Make Something May

For those of you who just want to create for the love of it: amazing. Well done. Keep at it. This little screed isn’t meant for you.

It’s meant for me, and anyone else reading who’s working toward a career in the arts that pays the bills and then some.

I’m currently waiting on not one but two contracts to hit my inbox.

One is for a podcast deal for a serial paranormal mystery that’s basically the coolest thing I’ve ever written. It started life as a pilot / series pitch - with an amazing showrunner and A-list director attached! - but TV is possibly harder to break into than film so we’re going the podcast route. Maybe it hits, and we can then make the TV show we always meant to.

That’s been in the works since end of last year.

The second is for an indie thriller I wrote the original draft of almost six years ago, which should have been made at least three times by now, each time falling apart due to greed, incompetence, or ego (or some combination of the three).

We now have a great team in place, including an amazing director. I just need to sign the contract so they can put it all together. So you’ve got the original offer. Then the counter. Then the counter to the counter. And the counter to that counter. And so on. It’s been a while and I am not a patient person.

I’m very grateful for it all. Truly.

I also can’t live on the promise of eventually getting paid.

Which brings us to Make Something May.

While I’ve been waiting for said contracts, I decided to channel all my panic-attack-level energy into generating some new ideas, or expanding some of the ideas I’ve had sitting in my Someday folder into something worthy of writing.

Lo and behold, I now have solid loglines / concepts for two comic series and no less than six scripts.

The speed of the studio system will essentially ensure you starve to death, especially if you’re just a writer.

Only the very lucky get to be just one thing. I truly believe that if you want to have a career, you have to be a multi-hyphenate. Which is why each of those six script ideas are tailored to be directed by me.

I have to direct. I mean, I actually want to, but also there’s just no other way to get anyone to pay attention to anything you do.

I’ve still got one foot in the studio / traditional lane: a spec outline off to my reps for a script that I plan on absolutely tearing through when they sign off on it…

But most of my time is going to be spent writing a brand new script to direct.

It’s based on a short story I wrote (because those are supposed to be hot! You give the execs 38 pages instead of 98 and boom, six-figure payday, right??) Wrong.

But we did get a prod co attached to the short. One I love, with great people. We developed a take. And then got to pitch to a grand total of two places because there was no actor/director package in place. Both passes.

But I’ve got a whole goddamn script outlined from that pitch. It’s high concept. It’s low budget. It introduces a cool, new horror element designed to make you think shit, could that happen to me? And it’s just sitting on a shelf.

Now here’s the best part: the short story got passed on originally because consensus was we gave them a tease, but not enough of a fleshed-out story. Well, the script will sure as shit be a whole, fleshed-out story. One that technically hasn’t hit the town. My reps can send it out if they so choose, and we can try to sell it the traditional way.

But if the reps come back and say the story’s technically been exposed already since we sent the short story around a while ago, well, I’ll go and fucking direct it myself. I could make this film with a couple hundred bucks and some minor favors from friends if I had to.

Gotta write it first, though.

And that’s what I’ll be doing for Make Something May (along with possibly writing that spec for the reps, and the next novella in my book series I’m writing under a pseudonym). Maybe I do too much. Eh.

What will you be making?

xJ