What I Wrote This Year

Productivity is really important to me.  It's the thing that keeps me hanging on.  It gives me a purpose and a reason for living.

Even though my Dad died this year and I no one would fault me for curling up in a ball and napping from July 23-Dec 31st, I couldn't do that.  I remember about four weeks after he died, I felt like such a schmo for not feeling motivated to work.  Even though I knew I needed to slow down and just be, I felt like I should be doing something.  A good friend of mine, a TV exec, said to me, "Listen. You just need to take care of yourself right now.  When you're ready to work again, there will be tons of people ready to help you."  I knew she was right, but I just felt lazy.  Like somehow just being and mourning my Dad made me lazy.  Well...he probably would have said that.

While my Dad was sick, work kept me motivated.  I remember the week he went into the hospital for the first time, I was doing a workshop of a new play of mine.  It was great to have something else to focus on.  Then I was teaching in the Fall of 2011.  Once the holidays passed, I started working on a new play in February.  That lasted through May and then I started on a spec script of GLEE to try and get into some writers programs.  I was getting ready to start on something new, something I had an idea for.  I had even outlined it.  Then he died.

So after about the six week point, I was ready to start again.  And I started writing a few drafts of a one hour show I was really passionate about writing about women in the later stages of their lives.  I knew I was invested in the subject matter, but I didn't have the show.  This was reminding me of a soap set in the art world that I wrote six drafts of and had to put away because it just didn't go anywhere.  I was stuck.  Then a friend told me to write about something that would be really easy for me to finish in a short amount of time.  I had an idea to write about my relationship with The Drummer.  I had an idea and I finished that in about two weeks.  It was a shitty pilot.  But it got some things loose.

I was driving on the 5 and I started thinking about the next great idea.  That included the following thought:

"What's the next great idea? "

Really.  That's all I thought.  I remember a professor years ago suggesting a writing exercise.  Whenever you can't think of something to write, just start writing:

"I can't think of what to write.  I'm trying to think of something brilliant, but nothing's coming to me.  I'm an idiot.  Maybe all of my good ideas are behind me at 23 years old.  Maybe I'll never do this.  My father probably thinks I spend all day jacking off and playing with my asshole.  That's true.  But I don't want him to think that."

Then the idea pops out!  It's just through the sheer act of hitting the keys or thinking about the problem that the solution appears.  And that's kind of what happened.  It's an idea that is about a subject I know a ton about.  It's a family drama.  It's a one hour show.  It deals with my specific cultural background in a way that I have been trying to write.  It's a soap, which is something I've been trying to crack.  My problem is that I didn't have the write milieu.  I needed a setting.  And I found one that felt soap like: big and rich and family drama filled.

Then I went home and started on some ideas.  I had a title.  The characters came to me pretty easily.  This is always a good sign for me.

Then my best friend and I started talking about some ideas for a pilot in case the show she's working on didn't get picked up for a second season (which it just did, coincidentally).  But it's an idea we both like and would be willing to go out and pitch.

Then life got busy again.  I had family stuff to deal with.  And during that time, I finally figured out what the other show should be.  It should be a half hour cable show.  And I outlined that.  Plus, a director and I started planning a mini workshop of the play I wrote this year, scheduled for January.

I got together with my friend Larry and we had a writing session.  I wrote the teaser for the one hour.  Six pages.  Then we went to coffee.  Then I went home and wrote the first act.  Twenty three pages.  I was ready to write more.  But then...

A theatre emailed about doing a showcase reading of one of my plays.  Then another theatre in LA wanted to see what I had to work on, so they could do a development process.  So I decided to give them the same play, so I could work on this play that I've loved for the past year.  It's the same play that I was working on when my Dad first went into the hospital.  So I had to do rewrites and talk with people about the play.

Finally, I was ready to sit down and finish the rest of this pilot.  Larry and I met this past Monday.  I wrote Act Two.  Then I had therapy on Tuesday and was exhausted for two days.  Then I wrote yesterday.  Went back to the Weho library, which has been my makeshift office, and wrote the first two scenes of Act Three.  I got hungry.  Then I went home and ate.  Then I went to my friend Susan's house, which I was watching while she was away.  No TV. No internet.  I wrote the rest of Act Three. Then Act Four.  Then I was tired.  I came home.  It was late.  I didn't want to go to sleep before I finished.  I wrote Act Five.  Thirty four pages for the day.  Thank God!  It's way too long at 71 pages, but I have something.

Now I'm going to just see a movie: This is 40.  And think about reworking the pilot about me and the Drummer.  Then I have all of next week to work on the new pilot, while I'm letting this one sit and marinate in my head.

So here's the tally for the year:

New play: Six drafts
Spec of GLEE: Two drafts.
Crappy Pilot (one hour): Three drafts.
Rewrites of Play: Two drafts.
Crappy Pilot (half hour): One draft.
Bloated Pilot: One draft.
Re-draft of crappy pilot (from one hour to half hour): hopefully by the end of 2012.
And...
108 blog posts.

Not bad.  I'm hoping to have these two fresh pilots ready to go by February.  In February, I start the play writing process all over again and start on a play that will eventually be turned into a musical.

After that, I don't know if I have any ideas.  Well, except for the show I was trying to turn into a musical, which actually might be a pretty good soap set in the late 70s...hmmm.