What's Next?

You think I know what's next?! Hah!

On this past Saturday, Angela and I got home around 4:30pm. We'd both had acupuncture treatments in the morning and then headed off on an unexpected trip to Urgent Care. (Angela's foot is fine, it is not broken. It is still swollen. The very kind Cedars doctor did not know what was causing it. She has prescriptions and directives and medicine and herbs and a recommendation for a podiatrist.) We had missed another appointment and had finally had a quickie lunch about 3pm. It had been an exhaustive day, mostly mentally, a little emotionally, and we knew we had to head out again in less than 90 minutes. It was 95 degrees in our house and we both collapsed onto the bed in Angela's bedroom with the AC blaring. She looked at me and asked, in her little sister voice, "Can we watch West Wing?"

She let me pick the episode. I'm a completist and so I started back at the beginning, with the pilot. Though trust me when I say I can quote just about any episode along with the actors in the show (at least for the first four seasons, don't get me started on the seasons after that, I've already jumped into that conversation once this week). We watched the episode and it was like a salve on our day. There were no phones to distract us, no closing of the eyes to keep us away, we just watched. We watched the show that we've seen dozens of times. And at the end of it, when Martin Sheen's character, the President of the United States, says, "What's next?" I felt my soul stir.

On any given day I know what's next. Lunch, dinner, laundry, appointments, even social media postings. I have a pretty good grip on this organized life I lead. I like things in their place, I like looking at the calendar and seeing what's to come, I like knowing what the plan is. That doesn't mean I won't go with the flow, chuck it all to have an adventure, or have ice cream for dinner, but I do like a certain sense of control.

And last February I lost some of that control, in a professional sense.

I'd just finished an almost two year project, making my web series THE COUCH. In that time period I'd also written other things, including brand new drafts of two pilots and a feature film script. I'd started another feature film script and done a lot of other very cool things (i.e., shadowing the director Rocky Carroll on the set of NCIS). And I had announced that I was going to direct my first feature film, a film I'd written. Things were going pretty well in my little corner of the world. I felt like I finally had figured out the beginners' Hollywood game, just for a moment or two. I'd won a couple of awards, we'd had not one but two premieres of my web series, and people could finally see something I had written, on a screen, just as I'd imagined they'd get to see it one day.

But then along came February. And even though I knew it was coming, it was still really hard. My producing partner and I decided to split up. We were not a good fit anymore and we both knew this. We had a very cordial meeting on a rainy Wednesday afternoon and afterwards I'd felt the sense of lightness, the release, I knew so well. I knew this needed to happen. It didn't make the conversation or the emotional experience any easier. But the next day, when I sat down at my computer to write, I knew I was servicing only the story and myself. And that's the way it needed to be.

I spent the spring getting pilots ready to be sent around town. I worked on a feature film script that's been nagging at me for a while now, and now we're here. And once again, I had no idea what's next.

It's not a new feeling for me. It's not a great feeling for me. But it's not an unexpected or an unwelcome feeling either. Since moving to Los Angeles over 11 years ago, I've never known what's next. I've never known what the next job will be (the life of a professor with just a simple master's degree who works on a one-class contractual basis). I've never known what the next email will bring (maybe it'll be a producer who's looking for my script or a writing partner who has feedback). I've never known what the next thing will look like (had you asked me prior to THE COUCH, I would have said, nah, I'm not interested in making a web series).

Is this any way to live, you might ask? (And folks have!) Well, it's the only way, for now. Being an artist, a writer, I have to forge my own path. I have to figure out how to do this thing called writing. Called filmmaking. Called life. There's absolutely no blueprint. There's no college then professional program then residency then blah blah blah. Oh, Lord, how I wish there was. There's no one saying well if you work in an agency, and ready 1804 scripts, and write 932 pages, you'll get staffed on a TV show. There's no one saying well if you keep teaching, and write seven pages per night after grading middle school essays for three hours, every night for fourteen years, you'll get to join the union after selling your first feature. It just doesn't work that way. Oh, if it did...

And so I'm left right now, today, asking myself, asking the universe, what's next. Do I have a plan? A little one. A sketch so faint in my mind I only think about it in fleeting moments when I'm about to go do something else so it doesn't scare me too much. Because when it's all on you, when you're back to being just you in the partnership, it's terrifying. At least in this business. In this life.

Will I still direct LOVE AND EMBALMING FLUID? (click on the title and read it right now!) Well, that's one of those faint sketches that terrifies me. Maybe is the answer right now. If I'm in the room with other filmmakers at some event, holding that oh too expensive glass of crappy white wine, the answer is a strong YES! Of course! But when I am sitting here at my desk, in my rented house, I think THAT IS RIDICULOUS. Do you know how much money it costs to make a movie? Even a little tiny movie? You'd have to do a Kickstarter. And you don't want to. You'd have to empty your little tiny savings account. And you don't want to. You'd have to put yourself out there in such a scary scary way. And you don't want to. But maybe I will. Maybe I will one day soon. We'll see. Right now, I'll push that thought that's barely even a thought really far back in my brain. Where it's safe and only a little frightening.

Will I keep writing? Now that has a definitive answer. YES. A MILLION TIMES YES. I haven't stopped. Yes, there have been breaks. I've spent a lot of time in Michigan this year. (Will my voter registration be there in 2020? Maybe! she kids!) But I've also spent a lot of time working on projects I'm really really passionate about. I revamped my entire female Navy SEALs pilot BLACK SQUADRON (click on the title and read it right now!) and I love it. I want to see it made by amazing women. And just yesterday I finished the first full draft of a feature film script tentatively titled HALF OVER. (you cannot click on this one, no one has read it yet except Tami, not even Angela! It's got a WAYS to go before it's fit for public consumption!) It's about a woman who gets to the half way point in life and has some decisions to make. Hmmmm...where does she get her inspiration, one wonders?! And this afternoon I'll get to work rewriting it already, because I really really love this story and can't wait for others to read it. And I have a plan for putting it out into the world. I'm excited to try the plan out. I can't promise it'll work but I'll try my best.

So, what's next, eh? Well, we'll see. We don't know. I don't know. None of us knows. And that's terrifying. And exhilarating. And so I'm gonna hold onto that part, because it keeps me going.