A Cardboard Mask and Other Things

This isn’t going to be a very long post but I haven’t printed anything for days and feel compelled to write something.

Sunday I carried out my meetup group for 2 hours then filmed a short sketch that I thought was funny. It involved me wearing a Diet coke box over my head and impersonating a “mask expert” while being digitally edited into an actual news clip. I thought it was funny, but my close friend didn’t, and my girlfriend didn’t. I guess I just looked like an idiot with a box on his head.

One of the worst feelings in writing comes when you pour your heart into your story and another reader takes for granted the considerations you’ve already made prior to their analysis. I received feedback for my latest draft on Monday and it was overwhelmingly positive. There were no major structural issues and it is ready to film. I was still discouraged, however, to hear a few suggestions that I’d already tried and knew wouldn’t be effective. I am happy to make adjustments as needed but I am disappointed when my vision for the film isn’t effectively conveyed on paper. I have a deep rooted fear that my brain does not operate according to convention and consequently my characters don’t always behave as expected. I am unable to verify their motivations without the input of another so I need diligent readers in order to know it “makes sense.”

So these and a handful of other events demoralized me and I took a few days away from everything I’ve been doing. Yesterday I scheduled a new online meetup event for this Sunday and last night I took down some notes about strengthening my existing character arc. I am hoping to send out for casting, shop for props, and reserve a location next week.

It’s actually great news I’ve just been focused on the negative a lot lately. Have a great day and thank you for reading.

The Big “L” – 1/12

I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more distraught during the writing of a post. I don’t know that I’ve ever sat down and written feeling so helplessly frustrated.

Yesterday was a failure. An enormous failure. A huge, whopping, capital “L”.

The day began great, with big plans and lofty ambitions. Everything was set and ready, the props were in order, and I even purchased a knock-off “selfie-stick” to help with coverage(Just Leasing was to be filmed on my phone camera, you see).

A few hours into filming, I locked my phone into place on a cheap tripod that is built for such a purpose. The mount simultaneously pressed and held 3 buttons on the side of my phone that led to a full system reset. Not only did I lose all my contacts and settings, but the footage was immediately washed.

It gets worse.

We came close to shooting the scenes over, but doubt entered the minds of the actors, perhaps with good reason – there was an arguably noticeable error in logic for a crucial scene, and tinkering with it affects the rest of the episode.

A long enough discussion led to an inevitable decision to postpone filming until a later date. We broke for lunch at a local taco shop. I brought in my laptop to show Jordan and Catrina, who are also involved in Cheaters Prosper, some of the scenes.

I store the footage on an external, 3 terabyte hard drive that attaches to my computer by a USB chord. When I finally found a particular scene I wanted to show, the external hard drive fell off the table and smacked a metal piece beside my seat, breaking it instantly. I am no longer able to access the hard drive, and it makes a clicking sound when I plug it in.

I can’t tell you how upset I am. I can’t even pinpoint what I am most upset about. The good news is, even if the data from my brand new $139 hard drive is irretrievable, we will only have lost about 5 pages of film, as my brother and friend still have saved copies of the remaining footage.

I don’t believe in blind persistence. I don’t believe in trying to make something work that cannot, nor do I believe in trying to do something you are incapable of doing. I do not like to waste time. I do not like to lose.

But when I deem a pursuit worthy of fighting for, I fucking fight.

So what is the lesson learned today? What is the meaning of all this?

The lesson is simple. Today was a shitty day. Bad things happened. For Spiritual reasons? For failing to be more conscious of sensitive equipment? For no reason?

You will never learn by focusing the factors that led to failure. If you want to be a critic, a hater, or another captain hindsight, go ahead and focus on the aspects of things that influence demise. But in order to find success, you must keep your eyes the actions that breed it.

Verizon saves texts message conversations in cloud storage, and I was able to retrieve the phone numbers of every person I’ve conversed with over the last 90 days. That is sufficient to store the numbers of every person whom I consider an essential part of my life.

There are specialists who have the technology to retrieve data from damaged hard drives. For an external one such as my own, the customer must pay a pretty penny ($500 is a good estimate). Perhaps the company that manufactured my hard drive may be able to help me for a nominal fee.

Or, we could always re-shoot. The actors have their lines down pat, and the only difficulty would be getting the actors to do the 4-5 hour shoot all over again. It would move faster than before thanks to having gone through it once already.

I guess my point is this – you can’t just fold once things go wrong. You can’t allow harsh critiques of your work to convince you’re not cut out for writing. When things go wrong, you must seek out ways to fix them. Errors happen, and they’re part of any game.

I’m afraid to take my next step forward, but in the walk of life the only other option is to retreat. I’m not going to retreat, and I’m not going to stop. I’m going to run until I reach that Goddamn finish line, and if I have to crawl by the time I get there, so be it.

• Thomas M. Watt