Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Crunch Time

You may have noticed that I haven’t been sticking to my every-other-day posting schedule.   It pains me to imagine my tens of readers constantly refreshing my website in the hope that I’ve published a clever new post, only to be disappointed.  But I want you to know that it’s not because I’m lazy or because I’ve run out of funny stuff to write about.   I’m under a serious deadline.


Exactly two weeks from today, I have a five-minute pitch meeting with a big-shot in the film industry.  I won’t reveal his name in case he routinely Googles himself like I do, but trust me when I say that he’s a person of influence.  So I have 14 days to come up with the perfect pitch and make my script Oscar-worthy.  I’ve known about this meeting for quite some time, but I do my best work in full panic mode.  In college, I would chug a 2-liter bottle of Diet Mountain Dew and crack open my textbook 24 hours before every exam, and I graduated summa cum laude.

Of course, waiting until the last minute with creative endeavors is a bit more risky.  Believe it or not, I do go through periods where I’m just not feeling very witty.  I’ll keep re-writing the same line of dialogue and asking my husband if it’s funny, and he’ll keep saying, “No!”  My husband is brutally honest and has a real knack for ignoring my feelings.  Sure, it's helpful and improves my writing, but sometimes I just wish he would lie.

Whenever I feel discouraged, I call my mother.  I could read her the worst thing I’ve ever written, and she’d praise me for hours.  I have no idea if she actually enjoys my writing, because she’s so damn convincing.  I myself am more like my husband.  Our kids will always know when they suck at something.

Maybe I should send my mother to my pitch meeting, pretending to be me!  She can sell me better than I can sell myself.  I can hear her now, "This is the funniest script EVER WRITTEN!"  How could he possibly argue with that?

1 comment:

  1. I guess all writers do come at a humor or a writer's block at some points through out their lives, I know the feeling when there is the "Big Speech" tomorrow and you are struggling to write the open paragraphs even though you have an idea where to take it next, it can be really frustrating.

    Regards,
    David Miller

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