I have eliminated 40% of my credit card debt since November. I can be justly proud of this, but there is a long way to go, and it does bother me that if nothing breaks in the Hollywood side of things, I could easily be at this inglorious day job another year-and-a-half.
And, in the spirit of the old saying that the furthest you can go into a forest is halfway, I think there’s a special fatigue and despair that sits at around 30-40% of a task. Nothing worth doing won’t have asked a lot of you by that point, your initial momentum is spent, and you are a long way from getting that boost from the sense that the end is near.
I haven’t finished a major writing project in a year-and-a-half, and I am sure that contributes to my overall restlessness and dissatisfaction. I am fighting a strong impulse to go audition for a local production of The Odd Couple tonight, just because the desire to feel like I’m working on something TANGIBLE is so strong in me right now, and I would feel it more potently if I were working with others rather than alone with my keyboard every night. The waitresses at Rockin’ Crepes not only recognize me, they remember my favorite dessert crepe (The “Skid Row” – Chocolate and Marshmallow). And that’s delightful, but it’s not like they’re actually helping me tow this boat. A team effort sounds awfully satisfying.
But even if I auditioned and actually got cast, a six-week rehearsal schedule for a play would effectively eat all my writing time; of which I have precious little already. I don’t know if I can justify that to the guy paying me to work on this novel, even if he has never complained about my rate of progress so far.
Progress: I turned in a new chapter on Thursday, and have now completed just over 29,000 words. I’m aiming for a first draft of about 75,000 words. So that puts me at about 40% done. The screenplay Adam and I started has 33 pages out of hopefully 100-105 – about 30% done. That sci-fi screenplay I’m dusting off has 42 pages out of 100-105 – about 40% done. Ghost Light and the ultra-low-budget idea Adam and I want to write are both about 10% done.
I think we’re seeing the answer here. The major projects on which I am furthest along are nonetheless all in the stage where I have to supply all the momentum. So not only do I think about how long it has been since I finished something big; I have to recognize how long it is going to be UNTIL I finish something big. That’s onerous enough with one major project – to feel it from three simultaneously is plain cruel.
The usual tactic at this point is to pick one thing, put all my energy into it for a time, and see if I can can drag it to where it takes on some energy of its own. I’d like it to be a screenplay, but I keep deferring to the novel, because this nice man is paying me. I have never written a novel before, and we are now at the point where it is longer than any script I have ever written – and thus, longer than ANYTHING I have ever written. So we are truly in uncharted territory. This makes the work scarier and slower.
There’s no easy answer really. Like Tom Waits says, you gotta get behind the mule.