Scott the Writer

So right now, kismet is teasing me.

You have to understand something about me. I'm a rather fast writer, when I have the time. But I never have the time. I've been a fulltime reader for well over a decade now, and it's impossible for me to write when I'm busy reading.

I can count the number of days in the past year in which I didn't do any reading on one hand, and still have fingers left over.

So it's a fantasy of mine to actually have a chance to do nothing but write. To have that actually be my day job.

And right now, fate is telling me to put up or shut up. Because for the last two days, I have gotten zero work to do.

I actively read scripts and books for 6 different companies. Aside from a book I got on Monday and finished Tuesday morning, none has given me anything all week long.

My $60 notes? The pile is empty.

So all of a sudden, completely randomly and unexpectedly (the pre-Labor Day lull usually isn't THIS bad), I have

nothing

to

do

but

write.

And writing is what I need to do. Because right now, the iron is as hot as it might ever get. This is my shot to get an agent. My shot to move this writing thing from the back burner to the front, before the burner gets turned off.

So in stories like this, the main character either can't write, and gets very drunk instead, or he goes into a crazy writing jag.

Fortunately for me, it's the latter.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I sat down and:

- Did yet another pass on the still-incredibly-low-paid rewrite I'm doing for the producer friend. The damned thing keeps getting better every draft, but then we get on the phone, and he gives me a double-handful of perfectly good notes, and then I go rewrite a sequence or 8 and elevate it up another level. It's still not a horror/thriller masterpiece, but I still give it credit for helping me get into writing gear, and what the hell, the end is in sight. I think. Hopefully I'm getting karmic brownie points somewhere.

- Did a few more pages of my own original horror script, the one I outlined late last year, wrote about 35 pages of, then stuck in a drawer. Now it's out of the drawer, because I need something to work on between attacks on the low-paid rewrite, and my waiting to get notes back from friends on the supernatural thriller I finished a draft of a few weeks ago. It's still very bloody, and rife with sex. I know, you want to read it. It's still only about 43 pages long though.

- But then I went to the coffee shop and started ripping apart the third act of my supernatural thriller anyway, based on ideas that were spurred by a conversation with a friend who did read it. After reworking a large chunk of the script, when I came home (and then after the wife went to bed) I pounded out about 10 pages of the new stuff on that draft. I'll finish it tomorrow, and then swap it out for the last draft with the friends who haven't read it yet.

- I even got a chance to spend a couple of hours with the wife, including our nightly game of Scrabble. But the fall TV season better start soon, because I'm tired of reruns of "Dog: The Bounty Hunter", which is literally the only thing on Wednesday nights now.

All in all, a productive, satisfying day.

Could I live the writing life full time?

Absolutely. Bring it on.