Shouting into the Wind Saying my piece in a windy world.

I had a lot planned today.  Laundry to do, check to deposit, dishes in the dishwasher to unload, new ones to shove in, my fancy new wine glasses to meticulously hand wash because I refuse to put them in the dishwasher, and of course, there is the writing — the ‘work on my pilot rewrite’ writing or the ‘rework the first act of new pilot’ writing or even the ‘hash out an outline for this feature spec’ writing… but I’ve put it all aside right at this moment, because right now, there is nothing I want to do more than talk to you about something.

It’s something I’ve put off a very long time, in part, because I fear that talking about it may not make any difference, and could in fact make things worse.  It’s been on my mind all morning, because it is every morning. And every afternoon. And every night.  Since I’m not male, you probably surmise I’m not thinking about sex all the time, so you can stand down from worrying if this is an X-rated post.

I want to talk to you about the Dark Cloud.

The dark cloud has been with me as long as I can remember.  I refer to it as the ‘dark cloud’ because of a specific poem I wrote when I was a kid, all imagery of scary darkness and frightening forests and anger and pain.  The dark cloud loomed over all of that other stuff, as it does in my real life.  The dark cloud has descended upon me so often in my life and when it does its effects are devastating — relationships destroyed, personal health and happiness abandoned, apathy and hopelessness conquering all else.

My “dark cloud” is clinical depression.

I was diagnosed officially in 2000, but it has been with me all my life.  There’s no abuse, no divorce, no tragedy that I can point to that has impacted my ability to be happy as an adult.  All I have to look to is myself and this constant feeling of inadequacy, of failure and ennui.  I had been functioning with it for many years, but it wasn’t until I headed down a very dark spiral in 2000 that a friend of mine finally alerted me to the fact I needed to get professional help.

“I can’t help you with this anymore.  I think you need to find someone who can.”

Those were the words that set me down the path of getting help and learning that admitting I needed help wasn’t itself a failure — it was a first step toward happiness.  So, I called up the “behavioral health” (I love that euphemism) coverage provider for my then-job in Orlando and got a referral and an appointment to be assessed.  It didn’t take much for them to figure out I was clinically depressed.  From there I was assigned a therapist and not long after I was prescribed medication.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had control.

Over the next ten years, I would go through fits and starts of mental health.  Most of the time, I’d be functioning incredibly well, and handling depression became easier.  There was a brief time after my initial move to Los Angeles in 2003 that I had to deal with finding a new therapist and getting a new prescription, but I didn’t let my mental health progress lapse for more than two or three months.  Even after I was laid off from my job in 2009 I had built up enough coping mechanisms and good mental health practices that I still looked to the huge question mark of my future with optimism — being laid off was an opportunity to pursue my true dreams!  For the year following my lay off I certainly saw my therapist more (which really, this was probably my 8th or 9th therapist. There’s always been a revolving door there, but that’s the nature of things) and handled my new situation pretty well.  Even when relationships fell apart I weathered the storm with little damage.

Then my COBRA coverage ended.  My supply of anti-depressants dried up.  For awhile I was actually happy to get off my medication;  I eased myself off by ratcheting down the dose from the supply I had available once I no longer had any refills remaining.  It felt liberating — I had been chained to a drug every day of my life for 10 years — why wouldn’t I want to try to break free of that?  I had also read extensively about the school of thought that drugs weren’t really the answer for everyone.  I had always hoped that the drugs would be a temporary arrangement anyway, so moving myself off of them seemed like a good arrangement.

The trouble with having depression is that it is a sneaky bastard of a condition (I refuse to call it a ‘disease’) — very often I don’t recognize the signs that I am in a downward spiral until I’m circling the drain, about to fall in.  I’ll go days and weeks saying ‘I’m fine’ when I am very clearly not fine.  In fact, I sometimes even used this system to my advantage.  I figured as long as nobody noticed I wasn’t fine, then there was nothing really to worry about.  I never actually start worrying until I hear this from someone who is very close to me (family member, inner circle friend):

“Hey, are you okay? I mean, really okay?”

That’s when I know I’m not pulling one over on anyone anymore.

A few months ago I discovered a lost cache of anti-depressants in my bathroom.  I debated with myself for a month whether to take them, as they were an older prescription, one I had before my medication had been switched up when it had lost efficacy.  Of course now that I wasn’t taking anything, it seemed like they might work again.  Also, now that I was paying for my own health insurance, I reasoned I could start with these, and if they helped, I could ask my doctor to write me a prescription (I can’t actually see a therapist or a psychiatrist under this health plan — the cost for that is prohibitively expensive).  So I gave them a shot.  Usually it takes about four weeks to notice any change from the medication, but I noticed improvement within 2 weeks, and that was on half the dosage I had (I scored the pills).  After about 40 days, I noticed I only had about a week or so of pills left, so I called my doctor to arrange for a prescription…

…it never got called in.

Now at this point, I should have called my doctor back, asking why, but the dark cloud has a way of causing self-defeat.  I never called her back.  My self-defeating brain told me that if it didn’t get called in, ‘it was because she couldn’t authorize the prescription, which would mean I couldn’t have it, and what’s the point of raising a fuss about something when there’s nothing that can be done about it…’

We all have self-talk.  Those moments when you have to psych yourself up to do something or when you tell yourself you can’t do something… that’s self-talk.  Mine is nonstop.  Seriously, my self-talk is a chatty Cathy, and it never shuts up.  If the medication does anything, it shuts up my negative self-talk or at least mutes it so I can function in my life.

My self-talk sounds like this: “I don’t know why you bother with this script.  You’ve been working on it for months and it isn’t getting any better.  No one loves it — you’ve not gotten a single note raving about it.  If they’re all so critical of it, it must be bad, so you should probably just quit working on it.  Besides, it’s not like you’ve written anything else that’s good.  If you had, you’d be doing so much better by now, you might even have an agent.  But then, that’s you — you can’t finish anything; you still have a book to read that you started a year ago.  Oh and don’t try to counter me by bringing up the ‘Mars’ thing — you’re just piggybacking on someone else’s talent for that project and you know it.  Your sister is a better writer than you and she’s been doing this half as long as you have.  You know what else? She’s prettier than you are.  She’s pretty and younger and more talented.  She writes with you out of pity because she feels guilty that you aren’t capable of having your own career.  She’s also more well-adjusted and has better relationships than you do because you are an introverted freak who can’t keep a relationship going.  Everyone knows you are the quiet and less talented sister — that’s why she’s so popular and you aren’t.  You hide in your room and refuse to wear makeup or go out (and let’s not even get started about how fat you are) so of course you are social kryptonite on the scale of Gollum.  You look a lot like Gollum actually.  Perhaps you should live in a dark cave, or perhaps, you shouldn’t live at all…

Yep.  That’s self-talk.  It’s horrible.  Believe me, it was effortless to write that, because most of that stuff runs through my head at some point, and it all usually ends up in the same place “perhaps you shouldn’t live at all…”

Believe me, I’m too much of a coward to ever actually kill myself (I really hate pain), but the self-talk plants this constant refrain in my head — that I’m worthless, I’m talentless, I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’m old, I’m past my prime, that everyone around me is better, that I’m kidding myself, that all I do is for naught.  There have been more nights than I can count where I have gone to bed fantasizing of never waking up again — and that’s a comforting thought that allows me to fall asleep.  THAT SHOULD NOT BE.

Why am I posting about this, publicly? And why now?

Because last night was another one of those nights — where I lulled myself to sleep by thinking about it being my last night alive — that maybe I’d just die in my sleep and the pain would be over.

Because this morning I woke up from a dream where someone said “I can’t help you anymore.  I think you should find someone who can.”

Because I decided I was done with living in pain, but dying wasn’t the answer.  I did this pain for years before my first step, and it got me nowhere.  Revisiting the pain doesn’t help anything, and it certainly doesn’t make me happy.

Because I really don’t want other people to suffer as I have suffered.  If some person reads this, who has never sought help for their depression and sees a reflection of him or herself here and decides they don’t want to live like this anymore, then it will have all been worth it.

This is the scariest thing I’ve ever written on my blog.  It’s more terrifying than when I wrote about career success or failure, or putting my creative work on display.  It’s scary because THIS IS ME.  This is who I am, this is what I live with.  Every day.  For the last two years I’ve let the dark cloud rule my life, and I’m not letting that happen anymore.  Today I’m taking back control.

I will probably never get the dark cloud out of my life, but I can certainly push it far enough away it doesn’t interfere with my ability to live my life.  I also figure that most of my friends already suspected I was a ‘brooding artist’ type — but I don’t want to be the artist who suffers for their art and then dies for it.  Also, brooding is really not fun.  I miss my friends.  I miss you.  I miss living my life and never regretting it, even when I make mistakes or take wrong turns.

I don’t ask for people to walk on eggshells or treat me as a fragile porcelain doll.  I know my true friends will just nod their heads and tell me to get on with it already with a virtual slap on the ass to get back in the game.  They won’t tell me to stop whining or mock me for my admission — they’ll just quietly support.  That’s all I want.  You don’t need to post an ‘atta girl’ in my comments here — I’m not looking for that.  I don’t need that.  What I do need, is for people to be more conscious that someone they know may be in this kind of pain and needs help.  The last thing people suffering depression want to do is admit they need help.

I’ve asked for help once, so I know I can do it again.  I called my doctor today and asked for that refill…hours later, I got the call back.  The prescription is being called in now.

It’s a step I was ready to take and now that I have, I am going to work hard not to move back to where I’ve been the last few months.

Thanks for listening.

Posted under Uncategorized

This is a story about how I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World twice before it was released to theaters, and how I felt about the film each time.  This is also a story about the last year of my life.

WARNING – There are spoilers for the film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” in this post.  If you don’t want to be spoiled, come back after you’ve seen it to read.  I’m sure there won’t be much else here to read for a few days anyway, as I travel back to L.A. from Illinois…

In April, I was lucky enough to get grabbed by one of those random chances on the street – outside the Arclight theater my sister and I were asked if we’d like to see a film far in advance of its release.  This happens often in this town, of course, but this time we were amazed it was a film we actually were excited to see.  That is how I saw Scott Pilgrim the first time.

It was probably 80-85% done.  A lot of the effects were there but not all, and certainly there hadn’t been a lot of the final touchups in place.  It was still a work in progress, even if it was mostly finished.  I enjoyed that viewing thoroughly.  It’s interesting because at that point in my life I was identifying with the character Scott Pilgrim.

Last warning about spoilers…

So in April I felt I was Scott Pilgrim.  I had, in the last year, broken up with someone I got along with very well, but wasn’t quite right for me in other ways and was lured to a relationship with someone else.  That second relationship seemed to be full of spark and life, and I felt, finally, like I had found the right person to be with.

No, I didn’t have to fight seven evil exes, but the relationship was short-lived, and I was dumped.  It hurt a lot.  I am still very fond of him, and I know he is a really good guy, but as with most things, it was not meant to be.  So, when Scott Pilgrim was screened in April, it made perfect sense that he wouldn’t get Ramona and would end up with the person who he was best suited for, Knives, the girl he dumped to pursue Ramona.

This didn’t mean I was compelled to restart the older of the two relationships – I felt I had damaged it beyond repair anyway, but it did give me some hope, that perhaps the “right one” was still out there for me.  I really liked this ending and left the theater completely satisfied by the experience.

The next four months were pretty brutal for me personally.  I still wasn’t coping well with the loss of that dynamic relationship, the one I thought would be THE ONE.  I started the year ready to tackle the world, and within two weeks, the world had tackled and pinned me to the ground.  From January to August I flailed, occasionally getting up off the mat and walking away from the fight, only to find myself drawn back to it and landing flat on my back once more.

It was while I was struggling to move on with my life and embrace the opportunities in front of me, that I saw Scott Pilgrim a second time, this time at Grauman’s Chinese Theater for the premiere.  Again I enjoyed the film, but I noticed a strange shift in my perspective as I watched the film.  Instead of identifying with Scott, I suddenly found myself identifying with Knives.  Scott seemed like an ass, using, then throwing away various girls until Ramona, who he pursued while still dating Knives.  And then he dumped Knives, which, though the right thing to do, felt incredibly harsh.  I had, after all, been a girl recently dumped and still hoped against hope that he, my version of Scott, would come back to me.  This change in perspective had me anticipating the ending all the more, as I knew Scott would go back to Knives and the two of them would end up at the arcade happily playing video games together once more.

But that isn’t what happened.

As the final reel of the film unspooled, I started to realize that it was not the ending I had seen before.  Confused, I watched as Knives gave her blessing to Scott for him to go after Ramona and try their relationship again.  No!  This wasn’t the right ending!  Knives was supposed to get Scott!  And I’m Knives, which means I get the guy!  And Ramona hasn’t shown an ounce of love for Scott, where Knives very clearly was infatuated.  This was messing up everything!

I left the theater, upset about the change, certain that stupid test audience notes were responsible for this egregious mangling of the story.  It tainted my experience of the premiere somewhat, though I still had enormous fun at the party, I couldn’t quite shake the nagging thought from my mind: Knives got screwed.

In the week or two following the film I felt even more determined to try to get back what I had lost in that relationship, so I pursued harder, and found that I was pushing him further away.  The realization was devastating and I suffered a complete meltdown.  It was probably what needed to happen.  I needed to not just be pinned to the mat but punched in the face to get the point – THIS ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN.  My brain finally registered the reality.  Once I was told that my feelings were not reciprocated, and most likely wouldn’t be, there was no hope left.  Maybe I could finally move on.

The morning after that brutal yet honest assessment of things, I had a revelation.  I thought back to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World once more, pondering how this film could hold so much meaning for me.  I then realized that the new ending was the right one after all.  Knives was too young for Scott, and honestly deserved better than to be the afterthought girlfriend post-Ramona.  Scott did deserve a second chance with Ramona, without dealing with seven evil exes and Knives deserved to find someone who would treat her as the best thing in the world rather than a ‘good enough’ friend to pass time with.  Finally I was at peace with this ending, understanding that we don’t always get what we want (except Scott Pilgrim apparently).

It’s all very silly, I realize, but then, this is why we go to movies in the first place.  We watch them to be entertained, yes, but also to identify with characters, analyze the decisions they make and how those decisions would affect our own lives.  I will never blow up the Death Star, but like Luke Skywalker, I left my home to seek out a different sort of life than the one that stretched before me like the Tatooine desert.  We watch films to cheer us up, make us sad, provoke thought and shut off our brains.  The joy is in the discovery of what kind of film a new one will be for us, and whether we will return to it as a remedy in the future.  My sister and I watch “Sense and Sensibility” repeatedly, because it soothes us and brings us some comfort when we are feeling down about our lives.  We need only look to the Dashwood sisters to remind ourselves how much better positioned we are in our lives than they are in theirs, and that our futures are wide open to our own actions, and we are not limited in our options as the Dashwood women are based on the standards of the day.

So here I am, brushing myself off, rising steadily off the mat once more and walking away from this fight.  I’m not looking back anymore.  Sometimes it’s best to know when you are defeated and move on to the next challenge.  And the next challenge, while not a relationship, is something I will tackle with every ounce of my determination.

And someday I’ll find my own Scott Pilgrim, or Ramona, depending on the point of view.  Or maybe I won’t.  But that will be okay too.

Posted under analysis, randomness

Dear Mom,

I screwed up.  Seemingly every year this “holiday” sneaks up on me and I become “the bad daughter” for a day.  I didn’t send you a card or flowers or an edible arrangement.

Consider this my public apology and attempt to make amends.

Love,

Your Daughter (the mostly good one) Shawna

Folks, I know everyone’s mom is amazing.  But my mom is…amazinger.  Yeah, that’s right.  I used a non-word to describe how awesome my mom is.  She’s made of win.  And stardust.  And rainbows.

First, I’m sorry for what birthing me and my sister did to your body.  Because you were HOT.  I know, I shouldn’t think of my mom as ‘hot’, but look at her!

Hottie.

See?  To think that we ruined her for a lot of years…well, I understand the sacrifice.  So, thanks for that.  I know you endured a lot of health issues for about 20 years, and I’m so thankful that you are in good health now.

So, there’s that.  My mom is awesome because she gave birth to me.  Everyone can say that.

Not everyone can say their mom is a star.

Sure, it may not have been the “national stage” or the hitmakers of Nashville, but my mom’s a singer…a GOOD one.  Before we destroyed her dainty little figure, she was in a band.  That picture above is her from her country star days.

So, she can sing.  That’s pretty awesome.  But, wait!  There’s more!!

She’s an ARTIST.

"Downtown Horse and Buggy" by Londie Benson

"Jean Harlow" by Londie Benson

I mean, look at these.  They are ridiculously good, and completely different in style and composition.  But that’s my mom.  She doesn’t know what she can’t do, so of course, she can do anything.  By the way, the ‘Horse and Buggy’ is a wall mural.  The ‘Jean Harlow’ is, I believe, a watercolor.  But her best work is with pencil.

"Feeding Time" by Londie Benson

The crazy thing about this one, in my mind, is it isn’t even her best one.  Sadly, I don’t have any images of some of the other work she’s done, but trust me — it’s breathtaking.

Now, my mom, of course, will tell you that she’s not that great; that she’s not doing anything new or different.  Right.

"Pagliacci" by Londie Benson

Might take a second or two to realize it, but that’s me.  No, I did not dress up like a clown.  She took a regular, random photo of me and created this trippy piece of art.  She’s just that good.

Of course, having such a good eye, she’s a wonderful photographer too.

"Orchid" photo by Londie Benson

It does make me a little crazy that she can snap a picture of an orchid or a half-naked squirrel as if it’s no big deal, but then when I get them in my email, they aren’t just photos.  They’re statements.

Naked Squirrel

Speaking of statements, she has taken some really wonderful photos of people too.  I don’t know why, but there has always been something about this photo she took of my grandmother (her mom) that always strikes me as poetic:

"Grandma" photo by Londie Benson

Oh yeah, as a side note: my grandmother was HOT back in the day, too.  And how adorable is my mom as a child?

She writes.  She sings.  She tweets.

When I was in grade school, my friends knew my mom as the cool “art lady.”  She’d come in and talk about art to my class.  Kids came over to our house to HANG OUT WITH MY MOM.  I was far from cool back in those days (though there is an ongoing argument over this between my mom and I, of course).

Now my friends get to know her from Twitter.  Lord help me, it is probably the single worst/best thing I’ve done, introducing my mom, first to online karaoke and then to Twitter.  But mom has quite a following.  In fact, she has 4 times as many followers as I do.  So clearly, she must be doing something right.

Yes, that’s right.  She hosts a karaoke channel for Kelsey Live! She got the gig through all of her online karaoke and twittering.  Go figure.

So, here we are.  My mom and me.  Yes, I’m really that much taller than she is, but I don’t hold it against her.  I can’t express how proud I am of her and all she’s accomplished so far in her life.  I know there are the down moments as well as the ups, and I may roll my eyes when my friends tell me about something she’s tweeted, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love you, Mommy.  With all my heart.

Londie and Shawna, 2005.

Posted under randomness

So, breaking my hiatus to announce that while not officially official as yet (paperwork to be signed, all that) it looks like I am once again employed.

It’s a contract position, probably 6 months and non-writing related.  I was hoping to hold out until the end of staffing season, but the writing was on the wall — I think my chances of getting a writers assistant job were approaching negative probability.

So, time to get back in the workforce being productive and stuff.

Pilot isn’t finished yet, but much progress has been made.  Hoping I’ll be able to keep making it now that I’ll have a day job again.

Time will tell…

Posted under randomness

It’s been kind of a sucky day.  I did see an episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ and the season premiere of ‘Chuck’, but 11 days in, I’ve fallen off the wagon.

Gonna try to climb back on tomorrow.

Posted under randomness

It has been one of those weeks.

I don’t know how I got here, or why.  I already wasn’t sure where I started, and now the terrain is really unfamiliar.  It’s like when Q sent Voyager into the Gamma Quandrant…okay, too nerdy.  It’s not exactly a road to nowhere or a stairway to heaven or some other metaphorical place (Hotel California?) but it’s weird.

First, it started with the not sleeping thing.

That happens sometimes, I know.  To everyone.  But it had started happening more and more to me over the weeks following my unemployment, and it was as if I was building to some Mozart-style fever pitch insomnia this week.  For all I know, my own version of Solieri is going to pop out of my closet and help me write my own Death Fugue.

Yes, there will be a lot of movie and/or song metaphors coming up.

So my doctor prescribed Ambien (which, now that I look at that sentence, sounds EXACTLY like the commercial line, which would normally be followed by a horrifically long list of potential side effects).  Apparently Ambien should NOT be taken with alcohol…though, in my defense, I hadn’t actually had any alcohol for well over an hour before I took it.

And when I had taken it in the past, I took half.  Now, these pills are eeety bitty.  Teensy tiny.  You honestly think, ‘half a pill isn’t going to cut it if I’ve only been getting 2-3 hours of sleep every night” when you look at them, as I did.

So I took a whole one.

And then it was like some Hunter S. Thompson gonzo nightmare featuring The Lizard King.  I’ve never done drugs so I have no frame of reference, but if you had seen me when I awoke from this stupor, I looked like Johnny Depp swatting at imaginary bats.

So I won’t do that again.

But really, that trippy little experience was like a microcosm of my week, which, if you were around for the last chapter of the blog, included finding out a long distance friend of mine has been dead for 6 years.  That little revelation led me down the memory hole, back in time through the miracle of ones and zeros…sorting through emails that are more than 16 years old.

16 years.  I know there are a lot of people who have had a ‘net presence for longer than that, but I’ve spent nearly half my life in the virtual world.  Now some kids will spend their entire lives there.  But that virtual life led me to Jason, and to many other friends…and now I want to find them all.

Of course, they may not all want to be found.  I’m still looking for Meg, my friend in Junior High who improvised stuff in my friend’s basement that still makes me laugh (before she moved away a year later).  And I’ve lost track of Keely, Tom and Steve…who, if you knew who they were you’d understand how implausible that seems.  My best friend, Susan…she has such a small internet footprint, well, it doesn’t leave a mark.  I’ve lost her too over time.

And I don’t like to lose anybody.  I’ve lost enough in my lifetime, that I don’t really have people to spare.

Fortunately, I found a few people I had lost this week, and that has really encouraged me.  But I also found Jason.

It happens every fall, I guess – I get weirdly introspective and moody.  Usually I come out of it upon my return from Austin Film Festival.  Ah, AFF.  I cannot quit you, even in a recession.

So, I’m going.  Again.  To see the people I call me far flung writer friends, who I do not want to lose and maybe get some writing mojo injected into my veins.  With any luck, the usual World Series timed malaise will pass, and I’ll be back on track.

Or I’ll be with Johnny, in Bat Country.

Posted under randomness

This was my friend Jason. He died in 2003.

Of course, I didn’t know this until tonight. His funeral was held September 25, 2003. And for some weird cosmic reason, I chose now to go hunting for Jason on the internet. To see if I could find him.

And he’s gone.

Jason and I became friends when I was in college. In the early days of internet message boards and usenet groups, somehow Jason and I connected about Star Trek. Our friendship lasted over seven or eight years, but I lost touch with him shortly before I moved from Florida to California.

Of course, I had thought about trying to find him and re-establish contact with him many times over the years, but it just never happened. My sister and I have been working on this spec which has required us to do some research on deafness and blindness.  Tonight I started thinking about Jason, wondering if perhaps he’d remember me, and I could ask him some questions that might make our spec stronger.  Jason was blind. I used to read books on tape for him, books he couldn’t get on tape at that time — mostly Star Trek books — so he could enjoy them.

My other memories of him are very fuzzy…the kind of fog that descends after a few years when you aren’t living with the memories quite as much…and you wonder if it was ever real.

In my search for Jason this evening, I discovered his father had written a book about his son.  I don’t know if Jason ever mentioned me to his parents.  Jason was such a flirt, but I loved talking to him on the phone – he had a way of making me feel beautiful…which made no sense to me.  He was blind, and yet, he was certain I was gorgeous.

Jason was passionate about mathematics.  And Star Trek.  I remember many Star Trek conversations that carried us through the years.

And now I really hate that I missed out on the last year or two of his life.

I know some people think it seems silly or stupid to go hunting for old friends/acquaintances on the internet.  But this one I wish I had found far sooner.  Now all I will ever have are the foggy memories of our conversations and whatever old emails I can dredge up.

We never did meet in person.  Not that it mattered.

Goodbye, Jason.  I’m sorry I never finished reading that last “Star Trek: Voyager” book on tape for you.

Posted under randomness

I’ve kept my head down the last few months.  Kept writing.  But yesterday, I looked up and saw what was in front of me.

The Void.

I haven’t seen the Void in years.  It’s that empty black hole that threatens to swallow me up, leaving no trace of my existence behind.  The last time I really saw the Void, I was living in Florida.  How did I escape it?  I moved across the country to L.A.  Since then I had left it firmly behind me, pursuing my love of writing and living a much happier life.

But things have changed.  I lost my job in May.  I really didn’t think that was going to bring back the Void, but it appears to have been the catalyst.  I just didn’t see it approaching me from the distance, because I really was keeping my head down.  Writing.

Now I feel like a slow moving turtle halfway across the road, and an 18-wheeler is barreling toward me at high speed.  It’s possible the truck will just fly over me, my turtle self tucked safely between the wheels.

But more likely, I’ll go SPLAT.

I’ve been looking for a new job, but I know it’s been a half-hearted effort thus far.  I really wanted to have some time off to write.  This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, for 13 years.

And I’m not able to enjoy it.  At all.

Why?  Well, some of it is due to extenuating circumstances.  Responsibilities.  All I want to do is run away for a few months, write my heart out and then return to L.A., a triumphant writer having vented years of built up spleen.  But then again, I’m not writing alone anymore.  So that plan is out.

Right now, sis and I are focused on getting an agent/manager.  We have been writing two TV specs (a CHUCK and a CASTLE) and are nearing the finish line on both.  We’ve recently finished a horror feature spec written with a friend of ours.  Add all of that material to our existing one-hour sci-fi spec TV pilot, and we finally have a portfolio of material between the two of us.

Next up for us is a comic book.  All of my other projects are on hold.

So of course, those projects are starting to gnaw at me.  Because that’s what happens — I’m actively working on something, it’s blood from a stone time, squeezing out the work one drop at a time.  When I’m not actively working on something (and am focused on a different project), suddenly I am chock a block full of ideas.  Feast or famine.

So, the Void.  It just appeared out of nowhere…well, at least to me it did.  Again, I wasn’t really looking.  It may have been there awhile, just sitting there in front of me, but I didn’t see it.  Now I do.  And it is all I can see, filling my entire field of vision.  I see it with my eyes open or closed.  Like creepy eyes on a painting, it follows me, no matter where I look.

The fear has gripped me.  Trying to take hold of myself, maybe grab a handhold to keep from falling in.  Or walking in.  Into the Void.

What happens if I go in there?  I don’t think I come out.

Must get my head back down.  Must keep writing.  Maybe I can erase the Void.  Maybe I can replace it with something else.

My life needs a rewrite.

Posted under randomness

Jules and I will be taking the week off from the blog because honestly, what the heck?

We’ll be back on 7/10 with our plot to take over Comic Con.  Then the world.

Posted under randomness

I got laid off today.

It’s weird to say that.  I first said it on Twitter.  Then Facebook…then LinkedIn.  Most of my friends knew within an hour and many of them sent me their well wishes.

So connected to everyone, and yet so disconnected.

I worked for Disney (did you know that? Some of you probably didn’t) for 13 years.  I got my first job right out of college.  This is my first brush with unemployment in all that time.

Yes, I do know how amazingly fortunate I have been.

So, I should have some time to do some writing very soon.  Hey, I might even start updating the blog.  There’s an upside.

I was welcomed to the 12% Unemployment club today.  I know I’m in good company.

Posted under writing