Mission Statement

When I was in junior high school, I started to do a lot more reading than I had been doing, and I had been reading quite a bit.

Yes, I was a nerd. Whoopdie hoo.

My teachers noticed through high school that although I might cut class or walk in late or be lazy with one assignment or another, I always did more with the writing assignments than directed. I wrote stories at home, I hooked up with friends with similar interests and we tried writing together, we talked about becoming professional writers, we dreamt and wrote and dreamt some more. I majored in theater in college, hoping to learn more about dramatic structure to inform my work, and I did learn that much, plus working with actors, directing, production. I learned about failure there too, and how I didn't like it and couldn't bear to live with it. In the middle of college, my father died. Since we weren't wealthy, this threw my family into a good amount of turmoil, and I began to question whether I had the right to go to school at all, especially as the son of an eighth-grade dropout.

In my last year of school, after finding I had almost all the courses required for a Communications major the university was trying to get approved, I focused on what else I needed for the major. The school added a writing class unlike the perfunctory Creative Writing I and II or Drama Theory they'd been offering. This new course was Writing for Radio, Television and Film. I'd tried reading screenplays by then, bound editions of production drafts with scene numbers, they seemed antithetic to any creativity to me then, but this course opened my eyes to what I could do, albeit amateurish and simple, within the form. I spent that semester immersed in my writing, thinking about the future I'd thought I could achieve through a career creating dramatic pieces.

But at the end of that semester, knowing I had still another semester's worth of credits to go before a degree, I left with the plan to finish later.

I started working right out of school, and since I hadn't finished college yet, I wasn't exactly raking in the dough (a lesson I've learned over and over and will preach to the high heavens: Finish school. No discussion.). Making more meant working more, and the first thing to go was the writing, and it wasn't all at once, it was never a decision to stop, it was a postponement, a promise to myself to go back to it and make up the difference. Over the years, I have dedicated swatches of time to writing and rewriting, but never pushed, despite the urging of a great friend, an actual working screenwriter who could offer advice at the sound of a telephone ring; despite the urging of the woman who'd become my wife, a magazine writer/editor who could read what I wrote and give cogent feedback.

So, why now?

Because I've recognized the need in myself to set a deadline and map things out before proceeding, plus the need to let others know what I want to do, since then I will be making myself accountable.

Because while I'm doing all right professionally, I've never envisioned myself in that line of work, especially now that I've seen people who have. I'm not them.

Because I'm tired of thinking I failed when I haven't even tried.

Because I'm now a father, too, and I want to do for my son what I know my father would have done if he could have.

Most importantly, because I now feel the 'want to' again, the feeling that this is something I'm good at that I can make a contribution with. I've worked for others and been that go-to guy to the advantage of big companies and small companies. I've pushed for the good of employers.

Now I want to push for me, for my family.

Why am I doing it out in the open like this?

Because I'd like you to keep me honest. Just by knowing people might read this makes it necessary for me to follow through. I'll post what happens, what interest I get, what I'm working on. I plan to be candid, but you'll forgive me if I hold back names. It may get ugly. I hope it will be beautiful. I'm looking forward to looking back a year and seeing what I was able to do.

Time to get to work.