My body and brain seem to be creeping back towards Pacific Time from opposite sides. Still, I don't think I'll be truly home from my trip until that crate of dirty laundry I shipped back to myself arrives and is laundered and in the dresser.
Two weeks is a long time to be away…for me, at least. It makes you appreciate things like sleeping in your own bed (or, at least, one that isn't in the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan) or eating in some local restaurant. In another day or so, I suppose those feelings of reconnection will stop.
During the two weeks, two topics kept presenting themselves with the people I encountered. One, since many old acquaintances hadn't seen me in quite a while, was my big weight loss. The other, of course, was the Writers Guild Strike. I answered an awful lot of questions about both. (In Third Place was, "Hey, when is that book of yours about Jack Kirby coming out?" Answer: Late February.)
To many people, I was 100-120 pounds lighter than when they'd seen me last. (My weight still fluctuates a lot over about a ten pound spread. This morning, I was five pounds below the last time I weighed myself, which was the day I left on the trip.) I'm still amazed and amused at some of the reactions, which range from total non-recognition of me to just plain not noticing anything odd. Most interesting are the delayed double-takes. The person is talking to me for two or three minutes and then they slowly notice something is different.
I usually wind up explaining about Gastric Bypass Surgery — I've now got the basic shpiel down to under a minute — and saying that I've had almost no complications — or at least, I've had fewer physical problems than if I was still carrying all that weight around. I also usually have to listen to the other person tell me about someone they know who had similar surgery and experienced all kinds of troubles and side effects. I'm not sure if these stories should make me feel lucky or worried.
Regarding the strike, people usually seem fuzzy on whether I'm writing anything at all ("You don't have to stop posting on your blog, do you?") or just what it means. The explanation is that the WGA is on strike against just the enterprises it covers, which is the writing of motion pictures and TV shows and some animation. I'm still writing comic books and weblogs and magazine articles (I have another, shorter one coming up about the strike in The New Republic) and even a cartoon show not yet covered by the Writers Guild.
I seem to have lost a screenplay deal that would have been nice. Back when the 1988 strike hit, I was writing a script on assignment for one of the major studios — a project I really liked and which I still think would have been produced had it not been for that strike. I quite willingly stopped all work on it for the duration of our long, long work stoppage…and then when the strike was resolved, I finished it up and handed it in. Alas, by that point, every single person at the studio who'd been involved in hiring me had left that studio. I turned it in and I got paid…but I turned it in to people who hadn't championed the project, hadn't even known what it was. It is very rare in this business that someone who's involved in Development (the buying and nurturing of scripts) runs with the projects initiated by their predecessors. After all, they get hired to replace someone, not to pick up exactly where that person left off. My script was pretty much D.O.A.
This time, I didn't get as far as a deal. Long ago, I'd interested a producer in an idea for a movie. In September, he called to say he'd almost worked out with another company to co-finance the development of a screenplay. When it looked like the WGA might strike, he called to confirm what he already knew; that I would not be writing screenplays during a strike. And he said, in essence, that the other company's interest would not be waiting for me on the other side. Which I can certainly live with. In this business, things can be so flaky even without a strike that you can't get your panties in a bunch over any one project. As my first agent used to say, "It doesn't happen until it happens…and sometimes even not then."
I think that's one of the strengths we have in a strike situation. Most of us are used to projects being on and off with sudden abandon…and usually with less logic and reason than the fact that the WGA is on strike. Most writers, including the real successful ones, learn to roll with the odd rhythms and not be surprised when the thing you thought you'd be writing next week is postponed or something comes out of the blue that needs to be finished by Monday. So the answer I give people is that I may not be writing what I'd like to be writing…but I'm writing. And I've also learned to, whenever possible, like what I'm writing. Even if no one else will.