The Actual Social Network

Hello and welcome back!

I’m finally home, dear readers. I can breathe. I’m in my bed, in my room, in my house. These past couple of months felt like I was living a life that wasn’t mine. Like I was having an out-of-body experience, just floating, watching myself from a distance. Away. Cut off. Different.

I feel scattered from the amount of people I have encountered. Like different parts of me are sprinkled around the world. I feel exposed.

For my “loyal customers,” you know how I’ve always had a fear of being exposed. I hated being known, I couldn’t stand the idea of someone forming thoughts that involved me, big or small. I am defensive, always, when someone comes up to me with “I thought about you,” my first reaction would be “WHY?! Please don’t!”

But with my career, being known, recognized, is the number one goal to get more work. Which, by the way, this career choice? was the biggest scam ever. 

I met a successful, 2-time Emmy winner, 2-time Golden Globe winner, 70 something year old screenwriter back in July, Mort. One of the first conversations I had with him was about this. We were walking to our lunch break and he said something that stopped me in my tracks; “Joe told me so much about you.”

Now, Joe is another big-time screenwriter that I love dearly, but BRO, JUST DON’T. My reaction to Mort’s comment was an instant: “Oh, no.” he laughed, then grilled me on why that was my immediate response. So I told him about my fear of not holding up to the standards of other people’s opinions of me, of not matching whatever picture they’d painted.

I told him how I see myself as an introvert, who sometimes hits, and other times misses. I told him that my work relationship with Joe came at a time when I was hitting hard. And I’m just worried that I might miss this time around because I’m not really feeling myself at the moment. 

So, basically, what I was trying to ask of him was; please don’t base the start of our experience on my experience with someone else. And he simply obliged. He promised to forget anything he heard about me, and I promised that I would do the same. Because I, like him, also asked around and collected impressions of him from other people. 

We decided to begin with a clean slate. 

Sorry, readers, I veered off. I was talking about how this career choice was a scam. So I chose to become a screenwriter, not a director, not a producer, first because writing is my number one love, and second, because I didn’t want to interact with people. I just wanted to write, send in my scripts, and crawl back into my cave. Rinse and repeat.

But that was just a dream. Because apparently, to be a screenwriter, you have to be a good actor first. To sell your ideas, you have to pitch them, to pitch them, you have to perform. There are so many more people-involved-activities than I ever thought. The dream of being a forever loner crashed HARD. And the reason I mentioned Mort, is because even after all the success he’s had in his career, he said that he, also, chose to be a screenwriter to avoid interacting with other people. He fell into the exact same trap. 

And after almost 50 years, this was his take on it:

That’s the scam, but here’s the secret: being in the film industry constantly pushes you out of your comfort zone, whether it’s with socializing or with unearthing heart-wrenching traumas to write better characters. If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re not doing it right.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this post. Just reflecting on the past few months. I haven’t been writing here because every time I sat down to, I thought, “we already talked about that.” I didn’t want to sound repetitive. But now, writing this, I see it differently; it’s not repetition, it’s progress.

I’m not here to complain about it anymore. I’m accepting it as part of who I am. I’m growing. A year ago, I never would’ve told Mort what I told him. I never would’ve blurred those lines. I always kept my personal life and work life separate. Boundaries were my thing. Ask anyone.

But now, I see how enmeshed I’ve become in my work life. And honestly? I kind of like it. Because the best thing to come out of all of this isn’t the projects, it’s the connections. The people I meet. Ironic, right? I got into this thinking I’d avoid people, and now they’ve become my favorite part.

As hard as these past months have been on me, I came out of them with new friends and connections that I didn’t expect. People who will stay with me, in one way or another, carrying pieces of me the way the world has. And maybe that’s what will make me not just a better writer, but a better person too.

What about you, my lovely readers? Tell me!

FFB Out