This Day I Tread

I hate days like today.

I feel like I'm treading water in a fog so thick I can barely see my hands. I'm unclear. And I ask myself constantly: Where I should go? What I should be doing?

It gets like this sometime, especially when I have no major projects I'm working on which normally lead me like a lighthouse beacon into a some kind of clear direction, some harbor. Sure I could do something--email, script rewrites, research--but what is the most important thing to do NOW? Oh I hear the chorus (lead by my friend Darryl) responding loudly: Do something that will get you some MONEY, now!

But what is the best way to do that now? For the past several years, I've hustled up dozens upon dozens of writing jobs--from academic papers to artist bios to scripts--but honestly, I'm tired of that particular hustle. It's like pitching pennies when I should be bowling for billions. I've got film projects ("Crossed," "Jade the Protector"), TV projects ("Sermons by Lavell"), animated projects ("The Circuit") all floundering on the waves, in that damn fog, waiting for the Hollywood lighthouse to bring them into harbor. And I have more projects I want to write which will undoubtedly add to my sea traffic.

But what do I need to do today, or tomorrow, or the next day? Do I create more stuff? Do I clean up the flotsam of business emails, phone calls or the jetsam of domestic duties? Do I attempt to steer the present projects into some kind of settled waters?

Or do I say the hell with these waves and start swimming toward different waters where Post Office buoys and other traditional nine-to-five flotels bob temptingly in waters I once pledged to never again tread?

I thank God for all my days, but I really hate the way this one is going.