Treasure Moments

After many delays, I have signed an NDA that now prohibits me from disclosing anything about the project, including the schedule. My car has been in the shop for a week, and will probably be in that situation for awhile longer because the hybrid battery likely needs to be replaced. The bright side is of course that after these repairs, I will not necessarily have to worry about the car dying on me at any given moment.

Another consequence of having no car is that I have not been driving to the gym nor to the coffee shop. I am unfortunately sensing a strong correlation between my motivation and inspiration to write and my time in said coffee shop. I have tried to work in the local grocery store cafe area (my current location), but my brain just is not on board. I am trying a new strategy today though. The seating is a little too low for convenient typing, so I brought a cushion. Will brilliance now flow readily? Not betting on it, but we will have to see.

From what I recently read about pilots, networks do not greenlight a series until like July. And even if they do pick up the series, they can replace cast members depending on a number of factors. So instead of thinking about how, if this works out, I will be able to make a living and make all of my short-term dreams come true, I need to just focus on the work and on enjoying the fact that I will get to be on set. That is a privilege that I thought I had given up and walked away from. Treasure every moment and let that be enough for now.

A More Defined Delay

Well, it turns out that the pilot was delayed. I was waiting every day to hear about it, to get a script so I could start getting to work, and then I learned halfway through the days that they had me block off that we would not shoot for another two weeks. I missed a lot of opportunities in these two weeks. Because I was hyped up and on edge for that time, I have found myself to be depressed, with symptoms that I have not had since before I decided to get back into acting.

This pilot could get picked up and be my chance to make a living. Or it could have booked up most of pilot season without much beyond some reel footage and the $100 per day that they will pay me. The fortunate thing is that they did finally send me papers to sign. So now at least I know that I will get paid (unlike the last time I worked for them).

After this pilot, I think it will be time for me to perform standup again. to get used to being on stage with these jokes. And because that can potentially pay some bills going forward. Not to mention that if it's a good quality recording, I can submit it to comedy festivals...

There is also that pilot that I am writing. The standup workshop fortunately has me churning out jokes that are a poor fit for standup, but seem to be a great fit for certain little spots in the pilot. So hopefully I will get it finished in a more organized fashion with the comedic blanks filled in after I complete this second draft.

Delays & Waiting

The wait is killing me. We were supposed to start filming the pilot this past Monday, but the winter storm last week delayed production by a couple days. So by my count, that means that production was meant to start on Wednesday. Too bad it is already Saturday. I just want a script so I can obsess over it!

The bright side to production delays was that I got to see my somewhat famous standup comedian friend perform again when she was in town on Sunday night. She let me know that my stuff was good enough to be paid to perform and work out the little missing details on stage. I made excuses that included a desire to sell my one-liners, since I seem to have a knack for writing them, but in truth, I have read so much online about how it takes ten years to have decent traction when it comes to doing standup. But that is for normal humans, which is a group into which I do not fall. But then I watched Steve Martin's 1976 set at The Troubadour last night, and it made me want to do more physical humor, much of which one tends to figure out on stage in the moment through improvisation.

Then that same standup friend released her first standup special online, then was written up in the New York Times about it along with a show that was my most recently binged comedy obsession. I was so excited for my friend, but also kicking myself a little too.

The restive anxiety was really hitting me yesterday. It feels like I have been sitting on my hands for two weeks, just waiting to be able to work on this pilot. Last I heard was on Thursday, when the creator said that she would be sending forms to sign, and once I signed them, she would send me a script.

My frustration over sitting and waiting in the midst of the success of friends is getting to me a little bit, but I am trying to channel that frustration into writing more. And so far, it is working. Over the past week, I have finally written jokes that incorporate my contortionist skills. I do not know if they are any good, but maybe they are!

Sick in a Storm

I caught another cold, so I have spent this meantime just recovering from that. Then we had a winter storm come along, so those were a few days of not working out or getting out to write. And since I have been churning out these short standalone jokes pretty consistently, I have felt the loss. But the bright side is that I have spent time refining the jokes I already had, and most of them are now ready to perform. Perform when? At what venue? Well, when the opportunity comes knocking, I hope to have my prepared material smashing through that door in response.

During this sickly time, I had the opportunity to audition to be on a singing show. It would have filmed in Ireland at the end of March, and I would have had a chance for a million dollar prize. But it would have also required me to sign a contract saying that I would not appear on network television in any other capacity for a year. I asked the creator of this show that we are about to film whether that could be an issue, and she said that by the fall, she expects us to be on cable, possibly network television. So I turned down the audition.

And then I read about how much I could expect to get paid for such a role. With one episode as a lead (which I am), I could potentially make a year's worth of minimum wage. If we actually make a full season, that could pay better than any of the medical jobs to which I had applied last year. And unlike those jobs, this one is likely to regularly challenge my skills as an improviser. I know this because at our last shoot, the show's creator told my scene partner to improvise, whereas I had specific information from the script that I needed to convey, so I had to guide the conversation and keep up with the changes.