Prioritize Your PASSION, Your LOVE, Your ADVENTURE
This mantra came to me one morning as I thought about how I would convey my latest epiphany to the world. I’ve been in a state of inner upheaval — that is, my mind has been going through emotional changes as I try to get a handle on just what the f*ck I’m doing.
Taking all things into consideration, I had to admit one thing: I think I’ve been affected by a mild case of depression for the last sixty days. That said, I don’t know many people who can write three TV series pilot treatments, a TV pilot script, critique two scripts and complete two feature screenplay rewrites in two months while they are depressed.
I wasn’t down in the dumps, moping in a dark house, sitting in a corner sucking my thumb or telling everyone to “Go to hell!” The Marine in me will not allow me to sit idly by, feeling sorry for myself while there are things that need doing. It’s just that the adventure that we call life was starting to feel tedious. I’d lost touch with the core thing that lifts, inspires and motivates me… creating. To be more specific: creating with words.
It has been a rough and tough year.
On the film front we’ve had several false starts with my heart project, Legend of Black Lotus. Although I am looking at some potentially amazing news, every inch of the journey has been ripe with controversy, issues and complications. While my crowdfunding attempt was finally successful (1 for 3), my trip to Hong Kong didn’t happen because of a NY birth certificate issue. While teensy distribution opportunities continue to manifest for my romantic dramedy Broken Hearts Club, it’s been four years since I made BHC and 2 years since its premiere at the Hollywood Black Film Festival. For my neo-noir action thriller, Resurrection of Serious Rogers, which began as a web series, it’s been an up-and-down roller-coaster ride, varying from high distributor interest to no-one-is-returning-my-calls.
Miraculously, despite these challenges I haven’t had a cigarette since 1pm, January 5, 2011.
This stuff is par for the course. I’m not surprised by it, but I was affected by it. Events had touched me emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. My natural recourse (read: defense) has been to dive head-first into another script and pour all of the emotion, disappointment and confusion onto my characters.
The fact is, in 11 months I’ve been crazy busy and working hard.
In 330 days I’ve written:
- …[rewritten] Legend of Black Lotus (version 7) five times
- …feature screenplays for: Demigod (version 3), Deterrence Theory (version 3), Snake Tsunami (version 2),and President’s Day: Nations United (version 2)
- …a 62-page spec episode for Breakout Kings (for the Disney/ABC fellowship)
- …a 35-page spec pilot for an Untitled ensemble cable TV series
- …a 52-page spec pilot for an actress at a major Hollywood management company
- …a treatment for new sci-fi TV series
- …a treatment for new teen drama TV series
- …a treatment for comedy Tween series for Nickelodeon / Disney
- …an outline for a my next short film, Moonlight Prodigy.
When I am writing, the world stands still. And all that writing was a distraction.
I had to admit that the place I found myself was a direct result of the choices I’d made. Mine. My choices. All mine. Once I accepted that, I immediately started to ask myself, How can I significant changes, fast? And that led me to another question: What are your dreams, Angelo? What are your passions, your adventures and your loves?
The above line of questioning led me to one undeniable fact: when it comes to my career: writing is my passion, producing is my love and directing is my adventure. So… it looks like I was pursing things from back to front instead of from front to back.
So how do I change course and position myself to fully exploit my passion, my love and my adventure? Simple: step out of the director’s chair for a while. I’m always telling people that if I had to choose between writing and directing, writing would win every time. It’s in my DNA. It’s what I wanted to do since I was in elementary school. I can never stop writing, but I can postpone directing for a while — at least on bigger projects…
Like, perhaps…Legend of Black Lotus. Not long ago I created a wish list of people I’d “accept” as directors if the best way for me to get funding for Black Lotus was by hiring a name director. I like my list. I may never use it but I like it. If I were to step down from directing Black Lotus I’d be more firmly positioned in the role of producer — with creative control, or course. I’m talking about being a REAL producer, not just a marketing and distribution guy. Now that I have opened myself to this new realm of possibility as a writer I can mentally focus on, and enjoy, fine-tuning my other projects, web content, proposals and TV pitches.
I can focus on developing and optioning screenplays, finding and working with high concept writers. I can go after projects that speak to me. There’s a script in development by @JustinWHedges that I am in love with and the writer is someone who gets the idea of high concept, commercial value. I can also find directors to direct some of my projects.
And, as a writer/producer, I can still write anytime, anywhere and develop my own projects too. So, f*ck depression. It’s time to get busy.
apropos to my current situation.
