Another Excuse, and a Motivation

I feel I must apologize, and explain.
I have slacked off on my blog as a result of a a lack of time, a lack of gumption, and a lack of something to complain about. I started this blog when I was underemployed, frustrated, and afraid. And many times, the fun I had writing about my experiences was the best thing I ever got out of them.
I'm not done telling you, my friends, about the wacky jobs I had when I was scrounging my living. That's right, there's more! In fact, I only really got started in on the good stuff before I got a full time job, but then it just got sort of tough to keep going back to those strange days before. Not that my new job was great or anything, but still. As soon as someone else negotiates my health care, it takes the bitter wind out of my resentful sails. And I can really only pretend to be funny when I am bitter and resentful.
But now I am faced with such a profound professional disappointment that I am reminded of how empty a satisfaction my employment really is.
Behold. I posted this sign over the kitchen sink at work to remind my gracious coworkers to please wash their cups instead of leaving them in the sink for me to wash. No one laughed. Not One Chuckle.

It broke my heart. It broke my heart.

Playing Nooky

When I was a kid, my parents bought everything in pairs: one for me, and one for my sister. When my mother learned that Beanie Babies were going to be worth tons of money when we grew up, my mother returned to McDonald's again and again until she had two complete sets of Happy Meal Beanie Babies.

And when Disney opened The Vault and proclaimed that Sleeping Beauty would be released on VHS for a limited time only, Mom and Dad bought two. Fantasia, they bought two. Two Snow Whites. Two Cinderellas. Two sets of the music-playing Cinderella Christmas tree ornaments from McDonald's to go with the two Cinderella VHS's.

The thought was that if my parents bought two when they had the chance, then my sister and I could each have one for our children to enjoy. But here we are, both grown, still neither of us have children. And the VHS tapes have been rendered technologically obsolete twice since. Netflix will send Fantasia to you in the mail in a sleek red envelope. Or, you can just download it on iTunes. It's only a matter of time before we can stream Disney magic into our homes on the invisible threads of our interwebs! Want to know the reason you can't already? Because that would destroy the illusion of The Vault.

Now when Disney opens The Vault, Blu-ray disks issue forth. The advertisements for the rerelease of Beauty and the Beast urged, "limited time only! Get yours now before the Disney vault closes forever!"

"Liars!" I screeched at the television. "You can't fool me, you Disney bastards! You just want my money!" I felt it necessary to scream the truth of this for two reasons. 1. I was absolutely correct. 2. If I was a Disney Princess, I would be Maleficent, and screaming evilly at every opportunity is de rigueur for people like me.

Anyway, my point is that people who were buying the first generation of home video in the late eighties weren't used to the idea of obsolescence. My parents had no way of knowing that VHS would give way to DVD. Suffice it to say, however, that they don't buy two copies of each DVD every time Disney opens The Vault. In fact, I don't think they buy any. Once bitten, and once bought. Well, twice bought, I guess, but only one one platform.

So it is with great worry that I admit to a shocking truth. I have purchased a Nook. That's right! An e-reader! For the first time in my life, I am reading the next generation of book technology. This is terribly frightening! (And exhilarating. It's so tiny!) If I buy this e-reader, and I buy these e-books, will print books become as obsolete as my Disney VHS tapes? Am I turning my back on a technology that has lasted literally thousands of years and entertained, enlightened, or educated millions upon millions of people? (Did I mention that I bought a cute little case for it?) Do I dare to do this?

I remember the first word I ever read without the supervision of a teacher or a parent. The word was "deep," and it was the first word of a Bambi picture book. (The story continued, "in the forest," in case you're curious.) I might have been five. I still had all my baby teeth. This might be one of my earliest memories. And to some degree, the moment defined me. With that one word, I became a reader. I have been a reader ever since.

So am I different now because I am an e-reader? Is this a new moment for me now? I'm not sure how I am supposed to feel about myself and my relation to this little gadget.

Maybe it changes nothing. VHS tapes and DVD's are only viewable if you have the machine that reads them. But I'm the machine that reads the book. So how can the book ever be obsolete?

I will have to keep thinking about this, and keep you updated. Because I like to think about it. (And I like to read my Nook. The e-books download in seconds.)

Also, in case you're wondering, both sets of McDonald's Beanie Babies recently went to Goodwill. It turns out that they weren't that valuable after all. Figures.

Orchids in Winter

The seasons of my first two years here are often marked in my memory by the jobs I held or secured at the time, and my first winter in Los Angeles was no different. In January, I lost a job at an animation studio, which was the only good prospect The Agency ever managed to send my way. I was so excited by the temp assignment that I forgot to hedge my bets and told my parents that I'd landed a job. The company ran out of money two weeks later and decided not to hire me after all. Hours at The Store also ran out, as they often do in the post-holiday season of tardy returns. I was able to start an assignment at a rather bizarre infomercial production company, but I knew that this post would take me nowhere I wanted to go.
The tedium of the season and the work was lifted by only two things. The first was the sight of the distant snow-capped mountains after a cleansing rain. But much more enduring was the sight of my supermarket orchid sending up a new flower spike.
I brought my orchid with me from The University, even though it had shed not only its original blossoms but all its leaves. But new leaves sprouted, impossibly thick and green, and by February they were joined by a slender stalk bearing four green shiny bulbs of beautiful promise.
The unopened flowers smiled and bobbed at me like the faces of tiny green lion cubs with their infant eyes still sealed shut. For weeks I waited to see the insides of these tiny brilliant globes, but had to accept that waiting was all I could do. The orchid alone could know when the time came for the swollen green bulbs to split open and reveal the wide white fleshy flower with its wet red jungle mouth.
I decided that the orchid was trying to teach me a lesson. Flowers bloom only when they should, not when you want them to. They take time and the right environment to blossom. I would be the same. I had only to wait, to have faith in myself, like a plant that simply does what it was born to do.
After this intense interest in orchids took root, I read "The Orchid Thief." Early in Susan Orlean's journey to report on the overwhelming passions of orchid people, she asks a park ranger in Florida why people could become obsessed with orchids. He replied, "'Oh, mystery, beauty, unknowability, I suppose...Besides, I think the real reason is that life has no meaning.'"
This thought terrified me. Had I fallen in love with my orchid, seen a lesson in it's blossoms, because my life had no meaning? And I realized that the orchid's life was not in fact at all like mine, that it had not taught me anything. That it was just a beautiful thing, like the snow on the distant mountains. It didn't mean anything at all.
But I continued to read the book. I followed Susan Orlean as she slogged through a swamp trying still to understand what made people obsessed with orchids. She claimed that she had never been so passionate about anything. I laughed at her every time she said this. How could she be so foolish? Did she really not know? Or was she playing it coy for the sake of her story? Slogging around in a swamp for years because you want to write a book about it is as passionate as it gets. Passionate not for orchids, but for story, for writing. And for meaning.
If writing is anything (other than an ass in a chair every day) it is a search for meaning. So I have forgiven myself for seeing hope in a potted flower, and accepted that I can find meaning in my orchid if I want to. A story is perhaps a falsehood. A mere fiction, a craftily woven fabrication. But I find my life's meaning in it, and in writing it, I find it true.

Excuses Excuses

Yes I know I haven't updated the blog in forever! What? So what? Get off my case.

I know I said I'd write every day, but there are some days when one cannot write. Simply CANNOT write. Such as:

Superbowl Sunday
My Birthday
Fridays
Any day in New Orleans (Yes, yes, I know that Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and Anne Rice were able to do so. That's probably because they in fact tried to write, whereas I simply ordered another Sazerac.)
Days when the smog lifts and I can see the mountains
Days when I can't see the mountains for the smog
Days when the Red Sox are playing at home
Days when the Red Sox are playing on the road

See? You see? This is really damn hard people!

The Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You

I started out at my shiny clean office job as an assistant. I have lots of thoughts on being an assistant. None of them are nice. Almost all of them are going to be in a different blog post. I will tell you that I am no longer an assistant, and not because my bosses recognized the pearl that I am and elevated me to a more appropriate station. I am now merely a Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You. Or probably would if you worked in her office and had “Vice President” on your business card. But I digress. Today, I will not tell you all about my current job, but only a small portion of it. About forty square feet of it, actually. Because that's about how big our office kitchen is.

I am that necessary person in my office who is both lacking in any special skill particular to my industry and capable of adult-level life skills. I am the woman who answers the phone, cleans the kitchen, orders the coffee, stocks the snacks, and rolls her eyes at all the VP's who are either too important or too incompetent to wipe up their own bagel crumbs. In short, The Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You. There’s probably one in your office.

When I was a kid, my mom hated it when I left my dishes in the sink. When I say hated, I mean loathed. A cereal bowl left in the sink after breakfast instantly stoked an ire that struck fear into the hearts of me and the home-schooled teenagers three houses down. It was that scary. And what killed me, what I really didn't understand, was that Mom's cereal bowl could sit in the sink all it wanted. No big deal. It's Mom's cereal bowl, so it's okay.

I get it now. When it's your cereal bowl, it doesn't matter if you wash it now or later, because you clean up after yourself either way. But when it's anyone else's bowl, Mom is the one who cleans it. Not the jackhole VP who left it there. Oh, whoops. I'm not talking about my mother getting angry about my cereal bowl anymore. We're talking about me getting angry at my coworkers for leaving their coffee cups in the sink. Because my job has turned me into MY MOTHER.

That's right. I've even started saying things like, "Do I have to do everything for you?" and "use your brain," and "google is a tool that is available to everyone. It’s all nice and democratic that way. So if you don’t like the snacks that the Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You has purchased through Costco business delivery, google the nearest Ralph’s and go buy your own bananas. No really, they let people who aren’t Bitter Ex-Assistants Who Resent You into every Ralph’s location. And the club card? It’s optional. That’s right. They’ll even accept your company card, which the Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You is not important enough to have, even though she’s expected to do the shopping. Lucky you. No really, the Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You assures you, even a complete FUCKING IDIOT can do his own damn grocery shopping.” Okay, I lied. My mom never said anything like that.

Understand that The Bitter Ex-Assistant Who Resents You is probably a creative person forced into a job that offers nary an ounce of creative opportunities. If you give this woman free reign over the kitchen, expect unusual ice trays and artistic napkin holders. Handle it. And look up your own directions to the post office.
That is all the wisdom this Bitter Ex-Assistant has to impart for now. But stay tuned. There’s plenty more where that came from.

Soft Drinks are Pernicious Poison

I am having a Pepsi can aimed at me. Anyone know the range of the particular potato gun that Pepsico will be using for this? I need to know whether to run or take cover.

Sham!

It wasn't until this November that I learned the secret to writing every day.

I should have figured it out before. It was the secret to rowing every day in college, to making dissatisfied people work out every day when I worked in infomercials, to completing an elaborate window display at The Store, and to trading on the NYSE when one is a hedger in California. There's a pattern here, friends. While early to bed and early to rise may not make a man healthy, wealthy, or wise (particularly not the wealthy part), I have a history of getting up early in the morning to go to work.

So of course, of course! dear friends, I started getting up early to write before work. It's the perfect time to write. The house is quiet, the phone doesn't ring, there's nothing interesting on tv, it's not happy hour anywhere on this side of the Atlantic. No distractions, besides tea and cereal.

But rising before the sun is not easy if you are younger than sixty. So I have a series of tricks to haul me out of the bed and over to the writing desk. The first, do not count on a cell phone alarm clock. They are too polite. Your alarm clock should make your heart pound and your hair stand on end. Get one of those mechanical jobs with the little hammer that beats on the bells so hard and fast that your first reaction upon hearing it is to fly to the other side of the bed to make it stop.

Second, have a roommate. If you can use the bathroom whenever the hell you want, you won't be inspired to get up earlier and get to the bathroom first. Start putting out your craigslist ad for someone who to share your bathroom with you, even if they come over from a different apartment.

Have a source of Caffeine in your house at all times. Tea, coffee, energy drink, yerba mate, whatever you need, just have it on hand. If this means you have to spend $2500 on an espresso machine that whips up a cup of bitter sludge Starbuck's style, then do it.

And the last, the most crucial step of all, make your bed immediately upon vacating it. Immediately! While you're still in it, if possible! This is what I do, in fact. When my heart has stopped pounding and my ears have stopped ringing, and when I decide that further delay may cause me to lose my chance at the bathroom, I rearrange my pillows, pull the sheets and comforter taught up to the pillows, then roll sideways out of the bed. Once on my feet, I pick up my pillow shams. Only then, do I turn back to the bed. I toss the shams on, and flee to the bathroom.

After a few blurry minutes in front of the mirror, during which I pretend not to see my hair and brush my teeth like a zombie, I have to return to my room. The frantic alarm clock and the rush to the bathroom behind me, I am now ready to go back to bed. And Woe! Wailing and Gnashing of teeth! The pillow sham is in the way and I can't see the sheets because the duvet is all nice and smooth! Curses, shammed again!

It's to the kitchen, then, and to the kettle. It's time for tea, and writing.

More on Shoes

My mother bought me a shoe calendar for Christmas last year, a daily calendar featuring a different shoe for each day. Some shoes were vintage. Some were even antique, bordering on artifact. Others were sold as recently as 2008. And some were made as objects of art, never to be worn. My desk at home is way too small for a calendar, so the shoe calendar came with me to my new office job.

My job, being a job, was largely unpleasant, and my shoe calendar was my only comfort. I looked forward to the moment each morning when I saw the day's shoe for the first time, and when I turned to a new shoe each day I instantly forgot about the shoe from the day before. I never peeked at the next day, either. Each shoe was separate from all the others, as though only that shoe and that day had ever existed. And a whole year of shoes marched by without me knowing.

It’s as though the empty shoes, immobile and isolated on a white background, mesmerized me into forgetting that another day was draining away. And time's winged chariot didn't hurry near, but rumbled away in the distance, as soothing and unsettling a murmur as the traffic on the nearby 101.

This past Christmas my mother gave me another shoe calendar. Every day, I turn to the new shoe, still eager to see what colors and shapes will be revealed. But I now have the 2010 calendar sitting next to it, to remind me that each day stacks up to a whole year.

This year, friends, will be different. This year, I will not forget that a day is a part of a year going by. And I won't forget that a marathon is just a series of steps. In 2011, my shoe calendar will not mark time's journey, but mine.

So here's my plan for 2011, along with special instructions and tips for myself.

1. WRITE EVERY DAY! It is possible. Or very nearly.

2. WORKOUT ON MANY DAYS. You'll feel better if you do.

3. MEDITATE ON THE DAYS YOU CAN'T WORK OUT. It's the same thing, really, and doesn't involve sweating. Until July, when breathing in the valley makes your eyeballs sweat.

4. NO BOURBON ON WEEKDAYS. If step one is successful, this is a foregone conclusion, but I include it for you anyway.

How about you, friends? How do you plan to spend your year, in a day by day sort of way?

The Careerist 2.0

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my first full-time job in Los Angeles. Why didn't you know that the Careerist got a full time job? Because I'm terribly behind on my blog, of course. Obviously.

Do I pretend to have good excuses for this? Of course I do. I'm going to pretend I have excuses for this all morning. The first is the aforementioned full time job. The second is the never-before-mentioned first novel.

I have never mentioned what I write on my blog, as The Careerist is supposed to be about work, and I don't get paid to write. That's the joke, see. But I feel that it is now time to mention what it is that I have been writing. Since I haven't been writing blog posts.

About two years ago, I started my first novel. I know that it doesn't make any sense to get a film degree, move to LA, and immerse myself in fiction. But getting a film degree doesn't make sense in the first place, so you can kiss my grits if you think I'm being foolish. Anyway, I read On Writing, and if Stephen King has no reason to convince me that I couldn't do it, neither do you. I finished it about eleven months after beginning it, and I have revised it several times since.

The next step involves getting it published. Am I foolish to think that it's easier to get a book printed than it is to get a movie made? Maybe. But one thing is clear, and that's the path to getting published. I need to have an agent to send it to the editors, but all I need to do to get an agent is get in contact with one and impress him or her with my book. Is that easy? No, but it's clear. And get this--literary agents have a process for contacting them, which they publish on their websites. It's as if they actually want to hear from you! You can send a letter or email and tell all about you and your book. It's called a query, and it's how you get an agent. That simple.

That's not to say that Querying is easy. It's difficult, and it involves a lot of rejection. But to a screenwriter, even an honest rejection is a gift. I still can't quite believe that someone stops what they're doing and reads my query letter. Every time I get a rejection letter, I have to face the fact that it's true. I'm really doing this. They're really reading it. The first time I got a rejection letter, I printed it out in color and showed it to everyone in the office. I was so proud.

One of the bloggers that I follow, a chap who used to be an agent himself, recently stated that there are more than 15,000 other people querying agents every year.

This appears to be terrifying news for fiction writers, but I relaxed quite a bit when I read it. Only 15,000? There are easily 15,000 film students graduating this spring, and every one of those fresh-faced little fucks has a feature screenplay. Luckily, I am a better writer than a lot of the other 15,000 people looking for a book agent. I'm also better than every one of the film students graduating this spring. Am I arrogant? Absolutely. But I need to be if I'm going to drag my ass into this chair every day for no immediate reward.

While I've been figuring out this querying process, I've been reading lots of blogs by people working in the publishing world. And not only have I learned a lot about publishing, I've learned a lot about blogs. When I set out to write this blog, I conceived of each post as a chapter in a longer story. But that's not really the best way to create a successful blog. Blogs are about interactivity. They are networking tools, really. And inviting people to look, but not touch, is going to result in a blog with no readers. Only posting once every three months also results in a lack of readership, I have discovered. Mom, you're the only one still reading this. I love you.

Also, blogs are supposed to help writers build a platform. A platform is a fancy publishing word for risk mitigation. A writer with a platform is a writer with a market presence, just like a film based on a book has a market presence. Platforms are more important for nonfiction writers, but they certainly won’t hurt fiction writers. For example, Snooki has a platform. I don’t have to tell you what it is, because you know what (but not who) Snooki is.

Now, since I am Italian-American, but not a loathsome idiot bimbo, I have to create a difference platform for myself. Now we get to the point I am trying to make to myself (and to my mother). It’s time to revamp The Careerist.

The Careerist might be more about writing from here on out. Scratch that. It’s always been about writing, hasn’t it. I just might be more explicit, that’s all. I might even get all honest about my identity. Since I’m trying to build a platform, an indication of who I am may in fact be critical. Maybe I’ll also start inviting some input. Get some dialogue going here.

So…stay tuned. I haven’t been posting, but I have been working. And I have a lot to share. I hope you’re looking forward to it, Mom.