Thursday, December 06, 2007

Not Really Producing

Well, that's not exactly true -- I've been producing tons. Between my stand-up, my screenplays and teleplays, and my blogs for TV Squad, in the last three months I've written more that has actually been read by real, actual people, than at any other comparable three month span of my entire existence.

Here's the problem: It's not as much as it should be. I've got more free time than anyone this side of a Hilton sister. I always imagined that when I was finally set free from the day-job shackles that my response would be to fill both house and hotel room with eight hours a day, six days a week of gentle click-clackings from my keyboard. It's been close to a year now; I should have a novel or two finished. I should have enough blog posts to shut shut down the single ISDN line that all of China shares. I should have five more screenplays that my agent can't sell. I should have 30 more minutes of stand-up that my old friends don't laugh at (but that strangers, strangely, do).

But I haven't done it. I've filled the time with digg.com, endless replays of movies that I've seen more times in my life than I have my cousins, and enough masturbation (both mental and physical) to piss off even the hard-to-piss-off gods (like Budha).

I just got back from a gig. I've spent the last three hours in my hotel room doing the following: one poop (enormous and well deserved), one hour watching Sportscenter (and on a Wednesday during football season no less -- we're talking 20 minutes of _hockey_ highlights), and one hour and forty five minutes watching the last one hour and forty five minutes of Fight Club (while I read about Fight Club on wikipedia).

I am officially useless. If I even wrote one page an hour, I could be three pages closer to finishing the screenplay I promised my partner I'd have done by the 17th. If I had written 150 words an hour, I'd have another post for TV Squad finished and some extra spending loot in my pocket. If I had worked on my act, I'd by icrementally funnier for the drunks and punks I'll be performing for this weekend.

What do I have to show for it? Nothing at all. I mean, other than a sexual confusion over my feelings for Brad Pitt's torso.

So, I decided to creep over here to the one semi-public piece of writing that I have that truly doesn't matter. I mean, it matters if you're reading it right now, but my feeling is that no one is reading this, so, you know, it doesn't matter.

It's good. It's gotten the ball rolling. It's allowed me to entertain the idea of sleeping without the usual two doses of self-loathing that I've been bringing with me lately to bed time.

Maybe I'll get off my ass now and write something worth reading.