Underwealmed

Four hours. It's great when it's a ticking clock in your script, but it sucks when it's your hours of sporadic sleep the night before.

Lack of sleep is a mixed bag - sort of like rolling the emotional dice - you never know how you'll feel at the end of the day. Might be elation - giddiness - punchy - depression or today's winner, apathy.

It's not like I'm old, but I'm not 20 either, so I've been through a few things. Nothing major. No wars, no divorce, no disfiguring accidents, no deaths of friends - a fairly tame life thus far, but I've seen enough to know that the wheels on the bus go round and round (with or without me). My job will be there if I show up or not. My company won't cry over my leaving (or my death) and these days, they're not going to throw money in my direction under any circumstance (including not having the staff to complete the current work, let alone the loss of me as well). I know that love comes and goes and while it's always painful when it's gone, it's always wonderful when it arrives. I know you're never to old to fall in love and never wise enough to avoid mistakes.

Today I read an article (quite good actually - Electric Mist) and her advice (honest and true) is that your material has to be good enough for readers not to want to put down. It's that factor that, even though everything else may be right, is necessary to go from "read" to "sold". However, today is one of those days when I can't imagine a damned thing that can't be put down. Not a damned thing that can't wait until tomorrow, or at least be interrupted. I can't fathom any material that somebody wouldn't put down. Really. Nothing. I love movies, scripts, etc. but today I'd be a writer's worst nightmare (including my own). I can't think of a possible reason why writing my story is worthwhile.

It's a peculiar mood to be in because I love movies. I'm thrilled with writing scripts. I enjoy reading them. I'm often wrapped up in movies I've seen before or scripts I've read (or even written), but these days I can always hit pause, stop or put it down. I can't imagine a time when I couldn't - though I'm sure there was a time when I was younger. When I couldn't imagine anything being better. When I couldn't imagine everybody not wanted to hear/read the story/movie I was reading/writing.

So today's a tough day. May nobody else have days like this - although just by having this day, I know that people do (and I pray that they're not executives and agents that are reading our material).

Sleep. Tonight it'll be a really good thing.