Darker Hollywood Realities

As of last night I've attended two television show tapings: one on September 10th for The Price is Right, and another last night for a show called "Hit Music Central USA" which is supposed to air on Bravo. Let me tell you two things I've learned about television:

1. An hour of TV takes a hell of a lot longer than an hour to shoot.
2. The studio is always smaller than it looks on TV.

It turns out that the combination of those two points will compose the base of my less-than-inspirational Wednesday update. For those of you who were looking for an update on Sunday, my apologies for not producing it. I just plain didn't, and that was a mistake.

In any case, November has progressed on and I've done a whole lot in that time, a whole lot that's had nothing to do with writing my novel. For some reason the whole NaNoWriMo thing has really come off as really important to me, and is something that I think about all the time, but even so I haven't spent a lot of time actually doing anything about it. My word count at the time of composing this blog post: 14,471. Paltry.

See, I'm finding that it taking me a lot more than the 30 days I set aside to actually write this novel to actually write this novel. I still don't know anything about the characters, where the plot is going, why any of the conflict is taking place...I'm just as lost as the characters at the beginning of the story are supposed to be. And since I don't know where they're even supposed to end up, I can't even push the plot in a general direction and hope for the best. Right now my story is a child, a small child who wasn't fed enough as a baby and wasn't taught to read or socialize and is now being sent off to middle school to get made fun of in gym class it suffers an asthma attack from running laps after failing its test on Into Thin Air. (By the way, none of that happened to me...except like the part about failing the test on that book. That probably happened at some point in time; I don't think I read that book.)

Even amidst that, point two arises from the mist: just like the studio is a little less glamorous than what I'd thought, the reality of trying to be a writer is a much harsher one than what I'd expected. The only times that I've really been successful at writing are the times that I've distanced myself from everyone so that I can really focus. Living in an apartment with 4 other people with different drives and motivations as far as ways they want to spend their time makes it really hard to find any seclusion or peace, particularly when you don't have your own room. I don't really feel all that comfortable neglecting my friends, so I end up spending time doing all sorts of other things. Then I end up with 6 days to write 35,000 words in. That's great.

All over the place people have told me, "You know, it's not a big deal! You can just finish it in December, just take a few extra days," or, "Make sure that you don't stress yourself out, you need to make sure you get enough rest," things of that nature. But I've been stressed about it ever since I started because I haven't been working on it, and finishing the novel in December isn't going to prove anything. It'll mean something because I've never actually finished a project before, but it still shows that I don't have the fortitude to stick to the decisions I've made.

I've estimated that I'll need to write for approximately 4 hours a day to get my word count. And by "write for 4 hours a day" I mean that I'll need to be physically composing words for 4 hours a day, not "be at my computer checking Facebook and playing Bejeweled Blitz and chatting and writing for 4 hours a day." Considering how little I know about what I want to do with the plot, this really all feels like a pipe dream now. And unfortunately those sentiments are spilling over into my ideas about the rest of life.

I filled out the application to remain working here in Anaheim after the program concludes, meaning that I need to find my own apartment and more employment while I'm out here. Why would I need to look for "more employment," you might ask. Well, hours at Disneyland are assigned based on seniority; though I've gotten lots of hours during my time in the program, it's been because I've been given an artificial 3 years of seniority as part of the program. The second my program ends my start date resets to January 2nd; I don't even get to keep the seniority I gained working here for 5 months. Some departments get to keep theirs (PhotoPass, Foods, and maybe others), but Attractions does not, which leaves me up a very swift-moving creek with no paddle. or maybe a small paddle, since I have a job in the first place, but when it comes to paying rent in Orange County, the paddle is about the size of one of those little tabs that you pull on to open a can of soda (or pop, depending on where you live...)

Amidst all this, the big question has been: "When are you coming home?" Honestly, I don't know. It's not cheap to come home, and even if I did, I still would need to find a way to be employed long enough to tide over the time I spent home and still be able to fly back. I don't have that much cash stored up...poor planning on my part, but still a reality. So, at the end of it all, I'm just spreading myself way too thin with way too many things left to do. Like decide on a career.

Everything's pointing to one big overall question: How am I going to try to use my degree? Right now, I see myself trying to focus in one of two directions: either writing books, or doing game journalism. And honestly, the game journalism is really appealing. I love it, it has the potential to actually pay bills, and the events are ridiculous amounts of fun. I really enjoy studying the subject matter, and if the work atmosphere is anything like what I imagine it to be, I think I'd really enjoy going into work if I could get a paid job working for a game site or magazine. But I still wonder whether or not I'd be able to focus on my writing career if I were devoting my energy in those other directions. Considering how much time I've spent investing myself in other things since I came out to California, I wouldn't be surprised if 10 or 15 years down the line I still haven't finished any manuscripts.

But I think I've got one way to restore my faith in myself and any sort of ability to achieve any of these crazy dreams: finish my NaNo novel. I hate where it's going, I don't want to write it anymore, and though I'm slowly coming to grips with the emerging reality that this novel isn't going to get written by Nov. 30, there's a small piece of hope that thinks that I might be able to somehow spark the energy required to get a project of this magnitude done. And I keep trying to "recommit" myself to the plan of getting it done, but now there really isn't another choice but to either stick to it now, or give up completely.

The last two years I've tried to do the challenge I've voluntarily bowed out of the trial, citing that I had a good time trying, or that I learned something and that's enough for me. But this time it's not enough. I don't think it says anything positive about my character to continuously bail out of situations where I could fail. I never allow myself the chance to fail or the chance to lose because I just voluntarily step away, opt to "quit" instead of being fired.


Not this time.


I won't be posting on Sunday because I'll be devoting any spare time towards either completing my novel or failing to do so, and I'm not going to let this blog be an excuse for why I'm not focusing my efforts the way I know I should be. Wednesday will prove whether or not I've got the fortitude to actually finish what I start, even if finishing means failing.

-Josh