The notes and the fear and the reality

It's approximately noon on Wednesday, November 20th. In less than three weeks, just 19 days from now, something kinda cool is happening. The theater has been booked. There are marketing materials and posters being created. There is planning and organizing and...well, a lot is happening. And yet?

I sit here. Behind my desk. Scared to death.

It's true. On Tuesday, December 10th, there will be a staged reading of my sitcom pilot on stage at a real theater I've been to before. This is exciting! Yes! Exciting! But also...

Terrifying.

I'm not sure if this is how professional athletes feel before a big try out or actors before a big audition or doctors before taking their boards or anything like that. But for me? I'm scared. And I guess that's good because nothing can motivate the fear out of me more than a deadline. Especially such a specific one.

And I'm trying hard not to be scared but I'm not sure if I need to. I've been working really hard for a long time to get to this point, which really, frankly, isn't even that much of a point really (I cannot imagine the terror that will set in my first day in a writer's room on staff). And I think it's okay if I'm scared. I think it means it's real. And this is real. This is so real that the picture above is just a small sampling of the notes I received yesterday and last month from several writing consultants who've been paid to help me write a better script.

Yep, that's four pages of single spaced, page specific, notes. And not the kind that say, aww, cute! Or haha, funny! Nope, the kind that say, you need more verbal jokes on page one and who orders vermouth neat? The kind that are really, really, really good notes but are all notes, all of them, that need to be addressed. In the next 19 days. By me. Just me.

A few weeks ago when we were in the midst of figuring out this reading Sonora, the wonderful and lovely producer, called me up and said, I'm going to send your script to so and so, she's a joke doctor (or a comedy consultant or whatever they're called today). On the outside I was all, awesome, cool, we've talked about adding more funny. Who doesn't want more funny? Awesome, cool.

But on the inside?

As I pressed the end call button on my phone, tears welled up in my eyes. Maybe I'm not as funny as I think. Maybe I can't do this. Maybe a million things. Terror. Fear. Heartbreak.

But then? Then I sat back and thought about it. (The tears never actually fell it took that long to change directions in my mind.) Sonora wants to pay someone to help me be better? That really is awesome. No one else's name will be on the script. It's mine. I created it. For better or worse. And people are out there, people as in plural, who want to see me succeed, want this script to get bought or made or optioned or whatever. And that's cool. Very cool.

So I took a moment and continued on with my job. The only thing I can control. The words on the page. And then? Flashforward to today.

The notes. The pages and pages of notes. The big notes. The small notes. The really good notes. The frustrating notes. (Why can't people read my brain?!?!) The notes.

I've been thinking about them since my meeting ended at one-thirty yesterday. They sit there, on my desk, staring at me. Yesterday I had to come home, log into school for a while, then go to a fundraiser with Angela, then hit the grocery store, make muffins and honestly, I didn't make it through New Girl last night. I was sound asleep before 10pm. So the notes sat alone.

Then this morning? I had to exercise. I had to talk to my mom. I had to cook chicken for dinner and answer the door when the mail lady threw a package against it. I had to Instagram a picture I took last night and check Twitter and read a few bookmarked articles. I had to finish the last chapter of the novel I was reading and oh yeah, grade a stack of papers my students turned in.

Did I have to do all of that? Hell no.

Do I wish there was more on my to-do list to take up my time this afternoon? Hell yes.

But alas, there's not. It's just me and the notes and the screen.

Cut pages.

Add jokes.

Clarify.

Sharpen.

Add more.

There's nothing to it. Right? Right? Right. Here goes nothing...