Rowing Upstream

In Hollywood you take writing gigs for all kinds of reasons. You take them because you're passionate about the subject matter; because they're paying you a ton of dough; because there's a good chance it'll get made; because you need the work; because there's a producer or actor involved that you want to work with. One thing I've learned, or tell myself I've learned, is that no matter what the reason, if you don't feel the story somewhere in your gut it's going to be hell to write the damn thing, because trying to come up with it out of the frontal lobes of your brain with no help from the muse or the subconscious or the wellsprings of inspiration or whatever you want to call it is like carrying boulders the size of Buicks up hill all day long.

Here's the situation: Not long ago I got offered a job adapting a novel by an author I had never heard of but who turns out to sell more books than Dean Koontz and Stephen King and falls only slightly short of Nora Roberts and J.K. Rowling in the Amazon rankings. You've seen his books in the supermarket. Maybe you've bought them and read them. Maybe it's only the snob in me that doesn't love them. They strike me as essentially soft core--some kind of hazy love story/mystery wrapped around a few chest-heaving bodice-ripping sex scenes. I took the job because if it gets made I get to direct it and I haven't said "Action" or "Cut" for almost six years now, except to members of my family, and they don't obey the way actors do. So that means lots of fun once I'm out there in the forest with headphones on and a hundred people waiting for me to tell them what to do. But now I have to write it. I have to fill 100 or so pages with sharp witty dialogue and big emotional scenes and steadily building tension. So here I sit trying to do a great job with something I don't think is great, and the worst part, the very worst part of all, is this: since the book hasn't found a foothold in my heart, my inner compass isn't working right. I don't even know if my perceptions of it are correct. Maybe it's better than I think. Maybe this is just a new kind of procrastination and resistance. Maybe I should stop rowing so hard, turn the kayak around and let the current carry me. Or maybe that's just my laziness talking. Maybe I need to row harder. Maybe I need to light candles and chant and tell the muse I'm sorry I took a job I didn't really believe in and beg her to come back. Sometimes she does, you know, if you ask nicely.

And most of all I gotta ask myself: if hundreds of millions of people all over the world love this guy's books, who the hell am I to say they're wrong?

Important thought here: MASSIVE GRATITUDE that I have the job at all. I'm just saying...