Been Thinking....

When I was in 11th grade, my chemistry teacher, Mr. Milone was also our Key Club advisor. Key Club is a community service group affiliated with the local Kiwanis Club. My best friend Doug and I were supposed to be leading it. Supposed to be. Only, you see, Key Club wasn't as fun as all of our other activities and we admittedly were half-assed about it. In frustration, Mr. Milone said to me once -- "but Janice, this could be your legacy. This could be something you look back fondly at when you think of high school. What do you want your legacy to be? You need to think about that."

Yeah, well, pretty sure I've failed over and over and over in that whole legacy department. I'm horrible at finishing projects. Got to the point where I've even stopped starting them if I don't think I can do them quickly. Probably why I still struggle with my weight, am a freelancer, am single, haven't written any short stories/books/scripts in forever (other than the apparently never-ending work on my memoir that oops! isn't done), and probably why I no longer do readings or host readings. How can I be so passionate about something and then it just wanes? Do I have some sort of ADD? How can I throw myself heart and soul into something and then just be like "well, sick of that." Then I wonder why I can be so apathetic. So many other people have life-long passions ---- I have some life-long interests but certainly not PASSIONS. Is that normal?

Or is it the meds?

It's so fucking annoying. If I'm not asking "is it the meds?" I'm asking, "is it my brain?" There's just a certain unbalance, a certain askew-ment (not really a word but I'm using it) to me that renders me at a 90 degree angle tot he rest of the world. Sometimes it's 30 degrees, sometimes it's 150.... but it's never, never parallel. And I wonder if everyone feels that way or if it's the meds, or if it's my brain, or if it's my "creative" nature. Is this just a desperate effort to align myself with the concept of "normal?"

OK, from the existential to the concrete. I want to use my writing and my creativity to make my living. I would like to write tv shows. I work in an office filled with people who have the job I want. But yet I stare at them and think "how do I get there???" But I'm too shy to ask advice. it's retarded. I think part of me thinks it is just unattainable. That it is naive to even try. Then i think about to the best writing advice I ever got. Can't remember her name but it was from this novelist I attended a workshop with at a conference in high school -- she said "to be a writer, you need to write." And yeah -- guess what? I haven't been writing SHIT.

And I keep thinking -- I have SO many contacts. I have connections and access to resources that other people who also want to be write for tv DREAM of. I've worked in the tv and movie industry for 9 years. Why the hell haven't I sat down and figured out how to make the jump from production and finance to the creative? I think because of fear and I think because years ago I decided that pursuing this path would be easier and just as profitable. (okay, not as profitable as the WGA writers on this show make $6142 bucks a week plus $12,000 a script plus royalties plus bonuses...) It's not like if I try to be a writer and fail I can't go back to what I do now. And even if I did fail, it's not like I couldn't try again. I couldn't network more (sooooooo bad at that) and hone my craft.

My craft? Shit. I abandoned my craft. Well I settled into poetry because it's immediate. And I'm pretty good at it. But I've ever stopped doing that. (is it the meds? is it my brain? is it because I'm lazy? is it because the muses are ignoring me? is it because i suck at it, after all? -- oh the frenetic thoughts in my poor, ravaged brain!)

So what the fuck am i supposed to do? what do i want to do?

Well..... you know what sounds fun? Writing for tv. What I wanted to do 9 years ago and then got scared and side tracked. And here I am so insanely close to the opportunity. I just need the balls, some scripts, some drive, some confidence.... and it just COULD happen. I mean it really could.

So.... this weekend I am going to buy a desk and a nice chair and set them up in my room and I am going to dedicate a safe little area JUST to creativity and writing. My bedroom will be a place of tranquility and comfort. A little room of my own where I will only invite in the very fortunate :) I'll make it very clean, organized, girly, and a warm place for creativity and poetry and .... just good stuff. :)

So that's what I'll do. :)