retrograde motion.

Brief summation: the series I've been working on, Pioneer One, was released online a few weeks ago through VODO.  It was just the pilot, but it's been a huge success, with more promising developments for the future.  We have people actually waiting and excited for the next episodes.  It was downloaded a million times.  Literally.  The response was overwhelming and unexpected.  My parents have gone away for a week, so I've holed myself up in their house to write the next scripts so we can start up production again in September.

The writing process does strange things to me.  It's an even stranger process now knowing that people have expectations of me.  It's a double-edged sword.  It's nice to know you're writing for an audience, but if you're not careful, the fear of being found out as no good, or, even worse, mediocre, can rear its ugly little snout.  As many have said time and time again, the only thing to do is to keep writing for yourself.  Make peace with the fact that not everybody is going to like it.  That's the only way to write something actually worth a damn, I think.

So yes, I've written two scripts in two weeks, which seems pretty good, but it was tough going.  I spent several days pacing and watching TV and making runs to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, always having "later" to write.  My months-long exercise regimen went completely out the window, went from having near-quit to smoking half a pack a day, and have reawakened a whole lot of old idiosyncratic routines.  It's not a pretty sight.

But, you know what?  It's kind of great.  Much as I lament the mental and physical anguish, I remind myself that this is exactly what I want to be doing.  Though that's easy to say now that I've finished the most recent script and am in that in-between period where the next one is still all promise and clever ideas instead of an over-wrought mess without an ending.

Sunday drive.

I'd like to say something about how when I was a kid the whole family packed up in the maroon '85 Camry and drove aimlessly til we found a spot for a picnic lunch or something, but that never happened, and I'm okay with that.

My current day job delivery auto parts has familiarized me with much of Queens, and sometimes I like to go and explore the places I drive by. I'm developing an affection for Long Island City. I'd long been meaning to check out this coffee and tea place called Sweetleaf, and this morning I went to sample their fare. Their website proudly says "Best Coffee in the World" -- a quote attributed to NPR. It's good coffee, and while I don't have the most discerning palette for the java, I'm nothing to sneeze at either. It's too bad they don't have more seating.  Didn't stay long, but I'm glad I made the trip.

On the way back we drove through a part of LIC that I like a lot, which I think is called Hunters Point.  I can see myself living around there.  There's a strange feeling in the area like there's something going on even though the streets seem pretty empty most of the time.  It's strange but I like that.  And, in a strange way, Astoria is starting to feel a little too crowded for me.  Not that I don't love it, but I think I could be elsewhere.  Just thinking outloud.

Anyway it was in Hunters Point where we stopped at Bricktown Bagel for...bagels.  There was this cute girl with curly hair sitting in the window, writing furiously in her moleskine, ignoring the two screaming kids running around unsupervised by their thirtysomething parents.  My travel companion's summation:

"She's probably all creative and shit...likes to give long blow jobs..."

Sounded about right, which probably says something awful about me.

We turned in when we got tired.

I'm back. I don't know where I was, but I'm back now. Let's just pretend that didn't happen, k?

There is one downside to services like blogger. It's almost too easy to make a blog. And make a blog for every specific subject you think you might want to write about. So you end up with 3 or 4 blogs and keep up with none of them. It devalues the blog to have so many. I recall there being some blog that posted blogs with only one post. Let me fire up the googles...

Ah, yes, One Post Wonder. Strangely mesmerizing. It's some kind of art piece, really.

But yes, since my last post I have been focusing mainly on promoting my movie, The Lionshare. (Check out the blog there to fill in the gap in my internet presence.) The big thing is it got distributed by VODO, which is a platform for distributing movies online freely, and viewers can make a voluntary donation if they so choose. Anyway, it got the movie a ton of attention and was nothing but a good thing. So that was great.

I think there was some impetus for this posting, but I can't recall. It'll come to me later.