I don't know why I am. Well, I know I'm writing a script but amazingly, it's not one due tomorrow or even this week. But I'm awake at darn near 6 AM despite the fact that I need to be up and able to form a coherent sentence or two during an important conference call four hours hence.
So why am I writing a script? More to the point, why am I writing this? This is fun, of course. Blogging is like sketching on one hand. On quite another, it's a chance to write something that's all my own, not subject to the tastes of some editor or producer or the interpretation of an artist or actor. Between the consumer and me, there's nothing but air and bytes. People ask why I blog and there's a lot of the reason right there. It's a resource for me…a way of reaching out and saying Hello Dere to a lot of friends, strangers and strangers who are slowly becoming friends. But it's also sketching and it's also, for good or ill, mine.
I've been a professional writer for 43 years, a number I mention not to impress you but to impress myself. Because to me, it sometimes feels like about 43 months. Every project, every assignment still comes down to what it has always come down to: Me sitting at a desk — or sometimes taking a long walk — asking myself the key question, "Okay, what are you going to do with this one?" I get there via a slightly different route with every single one but the point is I get there, "there" being the answer to that same key question. When people used to ask me what the difference was between writing comic books and writing TV shows, I used to say, "Tab stops."
I sometime think I write just because it feels so good to answer that question and to think, at least for a time, that I've answered it correctly. It feels good the same way it feels to solve a Sudoku puzzle or to fix a broken appliance, both of which I did today. It's so great when you reach that moment of thinking, "I know what I should do." And I just did, just this second. I should go to bed. Good night.