After a few years of very productive screenwriting work, I have come to a crossroads. Just like I mentioned in my last post. For two decades, I have balanced my writing with working a full-time job. There has been a balance that I have been able to keep. However, I have neither become rich nor have I been able to support myself as a writer. And this last year I, like so many others during the pandemic, have come to realize my own mortality.
Things have changed.
I have had this routine for the past two decades, but have come to realize with age that this may no longer be in my best interest. I am no longer sure that I can carry on working full-time and writing in my free time. While I am certainly due a long vacation, and that might sort out my current state of mind, it may not be all that I need at this moment.
Over the past few years, I have been giving updates on my ever-changing writing plans. The only reason they have changed is because of my lack of time to complete them. I am currently sitting on 5-6 writing projects that are all in different phases.
Each decade, I create new writing plans in line with my turning another ten years older: Movie Screenplays, TV Series, Mini-Series, Novellas, Short-Stories, Novels, & Novel Series.
I am two years out from the end of another decade and it has me realizing that I may be in for a sprint to the finish to try and complete what I have planned -- even though I have been making that plan easier and easier the past few years. I have been minimizing the amount of literary work and focused mainly on screenplays. Not that writing a screenplay is easy, but compared to a 300-page novel a screenplay is a far less time-consuming endeavor.
My ideal scenario has me working full-time writing screenplays while moonlighting as a novelist. I cannot do that right now as I have not done enough as far as the business side of being a writer to put myself in that situation, but a guy can still dream in this country, right? Right?
However, I am trying to buy myself at least six months of time to put myself on the path towards this ideal scenario. I would certainly prefer a year or more, because six months may only reset my batteries and not correct my path, but that may not be financially possible. But a six-month investment in myself and what I hope can be my career as a writer is desperately needed.
If I can pull this off it will not be all writing all the time. I will need to focus on the business of writing while also putting together the writing packages for a presentation to others. And maybe I can complete one new pilot script while pitching and querying.
This is not like 2005 when I took a year off and cranked out six of my favorite scripts of all time. I was creatively on fire at the time and had to get things on the page. While that fire still burns and I would love to try and get another six scripts written over the next 12 months, I am sitting on dozens of scripts, some of which have to be rewritten because they are from a different era while others are relevant and need to be shared ASAP.
I have never been the type to put the business of writing first, but I have put plenty of time into querying and pitching others over the years. Given a choice, I would keep writing non-stop, but I cannot afford to do that. However, do be on the lookout for my Kindle Vella series In the Wake of Newton. It is a historical fiction piece set in the time after Issac Newton passed away and delves into the results of his life-long interest in alchemy, and what he was able to create through that work. It is the origin story for a thrilling novel I will be releasing in the next few years.
The time has come for a proper attempt to make my long-dreamt of scenario a reality. It will take a lot of non-writing work this summer, but I am hopeful that by the time I am done I will have accomplished what I need to do to afford myself those six months I desperately need to correct the course of my writing future and create a new path forward. I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck.
