THE METEOR/BABY SHOWER OF WRITING

The hardest part of being a writer is the juggling of self-sharpened blades as I try to navigate my blindfolded way towards the balance between fantasy and reality.

Spoiler alert: there will be blood.

Some days it is an effortless act and nary a bandaid is required.

But on other days, it’s like my inner director keeps yelling, “cut!” and that is exactly what I do.  Repeatedly.

No writer likes to cut anything, but in the college of the mind, it is a required course towards earning the degree of the completed draft.

Okay, that is the rather brutal, medieval version of what I do 

Let’s look at it through, well, a different kind of lens.

The development of a first draft script is like the three trimesters of pregnancy.    

First comes the idea of birthing something which inevitably leads to its conception.   

I am ready to write the birth of a notion.

Once I have been impregnated with the seeds of an idea, the future seems bright and boundless.  I can easily envision my baby growing up happy and healthy, en route to becoming a pink or blue God who walks amongst men.

That is around the time that nausea sets in and fear and apprehension become my co-parents.   What if this ends badly?   What if the baby comes out deformed or challenged?  What if it inherits all of my worst traits which will be on full display for the entire world to judge?  What if I’m not good enough to be a capable parent?

I momentarily flirt with abortion, but the problem is I am already in love with my script.  I can feel it kick in my fantasy belly.

It is a living thing,  totally dependent on me to nurture it to full term.

The second trimester begins, the throwing up disappears and this is when I begin to settle into the idea that I am way beyond a simple commitment. so why not indulge myself? 

The nesting instinct kicks in big time and I go to town, consuming ideas like desserts with unbridled enthusiasm and trying on and buying all kinds of new outfits to accommodate my new ever expaninding frame of mind.   

The future is no longer a threat and I feel optimistic and blessed.   

By the third trimester the script is bloated, my back is killing me, I have had enough of this writing condition and I just want to give birth already.  

All kind of outsized doubts return, bombarding me like a meteor/baby shower.

I want it OUT of me, but I am scared to death of what it will look like.

And then the nesting instinct suddenly goes into hyperdrive, driven by significant contractions or as they call them in LA: aftershocks.

It is FINALLY time to write FADE OUT.

And in a matter of hours, the baby is in my arms.

It is unimaginably real, and I am overwhelmed with a profound sense of love that I have never experience before.

I no longer walk.

I levitate.

Over the next few weeks, as I slowly feather down to earth, I start to deal with the fact that fantasy has now become a soft clay reality which, by sheer instinct, I begin to sculpt.   As I round the clock begin to edit and shape and mother/father feed the script, there are moments when I confuse exhaustion with actual. accomplishment

But no matter how beaten down you feel, you push on.    You feel a whole new level of responsibility.

The script has become the California Gold Rush, you are behind the reins of your wobbly wheeled frontier wagon, expecting at any moment, for the Indians to circle you and burn your script to the ground.

But while the journey to the end is arduous, full of unexpected complications and hazards, you finally reach your point of destination, kick off your shoes and let the ocean breezes flow and soothe over your body like an Esalan massage.

You did it.

You have achieved the highest level of grown upness virtually unscathed.

Kudos to you.

You have made it.

You are on your way.

You are far more stronger and capable than you ever thought possible.

And so you ship your baby to Hollywood and strut around town like a paint can swinging John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.”

And then you wait to see if your kid has been accepted into the schools that you care the most about.

You feel the heat of the competition.

There are just so many seats.

As days become weeks, weeks become months, despite your manager’s cheerleader level of enthusiasm, you begin to doubt yourself again.

You Tito your nerves.  Drink too much.  And then...shit:

A totally unplanned new idea is conceived.

You think about aborting it.

But damn, you just love it too much to terminate the idea.

So you take a deep breath...

And start all over again, ready to work on a sibling for your baby that is somewhere out in the world.