17 November 2007

back to life... back to reality

Well, the song is over.

Nicholl Week 2007 is come and gone, and I am now back home from a six-day run of funkiness in Hollywood, Topanga, Venice and Beverly Hills.

I have a ton of stuff to process and digest and contextualize and chew upon like cud as I try to make sense of it all. I saw a lot of strange things, and met a lot of great people and a load of great new friends (as hard as I tried, I could never bring myself to dislike or hate or even envy the writers of the five fellowship-winning scripts), and again came away from a week in LA with a weirdly mixed bag of thoughts and feelings.

I made a remark to someone at dinner this week: the honor of the Nicholl finals is, ultimately, irrelevant. It does not guarantee anything, nor does it deliver much anything except for one open door. It falls to the writer to step through that door into a wild new room and then make something of whatever opportunities can be found on that other side.

I'm totally exhausted in every sense of the word, and I'd do it all again right now if they'd give me the chance.

More soon. backlog of bloggery to be dealt with as I can.
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back under the S in TEXAS B

10 comments:

MaryAn Batchellor said...

A successful screenwriter once told me to try every path, even if a path or two eventually leads nowhere, you still need to take those paths and even if a path or two leads into darkness and disappointment or the very pits of depression, we still need to take those paths. He didn't give me any "joy in the journey" speech or anything like but just said how else will we ever learn how to walk paths?

PJ McIlvaine said...

Write on!

suzbays said...

I think your luckiest break was snagging your wife. Everything else is gravy. It was great seeing you, if only for a minute.

Suz

Julie O'Hora said...

You were gone?

aggiebrett said...

Maryann--
I disagree that you "have" to try every path -- there are paths, for example, where you know you will experience more annoyance than reward, or more pain than joy -- but I will agree that you need to LEARN from every path you travel.

PJ--
Czech you're spelling. :p

Suze--
Where did you GO? You were there, then you were not. I, by contrast, was always where I was.

Julie--
Have we met?
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B

suzbays said...

B,

My crew and I left shortly after the video presentation. I was tired and had to drive other folks home. All told, I drove 220 miles on Friday. I had fun at the party, though. That big guy, James, wanted me to be his agent and/or to bed me all night. :-)

Suz

Julie O'Hora said...

Goddammit, I knew I missed a good time.

Ryan Rasmussen said...

Keep stepping boldly.

Michael said...

Michael Starrbury wuz here.

Peter Samuelson said...

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised this blog is well written, huh?