Know When to Fold 'em

I'm leading a double life.

By day, I'm the happy, dutiful writing partner of Charlie Flint. We've written Siege (currently in pre-pre-production Hell-on-a-popsicle-stick for the C-movie market), The Magic Hour (currently on the shelf), and are working on a pygmy/devil-worshipping/opera-like opus.

By night I write for me. For many, many years, that has been a lesson in self-gratification. The one film I have had produced was through Producer Dude, who is supposedly working on Siege, so that contact is alive and well in my work with Charlie Flint. Beyond Producer Dude, I have pages of brilliance piled up in my garage.

Until recently.

A friend passed my stuff on to Said Manager. Said Manager liked it. And more to the point, Said Manager has been in preliminary contact with me. I mentioned before how Said Manager picked my brain to pitch Sci-Fi Channel, well Said Manager has more interest than that in me.

I have a script, written over the past 6 years, polished, gone through 14 drafts, and fine-tuned to an edge Siege will never see in it's lifetime (nor does it need to). This script is, pardon me for saying so, good. Said Manager likes it. Said Manager has sent it out to people. Real people who have jobs like "Agent" and "Producer of films that go into the theaters" and "Directors of stuff that doesn't always go straight-to-DVD." They all like it. This is the only reason why Said Manager is still taking my calls and, in some cases, initiating them.

This is not to toot my own horn, but to say that, right now, my moonlighting job of "writer for me" is pretty well focused on whatever Said Manager wants me to work on.

I have 55 pages of another horror script. I mentioned it many posts back. I sent the pages to Said Manager. Said Manager's reply?

"This isn't worth your time. Drop the project."

Ouch.

In my belligerent past, I would have defiantly shouted back "Who are you to say? What do you know? I'm genius! Genius!"

But I'm more mature. So instead I said "OK. What do you want me to work on next?"

And just like that, the big, nasty, scary horror flick I've been working on outside of Siege is shelved for the time being. And I don't care. Because right now, I have to go with what Said Manager says. Because Said Manager is my current ticket to fame and fortune. Well, to fortune, anyway.

And to Said Manager's credit, Said Manager has come back with "I liked project X you mentioned to me a while back, we should look at fleshing that out, perhaps as a Graphic Novel. I know some people at...." and "Oh, I have an article I've always liked that might be right up your alley. Let me send it over to you and see what you think, see if it leads you to any ideas for a next feature." and "Dig through your various projects and let's see if there's something you've let go that we might breath new life into."

So goodbye to 55+ pages of Curse of the Jaguar. (Always needed a new title anyway.) Goodbye to the research, to the character-crafting, to the visions in my head.

I'm moving on to the next thing, and I'm reaching for the ring.