Life According to N., Season 25, Episode 12

So I sent an agent a synopsis of the novel plus the first four (revised) chapters. Now said agent wants to see the whole book by Monday morning, and therein lies the problem: I've only rewritten the first four chapters. The rest, well, if not exactly a mess, is the writerly equivalent of a duty VW bug with 80k miles on it - gets from Point A to Point B, has some interesting quirks and tricks left in it, but you wouldn't pony up the cash to buy it if you had other options. So I know the bulk of the weekend will be spent at my desk, scribbling and typing away - or overhauling the engine, as it were.

Ultimately, though, it's a positive, because the producer that M. and I were talking to about the screenplay has gone AWOL. Which isn't a huge loss, but I kind of wanted the oodles of cash that we would have been entitled to under a deal brokered on WGA guidelines.

Argh.

Freelancing is likewise in limbo. Last week was somewhat lucrative, this week editors were nibbling but noncommittal. Suddenly I understand why people in professions based on the vulgarities of chance are always so stressed out.

Once this is all over and done with, one way or the other, I plan to open the bottle of red I bought during the day-trip to wine country last weekend, drink maybe half, and pass out in front of '24.'

From the Department of So-Very-Screwed

It's official: the world is off its meds. As the IDF rolls the clock back on Lebanon 20 years with its sustained bombing campaign, as Iraq continues its daily grind of blood and fire, as DC hipsters and yuppies find themselves pistol-whipped by the disenfranchised within *gasp* three blocks of a Whole Foods, as Britney Spears continues to reproduce, I find myself in one of those deep, dark places.

By which I mean mentally, not the downstairs bar of the Black Cat.

Producer 'postponed' our ridiculously hard-to-schedule script meeting to a to-be-determined date; I lost out on a job that I believed I'd been obscenely qualified for; my best platonic female friend/editor/screenplay partner just scored a long piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, which is fantastic news (I'm happy for her, believe me) but merely highlights that my freelance career over the last three years has been pretty much nil, Frommer's and pieces for bar magazines nonwithstanding. I'm gripped by a keen sense that I'm *losing,* whatever that means; that the world-conquering impulses that have governed my whole young-adulthood have been thwarted despite my best efforts.

So I'm on battle footing. New policies of professional viciousness have been instituted, plans laid out.

Brief Update from our Not-Sponsor

Finished the novel last Sunday and promptly sliced 10,000 words out of it. Sent it to the distribution list for the first round of comments, then promptly shoved the manuscript in a drawer and forgot about it for five days. The next part of the to-do list was to meet with a producer this week about screenplay work, but suddenly the man’s vanished and I’m starting to get twitchy about it, in typical N. fashion. Not that said vanishing wasn’t halfway expected, and not that the situation won’t resolve itself, but I’ve found myself hovering over the phone a bit too much, lately.

Bought a new bike – hybrid, titanium frame, top-line tires, etc. Justified the expense (the freelance payment from Frommer’s, gone with a magisterial swipe of the pen) by saying it would help me get more in shape, pay for itself with reduced health costs, etc. Except that it’s hot outside – pavement-softening, dog-killing hot – so I’m not sure about the wisdom of biking 40+ miles every weekend. It’s a world away from last week, when the rains and flooding shut down Beach Drive, allowing dozens of us runners to trot through the downpour while watching abandoned cars bob their way down Rock Creek.