rewriting myself (3)
Posted 29 March, 2004 in life shiz
i have placed myself in rewriting hell. a writer friend of mine gave me notes on a TV spec i wrote, and if she likes the rewrite of the script, she’ll recommend me to her agent and manager. this is great. rewriting is not so great.
the last two days i have gotten up dreading doing my work. i have to go through my script page by page, fixing little things here and there, inserting a character into a scene, expanding dialogue, adding new scenes. the script is short. it’s a gilmore girls, which means lots and lots of talk. i have to add more talk.
rewriting is a necessary part of writing, especially for a tv writer. it’s good for me to flex these muscles. it’s also really depressing. i flip to a scene, see what has to be done, and then have to think up an alternative to what i wrote, when coming up with the first thing i wrote there was hard enough. it’s writing grunt work, but it’s also an acquired skill, and a tough one.
my life feels like i am constantly rewriting it. i try to establish myself a routine. exercise, shower, take my vitamins, read, write, cook something i haven’t cooked before, clean, make stuff, spend time with people i care about. right now i’m just trying to do these things every day. if i mess up, i try again the next day. i’m unemployed. the pull towards being a slacker is strong. i don’t have anything i have to do, other than a few chores. i could just eat, sleep, and watch TV all day. but my guilt is too much. i would hate myself.
i used to hate rewriting so much that i’d rather throw a script away than do it. there are several scripts in my arsenal that i think are unrewritable. they just suck too much. maybe one day i’ll pull them out and have a look at them. some solution might jump out at me. or i might just be embarrassed once again by how much they suck.
right now i am scared that if i leave the television industry, i’ll never be able to find an even moderately lucrative or enjoyable job. i have no qualifications. after twenty years of school, i have no experience. trying to be a writer is scary as hell especially when you don’t have a job. at this point i can’t afford to write a bad script and throw it away. i can’t start again. it’d be a waste of time. i’ve got to rewrite it.
again, it feels like my life and my work are intersecting. i cut a sentence here, try to have one less cigarette there. expand a paragraph of description, make sure i do yoga in the morning. add a character, pay my damn parking tickets.
maintenance. it’s what happens while you’re making other plans.