AND SO WE WRITE...

I've had dozens of posts in written. Interesting deconstructions of films and comic books; mind-crash insight into the enjoyment of paintings, drawings, and what makes the lives we live dissolve and reform into the static ritual of television, movies, and books.

But...

I never wrote any of them. A few got started on Post-It notes stuffed in pockets and a few words typed into the iPhone for future use, a future that never came. I never made it happen and that's the key. "I" never made it happen. That's what writing is, all art, is you, is me, making it happen. No one cares about the projects that were never started, let alone seen through. We are not Stanley Kubrick with his unmade Napoleon film, we are the nameless amateur. No one should care more than us, the writer, the creator of our chosen work. We should care enough to finish it.

Right now I have a script that needs to be read and coverage that needs to be written and yet there it sits, on the table. I have half written scripts and short stories scattered across the office, and those go unfinished. There are a stack of scripts on my desk and tossed about the floor. Titles like THE CRYING GAME and AVATAR are there, just waiting, wanting to be read. But aren't. Is this laziness? Sure. Am I too busy? Of course, but also priorities get the in the way. I lost my job and I'm getting married. Trying to re-locate as well. The goings on of life interfere with the possible future of our artistic lives.

This weekend THE BACK-UP PLAN hits theaters. Roger Ebert has a strong teardown of the film but I have to applaud it for its sole achievement; the film was made. It was completed and is now available to be seen by the masses. Someone wrote it, perhaps long ago and at some point this script, however culturally worthless and frustratingly boring as it may be, found its way into the hands of someone who took it from lonely idea to suburban multiplex. It got optioned and in April of 2010, it hit as a wet turd in your local theater. You can imagine that everyone involved in THE BACK-UP PLAN had hopes of working on films and now they do. This lackluster film is the creation of artists, perhaps not great ones, but these gaffers and character actors, editors and audio mixers, all at one point dreamed of being able to make a living in film and now they do.

That's the interesting aspect. You can hope and dream and try and try and your attempts could be successful enough to hit the screen, yet an absolute failure to everyone outside of your friends and family.

It's this idea that keeps me up at nights, haunts me with sudden twitches of reality. The early bird doesn't always get the worm. Trying your hardest only promises that you'll be tired and spent. If guarantees no reward other than sweat and frustration. I can stay up stays and lose weekends to pursuits at this computer, typing and editing, but even if my wildest dreams come true and writing turns into a full-time job there is still a strong chance that it could be deemed a failure.

Is being the writer of THE BACK-UP PLAN or GIGLI a worse fate than being the writer of nothing?

Only in the medium of art can the discussion of failure in creating anything become the art itself.