is this how everyone else is doing it?

My new manager prepped me, way back in May, September should be when we should "go out" with our first project. In some ways I was a very lucky sign for him. Usually when writers are looking for new reps it's because they've got goose egg and they need someone to make an omelet of it. I was different. My arms were full and I was getting worried I was going to drop something.

At first he was even a little confused. Like, what's the catch here? You don't expect me to get you a job, you seem to wince at meetings (which most folks are begging for now). I said the catch is I have a lot of enemies at the moment and I can't read social situations to save my life.

The more we worked together the more he came to respect me and see how impressive my slate was. I'd told him I'm not good at dabbing myself up and this was all proof. I told Puhg recently how awful it feels to be back in LA after the Fringe on a deep subconscious level. Because at Fringe every artist is valued. Like, truly valued. No one is there for the money, can be there for the money. You can't look cool carrying your props to and from the broom closet every day, while also by the way, in full hair and makeup. We are a band of clowns and messy makers. Meanwhile the point of Hollywood is to devalue artists.

It's really that evil and simple. Every person you talk to has a job, and that job is to devalue you. Even your mentors, even your friends, even your team. I write a script I love and give it to an exec. The exec loves it but it's their JOB to convince me it's worth as little money as possible. I agree. They send it to a director, play the same game with them, and then the director's JOB is to convince me they are more valuable than the script, that it will be garbage without them. Then we do the same game with actors and crew. I talk to my reps who have my back but also don't, because if they were to really fight for my worth, they'd have to stand up to corporate lawyers, and they have their JOBS because they're good at convincing artists they are worth less than they are. Additionally, one's reps can't make an artist think they are TOO valuable, because then they'll want to switch agents, to a bigger, better buzzier company. So there's a push and pull of your manager hyping you up then cutting you down. It's not personal. It's incredibly personal.

Anyway, I keep this new guy at a distance. I didn't want to work with a man, but in some ways it's easier. We can be friendly but not friends. I tell him, to his face, I'm watching him carefully and when he made the one mistake he's made since we've been together I told him, very clearly, "I'm glad this happened because now it will never happen again, is that clear?" It is clear. This isn't mean. This is business. It's not call "Show Friends," I say a lot now.

So anyway, what's cute about Pip is he is so excited to become a Team. (Yeah, just decided I'm going to call my manager Pip from now on here.) He was supportive and interested before, but when he came to my play in May, that's when things turned. He cried, his girlfriend cried, he saw me do my thing at the talkback. He was happy to assist before, but after that he wanted to Work Together. To be able not just to sidebar with my lawyer about the stuff I already had going, but to call companies and say, "Hey Alice and I are developing this TOGETHER." And I'm in for it. This is a very lonely career.

Anyway, the thing I told him I had to write next was a short story, which was basically a movie pitch. But instead of writing a whole script just so it could ping around town for a year then only maybe get bought, I decided I'd write the thing as prose--so it was DONE--so I could at least hold it in my hands (and maybe to a live reading).

I am a very intentional writer (NO DUH the sky screams). Knowing I had this Sept 8th deadline meant I had to have a first draft done by early July, allow a few weeks for Trusted Readers to respond, spend two more weeks of August revising, send to another few readers, revise again, then send to my copy editor no later than Sept 1st. This is how I work. Slow and steady. But that's just not what could happen this summer.

Fringe took up about 10 x if not 50 x the effort I thought it would. As a producer there was just...always something. Details or big choices or wrangling schedules or wrangling actors or rewrites or drama or the hot water turning off in the flat. July sailed by with me barely hanging on...and I got about five pages written of the 20-page thing. No worries, no worries, I told myself (very worried). I'll just write the other fifteen by August 10th, do one round of notes and revisions...that's fine.

Well it wasn't fine. It wasn't fine at all. Halfway through August I'd had about two hours to write total. I liked the pages I'd added, but there were not enough of them is the problem. The end of Fringe and my inbox exploded. I couldn't kid myself. Alright, I can write the entire thing on the plane to Iceland, maybe get one reader to look, revise....yes this won't be ideal but it will work.

Reader, I didn't write anything on the dang plane to Iceland. I was exhausted turns out. I was crying into my diary turns out. And the eight-hour flight back to America wasn't much better. I made notes in my journal, sure. But I mostly coughed and sneezed and closed my eyes listening to rap albums and Olivia Rodrigo. That's okay, we land on Sunday and I have to send the manuscript Tuesday. I have a WHOLE DAY to get it all together.

Reader! I slept and hacked on that Monday! I walked around the neighborhood slowly and sadly. I ate Thai food and listened to YouTube lectures about Carl Jung! I am not a procrastinator. This feeling was so foreign I may as well have been abducted by aliens. YES, this story is a departure from everything I've ever written and I worried it was going to be terrible and it's been much too much pressure from Pip, but wow. What a sensation.

I wrote Pip Sept 8. I said the story was nearly ready. (A stretch for being on page 6 of 20.) I said I wanted to get my copy editor on it and needed to give her a week. How about I deliver Sept 14? He said that was great! I forget, writers stereotypically turn in drafts months late.

I got the copy editor to agree to the job, to corner myself into a deadline with money attached. I might disappoint myself, but I never waste money. She said, yes, Thursday to Sunday would be just fine. Flat rate.

I wrote a few pages Tuesday. I wrote a few pages Wednesday, hoping to finish and send to editor in the morning. NOPE, I emailed her begging for one more day. Also said, haha lol it's looking like 30, not 20, pages. She agreed like an angel. Thursday I went to one of my haunts for the entire day. 9 - 3 when they closed. AND I DIDN'T FINISH THE STORY! I found myself opening Instagram a lot, looking at photos from vacation, nibbling my tart like a rat.

Friday I attacked the thing, it was truly now or never. I wrote in the morning. I lost faith. I decided to pause and read the piece top to bottom. I realized...I liked it!

I struggle to like my own work. Hence I need all the feedback and readers. I need to know. I don't know myself. But this? I liked this? Maybe no one else would. That's okay. Pip will have to get a grip if this isn't our project. I'll take time off and come back with another idea. I'll, I'll...I'll I don't know what I'll do.

I wrote in the afternoon. I booked massages for me and Puhg, at 8. I had to be done. At 7 pm, I attached the file to an email for the editor. I said I was humiliated to send it, but here it is. I Venmo'd her $300. I closed my computer. Puhg and I walked to the shop. After, I took a hot shower, ate chips for dinner, and fell asleep with the lights on.

Saturday copy editor (a true gem) had finished the gig. She wrote, "I LOVED this," and she could lie. It's not her job to give me opinions. I weeded through her changes that night, before the improv show in the garden with all the cuties and the night out with the neighborhood pals.

Sunday I pencil-proofed. I had to fly out to the east coast yesterday, but prioritized sitting at the cafe for half an hour underlining certain words. I took my notes with me, from the gate made final tweaks, saved it as a PDF (scary), sent it to Pip.

I wrote, "It gives me absolutely no joy to send this, but nevertheless it is attached." I got on the plane. He emailed, before takeoff, "Reading this right NOW!" When I landed I turned on my phone and got his texts. "Alice!!! That short is incredible...." I tell him he has to say that. He says lol he does not. "Alice. It's phenomenal"

He's making a list of who to send it to. Maybe he's right. It's hard to believe, because I just trusted my own voice, my own preferences. It feels like a slapped it together, but I guess my brain shaped it on her own for a year, huh? Is this how everyone else is doing it?

The Shake Shack in Hollywood

Wake up before the alarm, to a text, asking if I can hop on a show this Friday night. I can! A dance workout, put pumpkin rolls in the oven. Wear my new concert t-shirt. It's baby blue and reminds me of how fun it was to scream "Constant Headache" at The Greek in a row by myself.

I trot down to the coffee shop to meet Puhg for a latte. The barista working, my favorite, a young director. I journal and jet of by 9:10 to meet my writer's group for breakfast in Hirshy's beautiful backyard. I make a big deal about taking the last apple pop-tart and then don't even finish it. Shawl texts me we could write at a cafe together for an hour. I'd have to bail early and consider, as I do often these days, how much to amend my life to accommodate famous people. But the cafe is only five minutes away, so I go and order two eggs and and a lemonade and gab with the funny star. After she leaves I write a scene of my new play, make it home by 2.

Answer some emails in bed. Set up a coffee with AB for next week! Hit the pool. Read my fat Madwoman book, swim, swim, swim. In the deep end I find a bee. I use a leaf to air-lift her to the ledge. Every lap I take a peek. She seems to be breathing and drying, like ohmyGOD what was that all about?

Shower and get ready in a jif. Decide to go with grey dress and bubblegum lipstick. Hop in a cab to meet my manager at the Shake Shack on Hollywood Boulevard. If you live here, you never go to Hollywood Boulevard. It's funny to sit waiting for her around all the tourists. K___ is quite late, but I don't mind. I practice my Japanese. She shows up with her magic company credit card and I get to eat a veggie burger and Coke. And we gab about all my meetings from the week and how hopeless this industry is. But it feels better, when I'm laughing about it, eating a free veggie burger and Coke.

We walk two blocks to the networking mixer and stop to enjoy bits from the walk of fame. I take a picture with Bette Davis's star. Feels important at the time. At the mixer I see a writer I know, who immediately tells me he had to get a survival job in marketing. We run into a theatre producer and I feel myself ooze. I'm sick of oozing. We chat with another exec, clink classes with a couple other writers. One is so fresh-faced and nervous--I admire he came to this big group thing alone.

The pack heads to the theatre on foot, and we watch a brilliant production of Company. My dear friend R___ waves to me at intermission. She's wearing a bright yellow dress and looks anxious. In Act Two I spend a lot of time thinking about my own work. I try to stop myself, but inspiration can't always be tamed. My manager and I gossip out into the night and go to the chic ice cream shop to discuss everyone we know in the context of the musical. Once my mouth is black from brownie batter I call Puhg to pick me up. My manager reassures me, we are getting by. We're cockroaches, but we're alive. And then, a cockroach crawls up from the wall behind her and threatens to jump into her hair! I pull her away in the nick of time.

At 11 Sweet Potato is up, lying very flat but happily in Puhg's shadow. She gets an apple slice.