To Write or To Live?

I am a collector of quotes. I'm always looking for that bundle of words that will sum up a situation or an experience or a feeling. One of the quotes I have remembered over and over again is: "Find something you are truly passionate about and devote time out of every day for your passion." I've known for a really long time that writing is my passion, and I've spent a lot of time trying to convince myself to the contrary. It is now December 2005. In less than three weeks, I will be back home in New City, NY. I will be in my parent's house, looking for a job to either save up money for an apartment or a ticket out of the country or both. I'll have to start paying for insurance, my phone bill, my contact lenses, my medication, my doctor and dentist and annual appointments. I'll have to pay my credit card bills on time. I'll have to pay for gas. And in six months, I'll have to start paying off my loans. I've had to pay for gas before. My parents have been helping me out through my high school and college years, but now the responsibility will be all on my shoulders.

There are certain truths that are re-stated to me every time I ask someone for advice about how to make a living being a writer: Get an agent. Send out your writing. Keep writing. All the time. Never stop if that's what you really want to do. And never ever apologize for what you want out of life. Because if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. I feel like that's what I've been doing at Lions Gate. Whenever people ask me what I want to do, I'll mumble something about being a writer and how it's going to be hard but I want to try it, and they'll look at me, "Oh, that's nice. Good luck." So, I've learned to say it with more conviction. Don't apologize for what makes you tick. I guess I'm guilty about wanting to be a writer in a way, because everyone seems to say that they want to be a writer or an actor or a director. I just have to suck it up and deal with the cards I've been dealt. Try to focus on myself and hopefully I'll have the discipline to put in the hard work and hopefully my hard work will eventually pay off.

When you're writing, you have to take life one word at a time. What better way to sort out what you've seen from the jumble of the every day than to write it down? To me, I have to write so I won't go crazy thinking about what if, what isn't, and what is. I have faith that if I keep writing, only good things can happen; however, there's a chance that I'll become disillusioned. For now, I'm a dreamer, and I'm going to keep on thinking that there's some way to reach out to people through writing, and I'm going to keep on believing it is a fine craft and worthy profession to devote many hours and many days and many years too. So let me write, damn you. And I'll let you do whatever it is you want to do.

I just want to write. That's what I've learned. Maybe that's selfish, but the way I see it, if there's any time to lay out the law about how I want my life to be, it's now, before other people try to mold who I am into how they see me. So, that's my verdict. After reading all these terrible and not so terrible screenplays, I still want to take a stab at it. I want to try Screenwriting, but I am definitely leaning towards fiction.

I'd rather work in film or television then in an insurance office or in a bank or as a waitress. I don't want to work in television, but I will. I guess it all comes down to wanting to be happy. Finding a job that makes me want to get up in the morning, that lets me think I've accomplished something with my day. That's the most important thing for me. Not money, but being happy. Content. Striving for something that betters my existence. And mankind's. Guess I'm a typical Aquarius. Or so my aunt said over Thanksgiving break.

After working at Lions Gate, I think I'm going to try and not work in a large office environment. Then again, if I get a job doing that, then that's just something I'm going to have to deal with for awhile. I mean, a job is a job, right? I despise how gossip is rampant in offices. There isn't a lot of emphasis on the business side of filmmaking at Emerson. I really think they should prepare you more for how to sell your screenplay, get an agent, land a job. But alas, it's all about the creative process. Hell, everyone has the creative process going up in their minds...but it's usually the people who know how to sell it that actually make it. Sadly, I am the worst salesman I know. I'm much too passive. This is not a plus, but hopefully life will work itself out somehow. I'd be happy just writing novels, short stories, articles...I don't have to write screenplays. I just think film and television is the medium people most respond too. If you want your stories to reach a certain audience, then that's the direction you should go...I've learned to take what I can from the experience and move on, because that's the way it has to be if you want to survive.

At my intern site, ambivalence and indifference is rewarded. They don't respond to "nice". They respond to the types of parties you are going too and the types of places you've been, even if you are just an intern. I'm not sure where I went wrong, or if I did go wrong at all. They're already looking ahead, talking about new interns, the five interns that were in the Development department this Fall are already on the way out. My last week is the week of December 12^th. I am looking forward to life beyond internship, but I'm also worried I will settle for something I don't want to do.

They actually give me responsibilities at Lions Gate. Photocopy this, hand this off to him or her in fill in the blank here. Read this for Mike P. Maybe I should just get a job outside the industry, not dealing with making and creating and manufacturing and buying stories. Maybe it would be easier for me to create that way. Or would I get sucked up in the real world and forget the ins and outs of "making" it?

In order to write, guess you have to live. But to live is an overwhelming range of experiences and decisions. It's what billions of people are doing on this planet, and that's a lot of options. But money's a big part of it. In the next year, I plan to write and try and find a decent job to support myself. It doesn't have to be a job that pays salary. I just want to get out what I want to say before I forget what I wanted to say in the first place.