Nudge

ebb and flow

Hi Friends!

As you may have noticed I took yet another unintentional hiatus. That seems to be one of the things I do. This ebb and flow of output. At this point in my creative life I accept that it’s part of the process. Best not to fight it.

During my hiatus, I’ve lived a few lifetimes as I’m sure many of you have. We had an election. It was the 10th anniversary of my dad’s death. A trip to California. Birthdays. Weddings. Bookclubs. The cozy hunkering down of autumn. And the final push to finish my TV pilot.

Yes. I know you’re sick of reading about it.

As I’ve written about before, producing this pilot has been the biggest undertaking of my life - creatively, professionally, financially, emotionally. All of it. It’s been the hardest, loveliest, most wonderfully painful and painfully wonderful thing I’ve every done. It’s all the big feelings wrapped up into 29 minutes of content. My whole life and insides on display. The final push felt exactly like pushing - a boulder, a baby, I’m not quite sure.

About 3 weeks ago, we screened the pilot to a small audience in Atlanta. The room was full of friends, family, donors, and industry professionals. Showing those 29 minutes of my insides was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. It was a brilliant/horrifying/amazing/joyous experience. One that I’m unbelievably pleased is behind me.

Now comes the really hard part, or the next really hard part I should say. Now comes the part where I try to “get into rooms” and pitch the show. The goal is to sit in front of people with influence and sell those 29 minutes of my insides. What makes this part so cripplingly scary is the complete opaque, amorphous, uncertainty of how to do it. In industry terms, I’m a complete nobody. I don’t have connections. I don’t have an “in” anywhere. I’m just some asshole in Georgia who wrote a thing and produced a thing. I have no one’s ear.

When I’m in my darkest, wobbliest place I think about how ridiculous it will feel to work on something for years, pouring my whole being into it, only to never be allowed to show it off. That fate feels far worse than rejection. At least a hard “no” has finality and closure to it. There’s something or someone concrete to direct rage toward. But not even getting the opportunity to be told “no?” That’s a far sadder, a far more pathetic, a far more pitiful fate.

When I’m in a lighter, less wobbly place, I think two things: 1) I got this far and 2) Naivety has helped me.

To the first point, getting here was hard and I did it. I did it with a tremendous amount of help from some brilliant, shiny, beautiful humans. The mantra has always been “send the right people” and, lo and behold, that’s what happened. Time and time again. The right person would should up at the right time. It oftentimes felt miraculous, otherworldly. I got this far because we got this far. I have to continue believing that the right person will show up at the right time as we move into the next phase of this process.

The second point is also true. This is my first time doing anything like this on any kind of large scale. I made choices along the way largely because the feeling was why not. As it turns out, there’s plenty of reasons why not. But at the time I didn’t know what those were. My fears were rooted in not knowing which are different than fears rooting in actual knowing. This beginner’s mind is one of the reasons the team and I were able to take this labor of love across the finish line. Mostly because we didn’t know any better.

And that’s what I’m (trying) to carry with me into the next leg of the journey. I don’t know what’s to come but perhaps that’s for the best. This sucker has gone a long way already and some of that was beginner’s luck. I will continue putting one foot in front of the other, in the direction that feels most correct, knowing that I don’t know much, and will hopefully find myself where I need to be.

Meanwhile I’m back to writing. I’m feeling the pull (finally) to create and work on things that aren’t this damn TV show. PDW calls my heart again. This creative journey, the one of constant ebbs and flows, is sweeping me back into the current of generation. The words haven’t been there for a few months. Now they are slowly trickling back. They’re nudging, coaxing, prodding, and calling.

It’s a call I’m happy to answer.

It’s a call I hope we all answer.