A Re-return

Getting back on the (writing) horse

You may have noticed my little ‘hiatus’ of the last year or so. I thought it’d be fun to hop back into your inbox last week unannounced with a bunny tale (as opposed to an unannounced bunny tail which is vastly less appealing). I imagine that following my writing, which some of you have done for years now, is a little like playing the slots in Vegas. You never know when those cherries will line up but it’s exciting when they do. Or possibly you don’t give a shit. Either way is fine.

Back in the day I would beat myself up for having such an inconsistent writing practice. How dare I not produce huge amounts of writing every single week! How dare I not hold true to my word, my word which promised a weekly post from now into infinity! I’m truly garbage and will never produce anything great. Did Hemingway only blog every now and again?!

But nowadays I’m a little more compassionate toward myself. Or at least, I try to be. And I’m more understanding of human nature, specifically my human nature. I work in bursts and I love projects. I prize novelty and I relish curiosity. Sometimes that inner wiring requires me to venture elsewhere for awhile. Or I’m just a spastic piece of shit. Either way is fine.

Perspective is also key. Yes I might not be the most consistent writer from day to day or month to month. But if I keep going at this rate, even in starts-and-stops, I’ll probably have accumulated a wealth of writing in a few decades. At that point, a yearlong hiatus won’t even be a blip on the radar.

And to be completely fair to myself (and one should always be fair to oneself), it’s not that I’ve done no writing. As a matter of fact I’ve done quite a lot of writing recently. It just hasn’t been here.

For starters, I wrote a book.

I forget about it a lot. It’s always my mom or my friend Bernie who remind me and I think oh yeah that happened. Last year I published this pandemic-themed gem on Amazon. While it isn’t the longest read in the canon, it was a labor of love during the depths of the lockdown. The learning curve of self-publishing was surprisingly enjoyable. There was lots of formatting and creating various accounts with various passwords. I uploaded things and stuff. It was terribly high tech. So while I was hiding away in the house, I created something from start to finish. That always feels good.

For seconds, I wrote a TV show.

After publishing the book, I began working on a script. Technically it wasn’t a script at first. It was a lifeless, amorphous blob as three characters emerged out of the ether and spoke to me. They told me who they were and what kind of world they lived in. They were funny, and occasionally pathetic, with lots of opinions and thoughts about life. As they talked I aimlessly scribbled. Writing is weird like that sometimes. Hack away at a mound of dirt long enough and something is bound to happen.

That ‘something’ turned out to be the first season of a television show. When all is said and done, I ended up with eleven tight (albeit short), NSFW, hilarious episodes of a show I would want to watch. As a matter of fact, I really really DO want to watch it. It’s chock full of sloppy millennials and dead-end jobs, laughs and tears, butthole jokes and dead cats. Ya know. The usual stuff.

While my three characters told me about the world they live in, it was nothing other than blood, sweat, and tears that got me to those eleven episodes. There were several rounds of notes from readers followed by rewrites. One batch of rewrites almost killed me because it revealed some serious structural issues. It was like going in to change the knobs on a cabinet only to realize that the floor underneath it needs to be ripped up first. It was a tough pill to swallow because I knew the work involved in fixing it.

So, yes, there was magic. There was a weekend writer’s retreat in the North Carolina mountains. There were piping hot cups of coffee while I patted myself on the back for a job well done. But mostly there was hard work and persistence. That’s why it has become the writing I’m most proud of…like ever. Sure I’ve worked hard on writing projects in this past but this one takes the cake. It’s certainly the largest thing I’ve ever created and it took the better part of a year to get to this point. 143 pages of my life poured out.

Where it goes next isn’t 100% clear. Much like it’s modest beginnings, there’s no definitive path  forward for this little television show. I’m taking baby steps (seriously…they’re tiny) toward turning the script into a watchable something. I want to see this vision through in spite of not knowing the way. Side note: if any of my readers know Ryan Murphy, could you have him call me? Thanks!

All this is to say….

I have been writing! I just haven’t been writing here, for you, my dedicated PDW readers. For that, I am sorry. But you need not worry. My creative life is active and thriving in spite of the many ups and downs I insist on putting it through. Maybe, at the end of the day, that’s the whole gig. Maybe the fine print in the contract one signs with creativity and divine inspiration stipulates that you must take the long road, the winding one that stretches over vast lands with various terrain and lots of darkened wondering. Perhaps that’s the price to be paid for the interesting, dynamic, electrifying, shiny life one gets in return.

So far that’s felt like a price worth paying.