Safely past Quarter...I'm onto the Third/Life Crises...
What the he!! am I doing and what should I be doing?

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

I come before you today, to ask your advice in helping me to make the decision that fate just ain't givin' me enough evidence to make all on my cuddly lonesome...

Truth is...my love for the movies and the process of movie-making these days hasn't quite turned out to be what I had thought it would be. Also, if there was that fun niche I was supposed to trip and fall into...well, it's maybe the first and only time I ain't been clumsy enough. And though I still would love to be a part of the process, I don't know that it's what I want to be doing anymore at this stage of the game.

The ironic part is that one of the primary reasons I chose this industry was a) the love I had for the movin' pictures as a youth and b) the fact that it is an industry, a proper business of sorts (ie. somethin' you should be able to make money at). Couple that with the facts that I humored myself as being smarter than the average bear, and I didn't come out here expecting there to be a director's chair waitin' for me. I figured I was golden. After all, I never wanted to choose the starving artist route...and yet, what I've come to enjoy more than anything is writing straight prose fiction (not screenplays...although, they're alright...) and painting. I mean...with the exception of heavy math...I've been fortunate enough to be fairly competent at doing anything I've decided to take a shot at...but those two things, the writin' and paintin' are generally what I love doing most.

Granted, I certainly don't have to be in Los Angeles to do those things, though the chances for exposure are far greater (more optimal in many ways would be New York, haha, but there's no way I'm heading the wrong direction down Snowy Penniless Lane...). In some ways, I'm hedging my bets...if I could keep something consistent brewing with the writing (I'm looking for publishing connections!?!), the art (I'll be in my first show in a few months...and am lookin' into how to get into more), and watching for opportunities that still open up in the movie business to jump in when I can. (I've still been writin' shorts for folks and doing some script doctorin' as it's come along...)

I'm fairly certain that doesn't sound like a recipe for success based in any reality that anyone else occupies...since every one of those things are based so strongly on chance...so I've been sort of riding on faith. The tough thing in keeping on or giving up has always been that things have been so even handed...I always seem to get just enough of something to interest me or move me along...or pay the bills for a bit...but then something else gets set in my way. A zero sum game so to speak...for every move forward or laterally is a move back...for every positive, a negative.

So yes, I've been trying to consider my options on what else I could do and where I could go...or even what more I might need to learn. And while I'm not against the idea of relocating...well, two things keep bothering me...For one: I moved a whole bunch when I was younger, and I'm not ready necessarily to start building from scratch...and it'd be easier if I knew (unlike when I came out here) to know that there's something to go to when I get there. For two: well, you can call it ego, but it's that feeling of defeat, of letting the town beat me somehow. going back to somewhere I've already lived...makes it feel like I gave up. Haha, I'm not sure if that sounds idiotic or not...but that's definitely what it is...coupled with the sneaking suspicion that success might be around the corner, and leaving now would cause me to miss it...

On the con side against me, as a person...while I've been talking to more folks here recently about expanding my options above...well, I know in my heart that I ain't done nearly enough to push myself out there to try and achieve more than I have. So, trust me, if anyone knows that a hefty chunk can be blamed squarely on me...I knows it to be true...

And that's why I'm here in the first place....what do you, my personal public, think? Am I spinning my wheels? Is it time for a change? A move? Do I just need to do more, stick it out a little longer...and stick my neck out a little farther while I'm at it? Do you know anyone who might could help a brother out in the aforementioned literary, arts, or entertainment world? Do I need to just get a job?

The search of the soul continues...

Cheers.