The Next Indicated Step

This is something a very wise person I know speaks of: taking the next indicated step. A godsend of an idea for people who feel overwhelmed. Don't climb the mountain or fight the army of ten thousand, just take the next indicated step.

Right now I'm not sure what that is.

My agents and managers (yes I signed with managers in a moment of panic and we'll see how that turns out beyond costing me another 10% of my income) are out there drumming up staffing meetings for new series. I have meetings scheduled. Having hired people to staff my own shows I know what a crapshoot those meetings are. But at any rate that's out of my hands right now--the sales team is at work and I'm just the merchandise.

And so, for the first time in a long time, my days are completely my own to do with whatever I want.

What do I want?

Here are the choices:

1. I can work on the screen adaptation of a play I optioned. I got a two year free option which I am one year into. So to really have a go at trying to get it made I need a script in three months. I'm 24 pages into the adaptation and to be honest I just can't see this thing actually being in a theater. I've pretty much fallen out of love with the play while in the process of adapting it. It's neither a really deep meaningful indie like sex, lies and videotape, nor a fantastically fun indie like Little Miss Sunshine, nor a big studio pic. It's just sort of...there. But I'm afraid to drop it. I'm afraid that's just fear winning. I don't know what I feel.

2. I can start writing a spec pilot which is different in tone from all the writing samples I now have to show. One way or another everything in my arsenal is a family show, more emotion than big plot stuff, no thrillers or procedurals, nothing really hard and edgy. This cuts me off from a lot of shows I'd actually like to write for. I have no ideas in my head so this one fills me with even more panic than adapting the play.

3. I can work on my novel. Oh God what a cliche that sounds like. I'm about 40 pages into a novel I've been working on for decades. Yes decades. I write it a couple of pages at a time between paying jobs. I tell myself that's all the time I have. Even as I tell myself that I know it's bullshit. I just read through what I have after not seeing it for a few months and I will tell you cautiously and yet with some confidence that it is publishable. That it is entertaining. That it is good by my true personal standards of what makes writing good. I don't know that I've ever felt that to this degree about one of my screenplays. All I have to do us keep up the quality I've got for another couple of hundred pages. The shape of the story, if not the details, is before me. I believe that I have the goods to do it.

Truth is, the next indicated step is 3. But I have to earn a living. I have to stay in the game. Many times I have resolved to keep working on the novel every day even if all I do is a little editing and fixing. Just to keep the fire burning under it. I'm resolving that right now. Will I stick to my resolve? Every time I say it I believe that I will. And now?

Drop the play? Not drop the play? Am I working hard enough to get rich? Is rich the point? It's certainly the point of the game I'm in. My whole life I've skiied and I've never gotten past intermediate, with a few brief powder runs where I felt like I was flying and everything fell into place--and then was gone again. That's fine with me. I like the view, I like the pine trees, I like eating chocolate on the lift. My whole career I've been intermediate, with a few brief powder runs where I felt like I was flying and everything fell into place--and then was gone again. Why can't that be okay?

Ah for the carefree days of elephant polo...