Excuses, excuses

Ooh, I'm a bad blogger. A week between posts! Leaving a gap like this makes me feel like I deserve a lecture, like when I visit the dentist and he tells me I need to floss more. I'm not sure exactly what kind of build-up I accumulate when I forget to post, but I'm sure it's something bad. Resentment, maybe? A sense of neglect?

The truth is, I'm trying to write. Elsewhere. Much to my dismay, I'm not one of those fancy-pants book-deal bloggers, and until that day comes, I have to pretend like I have some kind of writerly priority system. Cinema Hype comes first, because of the whole contract-and-money thing, and then any necessary real-life-type writing (mostly to try and attract more contract-and-money situations), and then finally the creative work that's been percolating all day, unless crew or choir or small group or my own delirious need for sleep intervenes. They often do.

I like to listen to the Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast during long afternoons at work--it's all very "I'm a waitress but really I'm an actress," this entering edits and updating databases while listening to long interviews with working screenwriters. If I time it right, I can finish a podcast just as it's time to go, and rush home to get something down before the inspiration of the day fades or I have to eat dinner and leave the house, whichever comes first. I was listening to the Michael Arndt/Little Miss Sunshine episode recently, and Arndt described his time of holding down a day job and writing in his spare time as one of the hardest things he's ever done. I can't express how much relief that brought me. People do this, apparently. Those half-hours add up, and eventually become finished pieces, however slowly. Piling up enough of those pieces might mean, someday, not having to squeeze it all in around the margins. I'm trying to establish a more consistent writing habit to make the most of that time, to have a little faith, to create a little hope for myself. I do think it's going to work, this keeping on keeping on. Though if somebody wanted to offer me a book deal now, that would be all right too.