The last few years of my life have taken an unexpected turn that has pulled me further from the business I came up through and spent my childhood dreaming about and into a business that I never imagined would even exist. I’m grateful and frustrated all at the same time. I love being able to write for myself and ramble on about the joy agony of just living. But I miss thinking in slug lines and screen direction. I miss making up conversations between fake people. And it’s not that I’m not a screenwriter anymore. I of course am. Only a few months have sped by since I was actively pounding the pavement, but identity is a funny thing. There was a time when I slept/ate/breathe(d) movies. There was a time when my days were spent getting lost between studio lots and in my own excited anxiety.
Life is sneaky like that. It has a habit of making it’s own plans if you’re not careful. What started as musing on the predicament of finding myself unemployed and pregnant has somehow become a full-blown business.
The thing about this unexpected day job I’m so grateful to have fallen in to is that working for myself instead of working for the man somewhere means I can’t ignore my regular gig when inspiration strikes. I don’t want to ignore it. But I don’t want it to eat my dreams alive, either. Sure, they’re shifting to include this new version of writing I hadn’t considered, but they haven’t changed completely. In a world of hyphenates, someone’s got to know the answer: where is the work/work balance?
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