It's Late and I'm Still Writin'

I went to sleep too late tonight,
I have more drafts to write.
Telling stories about the ones I've known,
Tellin' yall bout the seeds unsown.

Life ain't nothin but doing what you can,
takes too long to see the short span.
I've tried and tried to make it worthwhile,
Nowadays, it seems there's too many forced smiles.

I'll end it much quicker if I know you got the message,
Hope you don't need liquor to receive this last vestige.
The knowledge I write comes from pain-earned experience,
But still keep a sharp eye when you do your due diligence.

Stream of Consciousness Poem 9-25-13

I'm here and I can't move
I've lost so much
Don't know how to reclaim it all
Pulled in two to three to four different directions
Trying hard just to float
Can't pay the bill
Love life monotonous
Success fleeting
Don't know what I fight for anymore
Don't know what makes me smile
What is it I really want
Used to know, could give an answer.

Hope is whatever,
No longer feel clever,
People dying all around me,
Trying to sleep soundly,
Can't see outside of the muck,
I feel stuck.
Can't get out of this mess,
got some serious shit to address,
Coming up on a life crisis,
Want to quit but don't know what the price is,
How can I support a family,
Can't even carry me.

Want to write something uplifting
Don't think that's gonna happen
Haven't written a poem in a while
And this is all I can come up with
Defcon two
Time to panic?
Probably should just meditate or pray
Do I still know how to do that?
Talent wasted
The path leads to a dead end
It was all a search for truth
Honesty hurts.

1-10-13

Not too much to report today... I worked a double at the restaurant, so this is the first that I've been able to write all day. I just got finished reading a pilot from one of my writing partners about young folk living in LA. It seems pretty good, and I can't wait to put my mark on it, but I have to wake up early for the internship tomorrow. I'll get started on the rewrite for the pilot after work, and I'll come up with something interesting to say on this blog as well.

Before I go, I would like to say that I was able to find a GREAT 24 hour coffee shop in Santa Monica, minutes away from my job. I came here tonight right after work, and I love it! It's called 212 Pier- I just wish i had known about it when I was still living in Santa Monica.

212 Pier - Isn't it beautiful?


Something about writing in Starbucks and Coffee Bean just doesn't feel right. It's like writing in a McDonald's- not the most inspirational environment for a sensory-aware writer like myself. I can read in those places, but being creative there feels icky and corporate. Next time I want to write a formulaic romantic comedy, (re: never) I'll write there. Here, there's art on the walls, and books everywhere. I'm adding it to my list of go-to coffee shops, along with the Bourgeoisie Pig in Hollywood, Cafe Insomnia in Miracle Mile. Urth Caffe and Cafe Intelligentsia are coffee shops that I love as well, but they are better served for holding meetings. I can actually create here. I can't wait to see what's in store... I'm gonna go home now and finish Midnight in Paris, and try to get some more dreaming done.

See you tomorrow,

PDubs

Born Again

Something happened today. I don't really know where it started, but in the beginning of the day, before the sun rose, before I could hear the sounds of those around me waking to the new morning, I was reading. I was reading a manuscript- a young adult sci-fi novel that I was determined to finish today, on my first day back at my internship at the literary management company that I work for. The holiday season had just just ended, and I was recovering from the two week break that is customary for most companies in Hollywood. I had initially prepared to spend most of the break by working more, sleeping, and reading, so I asked for extra work to take home my last day in the office- how ambitious of me. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the break would consist of more sleep, and more work at the restaurant, but also very little reading, and a good helping of drunken debauchery, presumably excused by my subconscious as a tool to generate more writing material; however, after this last time in beautiful Nevada, I am quite determined that next time, I will simply use my imagination for story ideas. I would much rather do that than be forced to recover from the physical and emotional bruises incurred on the trip. But I digress.

I finished reading the manuscript later in the afternoon- it was a good story. I thoroughly enjoyed its futuristic tale with a strong feminine lead, but as a guy, I would have liked more action. In any case, it wasn't just this book that had me feeling differently today. I do remember that my co-workers were telling me that I could go home by the time 6 pm rolled around. While they usually stay until 6:30 or 7, they are being paid for it, so why was I still there? I was in the zone, I told them. I felt compelled to finish the coverage on the book I had read, and I was going to finish it right there in that office, and not risk losing my momentum by stopping halfway, and continuing my report at the cafe down the street. Still, this was not abnormal behavior. I've done it once or twice before, and never felt weird about it, so this feeling must have been coming from somewhere else.

I came home and watched a documentary on Lenny Bruce that I had borrowed from the library. I'm not a comedian, but after watching the film, I felt much empathy for the plight of this man, who seemed to have a cursed penchant for telling the truth. It was a tragic story, but I did appreciate the man for what he was trying to do. Yet, this still wasn't it... Wait, it might be coming back to me. Earlier in the day, I had been doing personality quizzes to find out what type of writer I am. A few of the quizzes were okay, and some were arbitrary, but one of the quizzes told me that I was Ernest Hemingway-like, in that i preferred to write in a fashion that gets straight to the point, unlike William Faulkner, (whom I also respect) who had a liking for those ten thousand dollar words. I know that this had something to do with it, because I was reminded of how much I loved the movie Midnight in Paris, a film in which Hemingway has a great role.

I threw on the movie and enjoyed every minute of it again, having seen it only once before. Hemingway did say some inspirational things, but it wasn't just him. I believe it was seeing the manifestations of all these great writers on screen being romanticized (along with the city of Paris, which I also desperately miss) in the way that only Woody Allen can do. It led me to my old bookshelf where I found all the great novels I was forced to read as a kid- A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, and of course, The Catcher in the Rye, which was the single most influential book in creating a desire in me to write. But it wasn't the Catcher in the Rye that influenced me this time. I didn't even take it off the shelf. Along with the aforementioned classics, I discovered a book that I believe I bought in college, or may have been a present- I honestly can't remember- called Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. If you grew up in my time, you'll know it as part of the book series that became immensely popular in the early 2000's, to the point where I am sure there is probably a Chicken Soup for the Iron Welder's soul by now. Anyway, this book basically has these short stories that are meant to inspire and uplift, and it's a wonder that I didn't find it earlier than I did, as I have been searching high and low for inspiration recently, and it never occurred to me to look at the book before that moment- I haven't read it in years.

In the book, I read a story by Ray Bradbury that really hit me, about writing every day and loving it, about being mad and not caring, about being a fool, and doing it anyway. it was stories like this, and other stories, including one about a businesswoman diagnosed with breast cancer in her 40's, who started to write comic strips about cancer. It was unbelievable- I got chills down my spine and through my entire body, because it was like they knew exactly what I needed to hear, before I even heard it. There were these stories of real people, people who existed, some of them who are still with us, and others who are not, but all of whom are like me... They're not all unapproachable, pretentious geniuses that were given divine inspiration to craft their stories onto tablets of stone, they were people who had a strong desire to tell stories.

I know I'll never be Hemingway. He wrote a Farewell to Arms at thirty, and while I'm not quite there yet, all I have are a few short screenplays and some unfinished treatments. But that's what I realize now- it doesn't matter. All of them started with a blank canvas. Like Hemingway says in the movie, there is no reason to fear death, all men who have lived before us did it, and all men will continue to do it when we are gone. Well not everyone writes, but those great writers did. They did not fear it- they wrote even when they thought the result would be terrible, or even though it might not be well received, they wrote anyway. I see that now. When I was a youngster reading Salinger, it was only the beginning of the desire, but it's the actual writing and re-writing, and editing, and throwing away, and writing again that makes you a real writer- not the dream of being a writer, or just sitting around thinking about it, or telling people at cocktail parties that's what you do. It's the not going out when your friends want you to. It's the not caring about the latest box score of the last pro basketball game, and it most definitely is not the worrying about which pretty girl you will have on your arm on Friday night. It is a calling. I do not expect non-writers to understand. Because before today, I did not understand. To be honest, most of me saw writing as a way to get myself into a higher social class, or as a way to keep myself from being bored when there's no acting work to be had. I feel that it is a shame that I called myself a writer prior to this day, because I did not write for the right reasons, and that's why I had problems finishing stories. I wrote not to inform, not to entertain, not to enlighten, not to teach, but as a means to an end- as a simple respite from boredom, or a frivolous scheme to make more money than I already do now.

I have been tempted on many sides recently, and as I get closer to the the prime of my life, I have begun to question myself almost everyday, why did I want to become an actor? It's much easier to choose as a career when you don't have to actually make a living from it. It's a lot harder when you have bills to pay, and you can't get any work. In the documentary, they asked Lenny why he did what he did, and he said simply that it was fun. It wasn't about the money. That's how I feel about it too, but my problem with acting is that I rarely ever get to do it- let alone be compensated for it. Being who I am today, I have a problem with that. As a result, I finally understand the place that writing has in my life. Nobody can stop me from doing it. If they steal my computer, I'll write in a notebook. If they steal my notebook, I'll use a tape recorder. If they break my tape recorder, right along with my hands, I'll get someone to dictate for me. They can stop me from acting, but they cannot stop me from writing. That's what I've been too blind to really understand before today. Honestly, it may have been something I've even said before; but with an idea so simple, it's almost like rote memorization. When you study, you can memorize nearly anything by heart, but it takes actual application and practice to understand what you're learning, and why.

After all these years of telling others exactly who I am, it has come full circle, and I've finally convinced myself. I believe.


I'm a writer.

I will dream well tonight.