Progress Report. Sort of.

I have great big plans -- as usual.  Great, big, lofty, scary plans that include writing and producing and getting people with money to let me use their money.   I have had these plans and others like them for years.  In all seriousness, I know these are completely doable dreams – especially for a normal, yet well funded, somebody else.  But for me they are big-big.  Maybe too big.  Maybe something I should talk myself out of doing.  After all, in my past, that’s what I’ve always done.   Dreamed big and then failed by lack of follow through, failed by allowing overwhelming fear to reign supreme and other excuses.  Even as I write this, I know I should be more positive, more sure, more confidant – but then I would not be real.  I’ve never been good at faking anything.  Usually the way I get through things (like most auditions I ever got through) is by smiling and when no one is paying attention, flipping the authority figure the bird.  Like wise, the only auditions I ever won were the ones I didn’t give two shits about.  So naturally, I’ve been conditioned to think it is “good” that I am cynical, bitter and a wee bit self-destructive.  I never made a good cheerleader, though I could do the splits midair, I hated the cheers.   All the boys on our team were assholes and mean little bastards to boot – but there I go again, losing my focus.  Here is the point: If I’ve ever won, it was always at the moment I no longer cared.

FOCUS:

On the roster of this year’s To Do’s: A “little” educational documentary, then finish my two work-in-progress scripts – deadline determined by the contest season.  The hope is to at the very least, place with one of them and then with that script, finally produce it.   I’ve been tinkering with the ideas for quite some time, but things are a bit easier now for a few reasons.  My kids are no longer in car seats or diapers and – I just got a new equipment.  I am nearly ready to proceed as a one-person crew (at least for a good chunk of the Doc).

Usually, when I talk about the plans out loud, I sound very convinced.  You should hear me – especially over a couple of brews or better yet, red wine.  Then, I am very convinced I’ve got it together.  Case in point, my brother called yesterday from Italy, on his way to some place like Milan, or Rome or who knows where -- he sure as hell isn’t here in this small town burg in which we both were raised -- whatever.  Because I needed to fill my end of the long distance air with more than my dull chores of the day, I bent his ear backward and forward about my big plans and my scripts.  I wasn’t trying to pitch my ideas.  I wasn’t trying to get funding or anything of the sort, but I had to say something about what I am doing – and he was intrigued – wants to be kept in the loop as I progress.  “Yeah, yeah, will do,” I said. “Of course!”

But this morning, I got so wrapped up in the politics of the day – which I justified because so much of it works so nicely into the story I am writing.  I swear, within what seemed like 10 minutes, three hours passed and I was still reading articles, twitter feeds, and other nonsense.    I admonished myself knowing that I have a shit load of tasks before me in order for my plans to work beyond notes and websites.  Yet, as with reading political articles, I justify taking time to write this attempt at a blog post.  Meanwhile, my youngest child is sniffing and blowing her nose, sent home from school with a nasty bugger of a cold and my big Tomcat has his two front paws resting on my right typing arm.  (This is quite good.  I must keep writing because I cannot move my arm from the keyboard.  Very clever Tigger-cat.)  Lately, my morning working hours have reverted to my college day working hours.  Meaning, my head and creativity peaks between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.   Four a.m. is just not working for me any longer and it is time I face that reality. 

I desperately need to self-discipline.

Just now I hung up from a phone call with a government agency I’d rather not disclose.  Fuming pissed off, I am angry and not with anyone but me.  This is my kick in the ass.  Either I move forward or I die here.  I cannot fucking do anything else.  I am so outside anyone’s ability, including my own, to put myself inside a socially acceptable box other than one is that is about five-and-a-half feet long, wooden and lowered in the ground.  Note: I hope to my Dear Jesus Christ that I make it to heaven and to know His Glory because I actually believe-it-or-not-believe the After Life is truer than what I am living now.  Until that day – I realize that this is it.  Might as well fight.  Might as well make a fool of myself trying, trying and trying again to prove all the fuckers wrong, including my own nagging pain-in-the-ass self.

Tomorrow I will be cheerier.  I promise to try.