Monday was the second anniversary of my decidedly involuntary redundancy from my old company. I don't know if I want to talk about it much other than to say the day brought with it a certain amount of reflection. A jumble of thoughts really...
Wow, two years! Has it really been that long? Have I managed to survive without a "real job" all that time?
To a certain amount of retro-active anger that is my pride still pricking me. A combined twenty one years and a damn fine record at that, gone (along with 899 others) in the blink of an administrative eye.
To a gnawing unease as the money has run out and things are getting tough. I'm discovering there is no nobility in being poor, a state of affairs I am unused to. Again, that pride thing has a hard time coping with all the hoop jumping and rejections I now have to deal with.
The great irony is that as the job search sputters along, the writing has been going gangbusters.
Racing to finish a low budget thriller where the creative juices are finally flowing. It's a "vomit draft" - just how nauseous my exceedingly patient director will soon tell me - but it will provide a decent enough foundation to work from.
Tomorrow I discuss a big action feature idea with a person in Sydney I was referred to who has a connect to a possible source of financing. Indeed, the story is being tailor made with certain elements in mind specifically for that source. Hopefully, if they like the pitch, I will get paid to write a treatment and then a draft.
Three short film scripts shot so far this year. Picking up some money here and there doing script feedback and I have an upcoming script editor gig as well. I've been mentoring a young writer and that continues to be a very enjoyable experience. It looks like I'm off The Red Bride but that script is what led to the referral on the action project. So it's all swings and roundabouts I guess.
A day of mixed emotions... but not quite a *season finale just yet!
*Aaron Sorkin famously used this as the episode title of the season one finale of all his shows (Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip)... until The Newsroom which aired in the US the same day as my anniversary. That episode is called The Greater Fool. Not an omen, I trust!
Addendum:
ReplyDeleteVery good Skype meeting on the exciting new action/thriller feature project. Short documents looking good for the concept with only some minor tinkering required. Big pitch looms this Friday...