The Reward for Doing Good Work

Much as I may kvetch about the way work has, unbidden, taken over my life, the fact of the matter is I appreciate being busy much more than the alternative; after two plus years of being severely underemployed, it’s nice to not have to worry about bills. Though it would be nice to be able to watch an occasional movie again.

So it was with a little bit of trepidition that I approached the end of my scripting for the second project, although there’s still a couple of weeks of tweaking, and then doing some pickups and support materials for the first project. So it was a bit of a relief to be asked to stick around for a meeting discussing another educational product yesterday. Or it would have been had it not ended with a version of this:

“Okay, so now what we need is a punchy paragraph describing the story, the characters and the gameplay for the grant proposal. Oh, and we need it by Monday.”

“What story? What gameplay?”

“You’re the writer. Come up with something.”

So I’m teetering on the razor’s edge between a shout of joy and a moan of despair.

But hell – it beats working at a dinner theater for $100 a week.

March 11, 2005
Categories: Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

Light at the End = Oncoming Train?

In the Land of Getting What You Wished For, I have been living in the busy metropolis of Be Careful. I recall mentioning briefly that I left town for B-Fest with a project already behind schedule, but that was okay, as that particular part of the project wasn’t my responsibility.

Which, of course, meant that on my return, it became my responsibility. I’ve been churning out a full script every three and a half days since, while attempting to cover all other bases. This is completely antithetical to the way I usually work – when I scripted my original share of the project back in November, I already had story and character arcs worked out and knew precisely where each episode had to begin and end. This time around, I am working from fairly dense prose versions of each episode, so I’m not only wearing the writer hat, but the editor and the production manager hats as well (those grandiose nightmare scenes had to go – Spielberg would have had trouble affording them).

So I was operating about 18 hours a day and, of course, left myself wide open for The Crud (which appears to be the official medical name for the malady, since that’s what everyone calls it), which put me another week behind. There was a quick side trip to Silver Lining City, though, since the director used that to push his production date back, which he had been kvetching about in private for some time.

One more to go, then an intense period of rewriting, since, you know, scripts aren’t written. They’re rewritten.

In other news: the tests are over, and have confirmed what we suspected: my son is ADHD, and starts medication today. Hopefully, this will alleviate the intense feelings of frustration and anger he experiences when he can’t deal with things like reading and writing, that everyone else seems to find so simple. The testing also showed that otherwise, he’s operating on a level 4-5 years over his age, or, as the diagnostician put it, “He’d be President if the President didn’t have to sign his name.”

I really should also mention, before I submerge again, that he’s been at a special school for dyslexic children this year, and the improvements have been dramatic. I point to this with no small pride, as one of the founders of this school is my wife, and it’s starting to receive some very positive attention.

Now I have to hyperventilate, hold my breath, and dive! Dive!

March 4, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments