I remember when I first joined the working world there was a nervous excitement to receiving an email. Either it was going to be good/bad news from a client or a supervisor or it would be something fun from a friend suggesting an activity (perhaps inviting me to a Bulls/Hawks game) or it would at least be a hilarious recounting of an encounter with a gutter monkey on a drunken Sunday afternoon. Now I just assume it is one of 4 daily emails I get from Groupon.
I have come full circle with Groupon, at first I was bitter because I hated my job in Chicago and everyone there seemed to be happy and they had weekly happy hours. I badly wanted them to fail. Then I started using Groupons to save myself money and to try out cool shit that I would never pay full price for and I realized that they weren't all bad, but now I blame them for flooding my mailbox and I hate them again. Like to be honest, I really do want to go to Fiji but it isn't going to be an impulse buy thanks to a daily email, it's something I will spend at least a month planning. And yes the flight simulator looks cool, but in what world do you think it is reasonable that I drive 3 hours to go do something that doesn't involve oral sex? Lastly, I am not in HR why the fuck do I get introduced to Groupon Rewards...and I don't even know what Groupon Goods is. I just know that Groupon has trained me that 12 new emails when I wake up at 8 am is not something to get excited about.
But such is life, it's my fault for signing up for this bullshit in the first place. I still get event emails from Bloomington, Chicago, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and even places like New York where I bought a concert ticket once and am forever doomed to be on an email list. And while I could go on all day about the pathetic emails I receive and how I find it sad that the fun email chains I used to be a part of have died, I have captured your attention for a different reason today.
A little insight for you, I believe most writers ride an emotional roller coaster similar to the one that I do. For example: when I am in the middle of writing a project, I think it is the best thing ever. I literally lie awake in bed dreaming about acceptance speeches, Hollywood Premiers, sleeping with models in order to cast them in my TV show and going on to be the biggest fucking bro in the history of famous people. When I am in the midst of a creative bender, I look forward to getting home from work and writing with the same intensity I look forward to getting home and drinking on Friday afternoons...
...but then. You're all done. And it's like, what now. When is HBO going to call and say, "Oh my god that's the greatest pilot we've ever read." We're green lighting an entire season and we want you to retain complete artistic control. That doesn't happen. And even if the project is good, it takes months, years to gain traction and by then I'm usually over that whole story. The whole editing, rewriting, editing again, doing a third rewrite, that shit just is not for me. I write very stream of conscious and it's more akin to freestyle rapping or improv acting than it is scripted, because I assure you I do not use the backspace button. It's one of my crutches creatively, but nonetheless it is my style. Writing something awesome and not getting it rewarded blows, it's akin to writing a badass cover letter to your dream employer and not even getting an interview.
So when this happens I go into a bit of a depression, people send me notes on how to make what I have written better, but I kind of set the typewriter down for a couple weeks and do what it is when I am not writing. Drink, watch TV, stay up until 4 in the morning reading obscure Wikipedia articles, you know the normal shit that you all do.
This past week I was in one such rut and I realized that summer tv blows. While most people are probably out being active, it is stormy in LA and there is really nothing to do. I wish I was playing softball, or walking the beach but I'm holed up on my couch with nothing but reality tv and Seinfeld re-runs to watch. I decided to get caught up on Girls, I had watched it, lambasted it, but I heard it had gotten better. I was awake at 2am some night fairly recently and I watched the episode where Hannah's creative writing nemesis publishes a memoir, chiefly about the fact that her boyfriend kills himself.
I started thinking, I never really thought that I had enough darkness in my life to write a memoir, and most of the biographical accounts from my contemporaries are a bunch of kids whining about living with their parents and the economy not supporting the warped idea they had growing up about the real world. But looking back now at my decisions since I turned 21 my first day in Italy and where my life has at times spiraled out of control to, I have definitely ended up in some precarious positions and I think it's time to write the generation defining memoir of our time. So that's what's next. I tried to write a quasi-biographical tale about my time in Florence called American Vampires, my last project was quasi-biographical about my time in the frat, but it's after that the wheels really fell off, or at least shit got interesting. I've had a fairly interesting life thus far and it's time to be honest about what led me to here.
If you're worried that I may expose your deepest and darkest secrets, don't worry, everything will be changed just enough (it's funny the Tony award winning play this year was about a chick that writes a heavy hitting memoir exposing the darkness of her friends and family and they freak out) but I think I have to give it a shot, people say to write what you know so why not write my own story. And let's be honest this tale about a shameless social climber transforming into a fame obsessed Hank Moody wannabe probably won't ever get published...and if I have a better idea next week this will probably be scrapped completely. But for the time being it's going to be me, locked in my room trying to recall my misadventures and what it means to be lost and find your way...and the title of this post is completely unrelated, but would possibly make a solid frat tank.
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