of a building, which is a theatre. So that means there is NO foot traffic. I'm here early because the friend I stay with was going for a run with her kid at 7:30 and I'd be in her apartment until 10 because I don't have a key. I don't like being locked in, so I got here early.
I have five hours of uninterrupted work time before my first student meeting at 1 PM.
However, I only have five hours of uninterrupted work time because of yesterday. Wednesdays are the days I have no classes. And I didn't schedule any social time this week. So I got here at 9:30 AM and worked until about 9:45 PM. I did some work in the morning until my meetings from noon until 3:30 PM. Then I had the rest of that time to write. So I wrote. I worked on these two treatments I've been working on. Then I moved on and did some work on the play that we're producing in the Spring of 2018. I got bored of that so I started grading papers. Then I wrote the recommendation letters I needed to write. I finished all three of them. I went back to the papers and finished them - I was going to work on those this morning during my class prep. Then I went back to the treatments and did all the work I could do on those. I did some lesson plans. Then I had two hours left. So I started reading the script I'm teaching in class today. I was going to save that for the four hour window I had today. Then I finished that and took all of my notes. So by 9 PM, I was done for the day and for the next day. That meant I would have all day tomorrow before 1 PM to write! And here I am.
I got to my office an hour earlier than I had planned, so I'm writing this blog. I'm going to start journaling on one of my pilots. I started taking notes on the walk to Starbucks this morning. So I want to get those notes into my project journal. Writing in a blog or a journal just helps me warm up my hands and get my brain started so that by the time I'm ready to write in a couple of hours, I'll be ready to go. Some people do this warm up with coffee - I don't drink coffee. Others do it with meditation or yoga - those are good too. But I needed to be dressed and ready for the day early. So I'm in my tight black jeans, a grey t-shirt and high tops. I've got my Larabar half eaten - apple pie and some grainless granola waiting for me. I'll take a lunch break around 11:30 - either to the Faculty Staff Club or to one of the outdoor vendors on campus for the Thursday farmer's market - and then I'll keep working until my first meeting at 1 PM. That will take me straight through to 3:30 where I'll have half an hour to chill out before my 4 PM and 7 PM classes.
I'll do my morning check in emails in a few minutes. Get the business out of the way. And then I'll be ready to work on some more story features for this new pilot. I want to get my story structured today. Then I will be ready to start an outline.
I will also be working on a "secret pilot" - something I am excited about writing, but I know that my manager might take issue with because it veers toward camp. He always seems to be reminding me to not make what I write camp. But I want to work on one of Ryan Murphy's shows so there's some high operatic storytelling going on there and whether or not you want to call it camp or satire is up to you. But my work can go in that direction. I don't mind that. The other pilot does not head into that direction at all. And my last two plays don't either. But I get it, there's stuff out there that feels like it treads on that ground. I'm not bugged out by that.
All right. So now that work begins. After I have my morning tea.
My intention is truth.
My intention is hard work.
My intention is focus.
My intention is clarity.
My intention is expansion.
My intention is forward movement.
My intention is to make money.
I am grateful for this office.
I am grateful for five hours of uninterrupted work time.
I am grateful for ideas.
I am grateful for a declared space.
I am grateful for a clear mind.
I am grateful for a healthy body.
I am grateful for community.
I am grateful for this play we're working on.
I am grateful for the opportunity to direct.
I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to do the things I love.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Behind the Pages
I spent part of my Sunday watching a marathon of old "Behind the Music" episodes, that old show from VH1 that I absolutely LOVED as a kid. It was a one hour documentary series that talked about the stories behind the careers and hit songs of the biggest pop stars in history. I used to watch it when I lived in New York. It was the best. And the ones I watched today were from a revamp they did in 2010 with P!nk and Christina Aquilera. I geeked out all over again.
As I was geeking out, I thought about my own successes and failures over my lifetime and still-growing career. I love P!nk because she doesn't give a shit and she just does her own thing. She also writes some of the most searing pop songs I've ever heard. I love her music. And it made me think of this recent creative growth spurt I had - and hopefully one I'm still going through. I have been writing plays since college. They all were bad for a long time - even the ones that got me into grad school and the ones I wrote in grad school. I was all passion and no technique - reminds me of the kind of dancer I was in college - for a very long time.
Someone said to me in grad school that it felt like I was holding back. I could hear those words but I didn't know how to break out of whatever shell or whatever fear I was holding onto. I went for years like that. I tortured myself probably for another 8 years after that, trying to figure out who I was. It didn't help that I dated guys instead of doing that exploration. It didn't help that I gave up myself to an industry that didn't know who I was so it kept trying to make me the thing that sells. But I didn't have a debut album that sold 2 million copies (P!nk) or 17 million copies (Christina). I didn't have a grand introduction into the industry. I didn't have a stunning debut that I needed to prove people wrong about. My whole career has been leading up to my "M!sunderstood" album or my version of "Stripped." My life has taken its turns on a much smaller scale. But the same thing is at stake - making who I am known and laying that bare.
It wasn't until I started writing in a way that felt true to myself that things started to change. That really started with my last play, "Death and Cockroaches." If the play before that, "This is Only a Test" was my Off the Wall, Madonna or Justified, then D&C was my Thriller, Like a Virgin or FutureSexLoveSounds. The plays before that were like Janet Jackson's career before Control. They were my Janet Jackson or Beat Street. Yes, I know a lot about random pop culture.
My first musings in undergrad were ideas for plays about lounge singers and amnesia, a young adult going after his child molester, and then I wrote something that broke all convention. I decided that I wanted to do a student recital, but the theatre department wouldn't let me because I wasn't officially a major. I was only a minor. Oddly, this wouldn't be the last time I would be penalized for being a minority. And it wouldn't be the last time that I made the most of it.
The result of that effort was a collection of poems set to dance and music called "Breakthrough." I got all of my friends together - the island of misfit toys - and made something beautiful. I choreographed it myself, directed it and put it up. It was my Yentl. I wrote, directed, choreographed, produced and starred in it. It was the first time something I had created had such universal praise. My best friend from LA was there just three weeks after a tragic family loss. I felt like I had arrived as an artist.
And then I left college and completely switched gears and started doing other things. I moved to Portland and I worked for a crazy ad agency, one of the best in the world. I lived life and dated and had affairs and eventually made my way to New York where eventually I realized I wanted to write plays as a career. I was going to be a playwright. I wrote a play that immediately got me into NYU with a full scholarship and I thought I had made it. Then I wrote nothing but bad plays and bad screenplays and decent TV spec pilots. I was confused as a writer the entire time throughout graduate school, but still left thinking that my career was going to take off because I had graduated from Tisch.
Nothing happened that entire year after grad school, so I moved back to LA to pursue a TV writing career. I had written another spec script during that year and I had two comedy specs ready to go. I languished for a few months and then got a job and a manager after being in town for less than six months. Then I pursued all of my dreams while working a day job for seven years for a high level literary manager. And while I got close on a few staffing jobs and a Nickelodeon fellowship, nothing ever really materialized. I fell in love with an addict and spent my time living this grand Hollywood life, the life I had dreamed of. Now that I think about it, all of my Hollywood dreams came true. I went to parties and I travelled the world. I met famous people and flew on private jets. I really did have a stunning life. I lived in West Hollywood, wore beautiful expensive clothes and at the best meals of my life. But I was living someone else's life and forgot who I was. I went to bed at night feeling alone and like a stranger to myself.
So I left and started a new job and my life got marginally better as I sat in an office by myself reading scripts and being appreciated for the first time in a long time. Then my Dad got sick and my life changed forever and I wrote at home while he was sleeping just go keep my sanity. I had forgotten why I had started writing in the first place because I was so busy trying to be validated. I wanted to be rich and famous. But I got to live that life and I realized that it was empty. I got exactly what I thought I wanted, but I got it without earning it, without working for it and without getting acknowledged for the gifts I had inside. I thought I had blown my chance. Before my life had the chance to begin, I thought it was over. I was a petty, jealous, envious, shell of a human being and I thought that's the way I was supposed to be. I was totally competitive and rarely happy for anyone else's success because I thought their success was supposed to be my success. I was angry and bitter and I took it out on myself by drinking too much and being promiscuous when I should have been more faithful. Sure, I was always loyal, but rarely faithful.
Then my Dad died. And I didn't even know if I should be writing. It felt so empty. Actually, the thing that felt empty was the pursuit of validation. The writing continued to be bright and wonderful. And the deeper I got, the deeper my writing got. My father's death broke me open and now I just had to stand in my grief and let it wash over me. I vowed that first year to not run away from it. So I wrote. I lived. I didn't try to get another job to distract myself. I lived on unemployment until the last possible moment I could. Then I continued to be unemployed. I managed somehow. And I took some temp jobs and made some money from my former employer. I got into another relationship and took care of another person so he could pursue his dream. I made the same mistakes all over again, but didn't think so because this guy was kinder. But he still wasn't as supportive as I needed a man to be. But I didn't know that men could be supportive of me, so I wasn't looking for that. I didn't put that on my list.
During this time, I wrote two plays that I liked. They were good. They were funny. They were well constructed and they were somewhat personal. I wanted to make sense of my open relationship, so I wrote about that. And I wanted to make sense of someone's loss of faith, so I wrote about that. Also, after my Dad died I started writing about death. And everything I have written since has had a death in it or it spoke about death. But nothing happened with those plays. And then I got frustrated. And then I got irreverent.
So I sent in a proposal for a play that I wanted to write. I had seen a report on MSNBC about active shooter drills and it made me angry. It also inspired me because the idea felt so theatrical - these shooting reenactments. I knew it would involve a large cast - at the time, I thought eight. I knew it wouldn't be producible. I didn't care. I wrote a proposal that expressed my frustration and said that I didn't know what the fuck I was going to write because I haven't written it yet. But these are the stories I wanted to express. I wrote about the story I knew I didn't want to write. I was very clear about that. But maybe because I didn't give a fuck, I got accepted into this program to develop my play for eight months. And I poured myself into it. For the first time in a long time, I only focused on myself. I was working hard and putting in the hours. I was meditating, watching my diet, working out, and only working on this project for eight months. And while I was doing that my relationship fell apart because it was only sustained by my efforts to keep it going when it shouldn't have kept going. Once I didn't have the energy to give, we drifted apart and then we broke up. But the play I wrote was a triumph that didn't do what everyone said it would do. It got no awards or attention or a production. It didn't make me the playwright the world would know.
But it did a lot. It taught me to fight for my vision. It taught me to not be afraid to be unpopular. It taught me who to fight with and who not to fight with. It taught me that I could not get into trouble for fighting. It taught me to be the leader and custodian of my own play. It taught me to love actors and to encourage them. It taught me to love and encourage my director. And it taught me to fuck everyone else. Seriously, fuck them. They don't matter. They don't know my vision. They can go fuck themselves. And my play was the better for it. We had an incredible reading and I was proud of the work. But it did nothing for my theatre career.
After the break up, I got the opportunity to submit to a show my friend was running. After some initial encouragement, she had bad news: the execs didn't want to hire someone who had never worked in TV before for a web series. But she could get my work to them, other than that I was on my own. And I submitted this play which was the perfect sample. I got the job - one month after my break up. And then I wrote three episodes and got to be on set and got into the Writers Guild. I finally got the thing I had always wanted - and I was still struggling and trying to make ends meet - but this felt amazing. I knew I could do it again and I did again the following year when I got promoted to Co-Producer and wrote two more episodes.
But then I was also too busy to bask in any of that glory because I had just written something truly special. I went back four years to when my Dad was sick and I moved home to take care of him. I had finally been able to write about that time in my life with the utmost truth and honesty and in the crass, inappropriate, irreverent voice I had been developing all of my life. I started the play in October the previous year when everyone was telling me how brilliant the other play was and how it was going to do all of these brilliant things for my theatre career. I didn't want to listen or be swayed or be disappointed when that didn't happen. So I kept writing. And then I wrote something even more personal and moving. And when I finished it, while I was working on the show, the theatre company I had been working with in their writers group called me to talk about something. Then we had lunch and they offered me a workshop for the play. And I said yes. And then they said they wanted me to join the company and I couldn't believe it. I had the theatre community I had always wanted. I had a place where I could develop my own work and I could get something produced because I was going to produce it. It would set my voice free in ways that I couldn't even imagine. I'm going to write plays with the freedom that I can have a workshop whenever I want it. And I can have people read new pages. I wouldn't have to depend on anyone to make my career happen.
I also discovered a new dream on set. I realized that I want to direct - or at least try my hand at it. So I directed a play workshop this year and the company liked it. And I'm hoping to direct it next year. Along with getting ready for my production next year. I might be directing a play for the company and having a play produced. While keeping my career moving along. I wrote a TV spec pilot that I love. I'm teaching three classes this semester at SDSU where I've been teaching for four semesters. I'm finally qualified to apply for any full time teaching jobs, if I so choose to do so. But most importantly, my dreams have gotten bigger.
I have a new goal to direct a TV show when I get my own show on the air. In order to do that I have to start directing plays and short films - so I have new things to look forward to. I have always wanted to start choreographing dance again and maybe one day I'll get the chance. But I was never a great dancer. And I am a great writer - I have that natural gift. So directing seems like the obvious choice for me to explore and to use the skills of visual storytelling I used as a choreographer back in college. things re coming full circle.
Yes, I still want to get that next TV job. That is a goal. But in order to get there I have to continue to write interesting TV spec pilots. And while I was trying to figure out what I was going to write next based on an idea I have, I started writing out a treatment for another brand new idea. And that's going to be big and bold and fun to write. It's about a golden age in Hollywood. And it's about our social morays in another time. I also now understand that I have this other idea that has taken longer to figure out what it is. And some ideas are just like that. Some ideas don't pop out shiny because some ideas aren't shiny, but they still should get written. And it doesn't matter if none of these are produced or none of these get me jobs because these are the stories I have to write. These are the stories that are coming out of me As much as my Dad's death broke me open, writing "Death and Cockroaches" broke me open as a writer. I say it all of the time and it is so true.
More than anything, I'm excited about what's to come. I'm excited to get to know this new writer who I have become as a result of that play. That play will have reverberations in my career from this moment forward. I am a changed spirit because of that play. And the greater news is that I get to see that play produced next year. This year, I'm working on new pages. Next year, I hope to work more in TV as I have a produced play and direct another produced play. I honestly don't know when I'll be writing my next play, which I already have planned out. It's something smaller, three characters. But I know that it's my next play. However, right now I have these two TV ideas to get out and I have another idea right behind that one, which I would like to develop with someone. I'd like to start pitching ideas in addition to writing them. I love writing new spec pilots. I don't want to stop that to pitch. I want to do both. But I would love to get paid to write a pilot.
Like I said, the dream gets bigger. Now I know what it takes to do the things I want to do. I feel so much more fully formed in order to do the things I want to do. I have more control over my career than I ever have. And I'm looking for a creative partner, in a new agent, to help me get there and to share my vision. I also am looking to share my life with someone ambitious and fun. And maybe the cosmic joke is that it IS another writer. Who the fuck knows?
But I just want to continue to be open and available to the surprise of life, which is exactly the thing I've been aspiring to for a long time - to let the Universe dream a bigger dream than I can for myself. It's all pretty incredible. And now I just need to be ready for the next surprise.
My intention is to be surprised.
My intention is to be open.
My intention is to be clear.
My intention is to love what I do.
I am grateful for the wonderful opportunities over the past 18 months.
I am grateful for every bit of this journey.
I am grateful for the love in my life.
I am grateful that the future looks so bright and so hopeful.
As I was geeking out, I thought about my own successes and failures over my lifetime and still-growing career. I love P!nk because she doesn't give a shit and she just does her own thing. She also writes some of the most searing pop songs I've ever heard. I love her music. And it made me think of this recent creative growth spurt I had - and hopefully one I'm still going through. I have been writing plays since college. They all were bad for a long time - even the ones that got me into grad school and the ones I wrote in grad school. I was all passion and no technique - reminds me of the kind of dancer I was in college - for a very long time.
Someone said to me in grad school that it felt like I was holding back. I could hear those words but I didn't know how to break out of whatever shell or whatever fear I was holding onto. I went for years like that. I tortured myself probably for another 8 years after that, trying to figure out who I was. It didn't help that I dated guys instead of doing that exploration. It didn't help that I gave up myself to an industry that didn't know who I was so it kept trying to make me the thing that sells. But I didn't have a debut album that sold 2 million copies (P!nk) or 17 million copies (Christina). I didn't have a grand introduction into the industry. I didn't have a stunning debut that I needed to prove people wrong about. My whole career has been leading up to my "M!sunderstood" album or my version of "Stripped." My life has taken its turns on a much smaller scale. But the same thing is at stake - making who I am known and laying that bare.
It wasn't until I started writing in a way that felt true to myself that things started to change. That really started with my last play, "Death and Cockroaches." If the play before that, "This is Only a Test" was my Off the Wall, Madonna or Justified, then D&C was my Thriller, Like a Virgin or FutureSexLoveSounds. The plays before that were like Janet Jackson's career before Control. They were my Janet Jackson or Beat Street. Yes, I know a lot about random pop culture.
My first musings in undergrad were ideas for plays about lounge singers and amnesia, a young adult going after his child molester, and then I wrote something that broke all convention. I decided that I wanted to do a student recital, but the theatre department wouldn't let me because I wasn't officially a major. I was only a minor. Oddly, this wouldn't be the last time I would be penalized for being a minority. And it wouldn't be the last time that I made the most of it.
The result of that effort was a collection of poems set to dance and music called "Breakthrough." I got all of my friends together - the island of misfit toys - and made something beautiful. I choreographed it myself, directed it and put it up. It was my Yentl. I wrote, directed, choreographed, produced and starred in it. It was the first time something I had created had such universal praise. My best friend from LA was there just three weeks after a tragic family loss. I felt like I had arrived as an artist.
And then I left college and completely switched gears and started doing other things. I moved to Portland and I worked for a crazy ad agency, one of the best in the world. I lived life and dated and had affairs and eventually made my way to New York where eventually I realized I wanted to write plays as a career. I was going to be a playwright. I wrote a play that immediately got me into NYU with a full scholarship and I thought I had made it. Then I wrote nothing but bad plays and bad screenplays and decent TV spec pilots. I was confused as a writer the entire time throughout graduate school, but still left thinking that my career was going to take off because I had graduated from Tisch.
Nothing happened that entire year after grad school, so I moved back to LA to pursue a TV writing career. I had written another spec script during that year and I had two comedy specs ready to go. I languished for a few months and then got a job and a manager after being in town for less than six months. Then I pursued all of my dreams while working a day job for seven years for a high level literary manager. And while I got close on a few staffing jobs and a Nickelodeon fellowship, nothing ever really materialized. I fell in love with an addict and spent my time living this grand Hollywood life, the life I had dreamed of. Now that I think about it, all of my Hollywood dreams came true. I went to parties and I travelled the world. I met famous people and flew on private jets. I really did have a stunning life. I lived in West Hollywood, wore beautiful expensive clothes and at the best meals of my life. But I was living someone else's life and forgot who I was. I went to bed at night feeling alone and like a stranger to myself.
So I left and started a new job and my life got marginally better as I sat in an office by myself reading scripts and being appreciated for the first time in a long time. Then my Dad got sick and my life changed forever and I wrote at home while he was sleeping just go keep my sanity. I had forgotten why I had started writing in the first place because I was so busy trying to be validated. I wanted to be rich and famous. But I got to live that life and I realized that it was empty. I got exactly what I thought I wanted, but I got it without earning it, without working for it and without getting acknowledged for the gifts I had inside. I thought I had blown my chance. Before my life had the chance to begin, I thought it was over. I was a petty, jealous, envious, shell of a human being and I thought that's the way I was supposed to be. I was totally competitive and rarely happy for anyone else's success because I thought their success was supposed to be my success. I was angry and bitter and I took it out on myself by drinking too much and being promiscuous when I should have been more faithful. Sure, I was always loyal, but rarely faithful.
Then my Dad died. And I didn't even know if I should be writing. It felt so empty. Actually, the thing that felt empty was the pursuit of validation. The writing continued to be bright and wonderful. And the deeper I got, the deeper my writing got. My father's death broke me open and now I just had to stand in my grief and let it wash over me. I vowed that first year to not run away from it. So I wrote. I lived. I didn't try to get another job to distract myself. I lived on unemployment until the last possible moment I could. Then I continued to be unemployed. I managed somehow. And I took some temp jobs and made some money from my former employer. I got into another relationship and took care of another person so he could pursue his dream. I made the same mistakes all over again, but didn't think so because this guy was kinder. But he still wasn't as supportive as I needed a man to be. But I didn't know that men could be supportive of me, so I wasn't looking for that. I didn't put that on my list.
During this time, I wrote two plays that I liked. They were good. They were funny. They were well constructed and they were somewhat personal. I wanted to make sense of my open relationship, so I wrote about that. And I wanted to make sense of someone's loss of faith, so I wrote about that. Also, after my Dad died I started writing about death. And everything I have written since has had a death in it or it spoke about death. But nothing happened with those plays. And then I got frustrated. And then I got irreverent.
So I sent in a proposal for a play that I wanted to write. I had seen a report on MSNBC about active shooter drills and it made me angry. It also inspired me because the idea felt so theatrical - these shooting reenactments. I knew it would involve a large cast - at the time, I thought eight. I knew it wouldn't be producible. I didn't care. I wrote a proposal that expressed my frustration and said that I didn't know what the fuck I was going to write because I haven't written it yet. But these are the stories I wanted to express. I wrote about the story I knew I didn't want to write. I was very clear about that. But maybe because I didn't give a fuck, I got accepted into this program to develop my play for eight months. And I poured myself into it. For the first time in a long time, I only focused on myself. I was working hard and putting in the hours. I was meditating, watching my diet, working out, and only working on this project for eight months. And while I was doing that my relationship fell apart because it was only sustained by my efforts to keep it going when it shouldn't have kept going. Once I didn't have the energy to give, we drifted apart and then we broke up. But the play I wrote was a triumph that didn't do what everyone said it would do. It got no awards or attention or a production. It didn't make me the playwright the world would know.
But it did a lot. It taught me to fight for my vision. It taught me to not be afraid to be unpopular. It taught me who to fight with and who not to fight with. It taught me that I could not get into trouble for fighting. It taught me to be the leader and custodian of my own play. It taught me to love actors and to encourage them. It taught me to love and encourage my director. And it taught me to fuck everyone else. Seriously, fuck them. They don't matter. They don't know my vision. They can go fuck themselves. And my play was the better for it. We had an incredible reading and I was proud of the work. But it did nothing for my theatre career.
After the break up, I got the opportunity to submit to a show my friend was running. After some initial encouragement, she had bad news: the execs didn't want to hire someone who had never worked in TV before for a web series. But she could get my work to them, other than that I was on my own. And I submitted this play which was the perfect sample. I got the job - one month after my break up. And then I wrote three episodes and got to be on set and got into the Writers Guild. I finally got the thing I had always wanted - and I was still struggling and trying to make ends meet - but this felt amazing. I knew I could do it again and I did again the following year when I got promoted to Co-Producer and wrote two more episodes.
But then I was also too busy to bask in any of that glory because I had just written something truly special. I went back four years to when my Dad was sick and I moved home to take care of him. I had finally been able to write about that time in my life with the utmost truth and honesty and in the crass, inappropriate, irreverent voice I had been developing all of my life. I started the play in October the previous year when everyone was telling me how brilliant the other play was and how it was going to do all of these brilliant things for my theatre career. I didn't want to listen or be swayed or be disappointed when that didn't happen. So I kept writing. And then I wrote something even more personal and moving. And when I finished it, while I was working on the show, the theatre company I had been working with in their writers group called me to talk about something. Then we had lunch and they offered me a workshop for the play. And I said yes. And then they said they wanted me to join the company and I couldn't believe it. I had the theatre community I had always wanted. I had a place where I could develop my own work and I could get something produced because I was going to produce it. It would set my voice free in ways that I couldn't even imagine. I'm going to write plays with the freedom that I can have a workshop whenever I want it. And I can have people read new pages. I wouldn't have to depend on anyone to make my career happen.
I also discovered a new dream on set. I realized that I want to direct - or at least try my hand at it. So I directed a play workshop this year and the company liked it. And I'm hoping to direct it next year. Along with getting ready for my production next year. I might be directing a play for the company and having a play produced. While keeping my career moving along. I wrote a TV spec pilot that I love. I'm teaching three classes this semester at SDSU where I've been teaching for four semesters. I'm finally qualified to apply for any full time teaching jobs, if I so choose to do so. But most importantly, my dreams have gotten bigger.
I have a new goal to direct a TV show when I get my own show on the air. In order to do that I have to start directing plays and short films - so I have new things to look forward to. I have always wanted to start choreographing dance again and maybe one day I'll get the chance. But I was never a great dancer. And I am a great writer - I have that natural gift. So directing seems like the obvious choice for me to explore and to use the skills of visual storytelling I used as a choreographer back in college. things re coming full circle.
Yes, I still want to get that next TV job. That is a goal. But in order to get there I have to continue to write interesting TV spec pilots. And while I was trying to figure out what I was going to write next based on an idea I have, I started writing out a treatment for another brand new idea. And that's going to be big and bold and fun to write. It's about a golden age in Hollywood. And it's about our social morays in another time. I also now understand that I have this other idea that has taken longer to figure out what it is. And some ideas are just like that. Some ideas don't pop out shiny because some ideas aren't shiny, but they still should get written. And it doesn't matter if none of these are produced or none of these get me jobs because these are the stories I have to write. These are the stories that are coming out of me As much as my Dad's death broke me open, writing "Death and Cockroaches" broke me open as a writer. I say it all of the time and it is so true.
More than anything, I'm excited about what's to come. I'm excited to get to know this new writer who I have become as a result of that play. That play will have reverberations in my career from this moment forward. I am a changed spirit because of that play. And the greater news is that I get to see that play produced next year. This year, I'm working on new pages. Next year, I hope to work more in TV as I have a produced play and direct another produced play. I honestly don't know when I'll be writing my next play, which I already have planned out. It's something smaller, three characters. But I know that it's my next play. However, right now I have these two TV ideas to get out and I have another idea right behind that one, which I would like to develop with someone. I'd like to start pitching ideas in addition to writing them. I love writing new spec pilots. I don't want to stop that to pitch. I want to do both. But I would love to get paid to write a pilot.
Like I said, the dream gets bigger. Now I know what it takes to do the things I want to do. I feel so much more fully formed in order to do the things I want to do. I have more control over my career than I ever have. And I'm looking for a creative partner, in a new agent, to help me get there and to share my vision. I also am looking to share my life with someone ambitious and fun. And maybe the cosmic joke is that it IS another writer. Who the fuck knows?
But I just want to continue to be open and available to the surprise of life, which is exactly the thing I've been aspiring to for a long time - to let the Universe dream a bigger dream than I can for myself. It's all pretty incredible. And now I just need to be ready for the next surprise.
My intention is to be surprised.
My intention is to be open.
My intention is to be clear.
My intention is to love what I do.
I am grateful for the wonderful opportunities over the past 18 months.
I am grateful for every bit of this journey.
I am grateful for the love in my life.
I am grateful that the future looks so bright and so hopeful.
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Back to School
I went back to teaching this week. I do really like teaching. I like the students. I like getting to talk about what I know. And I realized that I can't make everyone happy.
I'm teaching three classes this semester. On Tuesday, I had my graduate students. I've never taught grad students, so I was kind of excited about how this class would go. I had two students I already knew and eight others I don't. I have ten students in this class and we sat around a table and talked for a couple of hours. I'm helping them figure out their thesis projects. So this really just feels like I'm guiding them through their final projects. The students are great. The biggest challenge is that the administration hasn't really been giving me enough information about what's required of me. Some students want to do full-length projects. Some want to do a short script that they then will have to film. I have one student who says he's done with his thesis and is going to film it next semester, but he wants to work on this script with me and with the advisor he's already working with. So I'm trying to figure out how to streamline the process so that I'm not teaching four different classes in this one class. The good news is that I don't think I'm getting any documentary students. All of these students are mature and have some experience, so it feels like it will be a lot of fun to work with them.
My Intro to Screenwriting and TV writing class is a hoot. First of all, I had to turn several of them away from trying to add my class. It was sad because I had three students who really participated that I can't add unless someone drops out of the class. I had one student who's not even registered at the school who really wanted in - and I just couldn't do it. My cap is 25 and to add any more than that is jeopardizing the rest of the course. I had 27 last Fall and it was tough. It affects the dynamic. I did something really great this time that I think made a difference. We just started talking about what we're watching. And we talked about what makes what we're watching interesting. They also have really great taste and it's cool to hear what they're into that's both part of their generation and not part of their generation. It's an Intro course and it's big, so it will take them a minute to warm up. But I like opening up the course with that exercise of spending about 45 minutes shooting the shit about what we're into. And because it's a big class we had a big list. It got them talking a lot on that first day and it drove home the point that participation is a big part of their grade. They seem like a vocal group. It also reinforced what went wrong last semester. Last semester, I was working on the show and I had to miss the first four weeks of the term. So I had my friend David take over for me for the first four weeks. I realize that I need to set a tone to make the semester successful. I'm a tough professor. I don't take it easy on them, even in an intro course. And when you don't get my passion right away and get used to how it's going to go, I can come off as an asshole. My delivery counts for a lot. It felt good to be there with them from the beginning. Now if I go and get a writing gig some at some point during the semester, that feels like it would be less of an issue. But not being there from the beginning was tough.
Then I had my Advanced Students right afterward. That class could have been five students if I hadn't let in a bunch of people who technically don't have the prerequisites. Five students would have been crazy small and crazy fun in a lot of ways. But it looks like we'll be somewhere around 11 or 12. And that's a great size. These students seemed lively right away. We got into what we're all watching and it was good. And having a smaller class size helps. At the end of the class, a bunch of them hung around to ask some questions and a student asked me if I knew that I had bad reviews on "Rate My Professor." I had no idea. And he worried that he totally blew it for me. I became intrigued that I had bad reviews on "Rate my Professor." I looked it up and the people who wrote reviews HATED me. Someone said it was the worst class they had ever taken. And another student didn't like getting called out by me for not doing the work. Yeah, that sucks that you got called out for not doing the work. One student erroneously said that they got a D- in my class, which I don't think was true. Unless that student had to drop out. The other student stopped showing up and I had to fail them. I suspect that student signed up for my Advanced Class and didn't show up because they knew it was me. That student hasn't dropped yet, but I suspect they will drop. I kind of like that I have a reputation for being a hard ass. I say it at the top of the class to all of the students. I don't mince words. It's not an easy course. It's a lot of freaking work. So if it keeps my Advanced Class Small - the other class has reached it's cap and then some. I only will have 10-12 students. That's perfect. I hope students don't figure it out for awhile. And I hope people are discouraged from signing up because they think it will be too much work. Because the students who want to be challenged will be there. And really, the feedback I mainly get from students is that they love the class. Even students I've had issues with. I have students that I thought were totally difficult and they still dug it.
I also was really impressed with both undergraduate classes because they got into the conversation. I do have three grad students in my Advanced Class and they're great. I think that helps elevate the conversation just a bit as well. I'm hopeful about this semester. There's a lot of work to do as there always is. And I have to remember that I need to keep doing my own work. I've got a new pilot I'm playing around with and I want to get that done. But it's another semester to learn more about myself and my teaching methods.
My intention is to learn.
My intention is to grow.
My intention is to question.
I am grateful for the chance to fortify my knowledge.
I am grateful for the money.
I am grateful for the opportunity to meet new people.
I am grateful for another year with many jobs.
I'm teaching three classes this semester. On Tuesday, I had my graduate students. I've never taught grad students, so I was kind of excited about how this class would go. I had two students I already knew and eight others I don't. I have ten students in this class and we sat around a table and talked for a couple of hours. I'm helping them figure out their thesis projects. So this really just feels like I'm guiding them through their final projects. The students are great. The biggest challenge is that the administration hasn't really been giving me enough information about what's required of me. Some students want to do full-length projects. Some want to do a short script that they then will have to film. I have one student who says he's done with his thesis and is going to film it next semester, but he wants to work on this script with me and with the advisor he's already working with. So I'm trying to figure out how to streamline the process so that I'm not teaching four different classes in this one class. The good news is that I don't think I'm getting any documentary students. All of these students are mature and have some experience, so it feels like it will be a lot of fun to work with them.
My Intro to Screenwriting and TV writing class is a hoot. First of all, I had to turn several of them away from trying to add my class. It was sad because I had three students who really participated that I can't add unless someone drops out of the class. I had one student who's not even registered at the school who really wanted in - and I just couldn't do it. My cap is 25 and to add any more than that is jeopardizing the rest of the course. I had 27 last Fall and it was tough. It affects the dynamic. I did something really great this time that I think made a difference. We just started talking about what we're watching. And we talked about what makes what we're watching interesting. They also have really great taste and it's cool to hear what they're into that's both part of their generation and not part of their generation. It's an Intro course and it's big, so it will take them a minute to warm up. But I like opening up the course with that exercise of spending about 45 minutes shooting the shit about what we're into. And because it's a big class we had a big list. It got them talking a lot on that first day and it drove home the point that participation is a big part of their grade. They seem like a vocal group. It also reinforced what went wrong last semester. Last semester, I was working on the show and I had to miss the first four weeks of the term. So I had my friend David take over for me for the first four weeks. I realize that I need to set a tone to make the semester successful. I'm a tough professor. I don't take it easy on them, even in an intro course. And when you don't get my passion right away and get used to how it's going to go, I can come off as an asshole. My delivery counts for a lot. It felt good to be there with them from the beginning. Now if I go and get a writing gig some at some point during the semester, that feels like it would be less of an issue. But not being there from the beginning was tough.
Then I had my Advanced Students right afterward. That class could have been five students if I hadn't let in a bunch of people who technically don't have the prerequisites. Five students would have been crazy small and crazy fun in a lot of ways. But it looks like we'll be somewhere around 11 or 12. And that's a great size. These students seemed lively right away. We got into what we're all watching and it was good. And having a smaller class size helps. At the end of the class, a bunch of them hung around to ask some questions and a student asked me if I knew that I had bad reviews on "Rate My Professor." I had no idea. And he worried that he totally blew it for me. I became intrigued that I had bad reviews on "Rate my Professor." I looked it up and the people who wrote reviews HATED me. Someone said it was the worst class they had ever taken. And another student didn't like getting called out by me for not doing the work. Yeah, that sucks that you got called out for not doing the work. One student erroneously said that they got a D- in my class, which I don't think was true. Unless that student had to drop out. The other student stopped showing up and I had to fail them. I suspect that student signed up for my Advanced Class and didn't show up because they knew it was me. That student hasn't dropped yet, but I suspect they will drop. I kind of like that I have a reputation for being a hard ass. I say it at the top of the class to all of the students. I don't mince words. It's not an easy course. It's a lot of freaking work. So if it keeps my Advanced Class Small - the other class has reached it's cap and then some. I only will have 10-12 students. That's perfect. I hope students don't figure it out for awhile. And I hope people are discouraged from signing up because they think it will be too much work. Because the students who want to be challenged will be there. And really, the feedback I mainly get from students is that they love the class. Even students I've had issues with. I have students that I thought were totally difficult and they still dug it.
I also was really impressed with both undergraduate classes because they got into the conversation. I do have three grad students in my Advanced Class and they're great. I think that helps elevate the conversation just a bit as well. I'm hopeful about this semester. There's a lot of work to do as there always is. And I have to remember that I need to keep doing my own work. I've got a new pilot I'm playing around with and I want to get that done. But it's another semester to learn more about myself and my teaching methods.
My intention is to learn.
My intention is to grow.
My intention is to question.
I am grateful for the chance to fortify my knowledge.
I am grateful for the money.
I am grateful for the opportunity to meet new people.
I am grateful for another year with many jobs.
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