Thursday, March 16, 2006

Well, every now and then you get bad news. One of our shows got the axe at the network.

Oh, sure, we have other places to go with it. We are still planning a run at the US nets. And we have interest overseas. And the axe wasn't entirely unexpected -- we needed to find an overseas sale to make the numbers work and we didn't do it in time.

But still. I'd been having a run of really amazing good luck over the past four years and so I allowed myself to hope with this one. Something I'm normally disciplined enough not to do. Normally I focus on enjoying the work I'm doing -- enjoying the writing and creating -- and take things one day at a time. So it didn't really hit when I got the news yesterday afternoon. I was too busy. It hit towards the end of the evening, when Lisa and I hashed over the creative and political decisions and breezes of fate that contributed to the non-success of the show.

Then we watched Big Pussy get whacked, and that has to make you feel better.

This morning the mourning is (mostly) over and it's back to work coming up with new series to develop, and calls to the agents to push them to get me on the new shows that are being greenlit... no different from what I was doing before, really. Irons in the fire, baby. The writing racket requires either a stoic indifference to fortune, or an ability to pick yourself up when you get smacked off your feet. After the first years of newbie enthusiasm and failure, I got to be quit stoic. But I found I wasn't celebrating my victories. Now I make a point of celebrating all the wins. It means an occasional night of tequila and wine and sadness. But what's drama without conflict?

9:21 AM

1 Comments:

My sincerest condolences on your loss, Alex. I think it's great that you've learned to develop an oh-well-on-to-the-next-thing kind of mentality. It's the only way to stay sane and happy in a career that's often filled with devastating disappointments.

As my own TV series inches ever so slowly toward becoming a reality after ten years in development -- and the destruction of my marriage because of it -- lately I've been wondering, what am I going to do if thing doesn't fly after all? I'm not a career screenwriter (and have no ambition to be one). I don't have any other projects in the mix. There's nothing to fall back on if The Black Tower gets killed by the network, either before we shoot the pilot or after the first season of a pre-planned four airs. This is it. This my one shot to establish myself in a profession that has far more failures than it does successes.

*sigh* I need a drink. :-(

By  Kelly J. Crawford, at 1:11 PM  

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