I'm Not A Bad Person, I'm Just Writing That Way

You may have been able to pick up by now that I'm a tad self-conscious and maybe too sensitive to what people think of me. Hardly the right toolbox to carry into a writing career, so I'm vowing to remember that professional behavior may seem like it's personal, but it shouldn't be taken that way. Like that producer a month or so back that told me she'd get back to me after the weekend and vanished. If I look at just her interaction with me, I'd think it was rude to me, but she's got more going on in her life than talking to me and considering me for that project she's been shepherding along, so when I look at it from that perspective, I think she made the decision and moved on before thinking to let me know. for whatever reason. I can choose to take it personally or professionally, and I choose professionally.

I was drifting off to sleep the other night and was for some reason thinking of my life ten or so years ago. There was a point where I wasn't working, I'd just been through a bad relationship, money was nonexistant and I didn't see a way out. One night I had a few too many beers in front of the tube. The news was on and I started thinking about how for some people, crime just seems like what they're entitled to do. Those perp walks you see on the news where the alleged criminal is walking with their head up while the others shackled to him are ducking under their shirt collars, that's what I was thinking of. It was this kind of guy I used to worry about when handling cash at movie theaters that I used to manage, some social misfit who wouldn't care if I ended up walking away or lying on the floor after he snatched a few grand out of my hands. I saw plenty of characters that wanted to look tough wandering the lobby, but the guys I watched for were those who'd just stare as you crossed the lobby from the box office to the manager's office, eyes blank.

That drunken night I wondered if I could be like that, cold and ruthless. I pictured myself not as I would have been, deposit bag under arm, but standing off to the side as someone else squired the deposit back to the office. There was one theater I knew of that had it worse, they had to take the deposit to the bank across a dark parking lot. Frequently only one employee handled this task. Who might rob them? Could I be that guy standing tall in the walk from the precinct door to the van taking perps to the county lockup?

It didn't take more than ten seconds to laugh at myself. I'd be thinking of the employee, how the robbery would affect their job, their life.

As I thought back on that drunken night all this time later, I figured this is something I should be writing about, an ordinary guy who is drawn to commit a crime. Finally, a character-driven idea in the midst of all these high-concepts. I'm thrilled with the idea and will develop it along with the comedy I'm plotting out now.

But as I drifted back to sleep after typing out ideas from my little breakthrough, I wondered if people would think less of me for having wondered for a minute all those years ago if I were capable of committing a crime like that. What if someone asked me how I got the idea? I'd have to tell them. And ironically, I'd feel guilty if I didn't tell the truth.

And there I found my answer all over again.