I'll miss you, vacation

I've had three weeks of holiday vacation and it's been fantastic. During vacations I always turn into a professional screenwriter as much as I can. I read scripts, write pages, watch movies with a critical eye, catch up on all my industry contacts, try to attend a function or two. I sort of pretend my day job doesn't exist.

During this vacation I managed to do almost the entire rewrite of Nice Girls and I'm much, much happier with this version than I was with the first. I finished yesterday after two days of marathon writing sessions, just in time to send it to the group for notes on Sunday. That leaves me four days to get my shit together to go back to work.

That's all great, but it makes it really really hard to actually go back to work.

I like my job. I like the kids, I like the control I have over how I spend my time, I like the fact that I get to talk all day about my favorite subject. I like having full health benefits and a livable wage. I hate the homework and getting up early and the time it takes away from writing.

It's that getting up early thing that's the real bitch. Everything that happens in this town seems to happen on a Thursday. Parties, screenings, panels. It's like everybody in town sleeps late on Friday so they consider Thursday part of the weekend. I can't do these things because I get up at 6am and have to talk on my feet all day to a bunch of volatile teenagers.

So since I have one more Thursday before I return to early rising, I'm taking advantage of it tonight. I'm going to a double feature of The Town and Gone Baby Gone at the Aero with a Q&A by the director between films.

You know who the director is, right? Right. I honestly cannot wait to see what he has to say because I love most of his work. People can say what they want about Ben Affleck, but the man knows his business.

It's stuff like this that makes me wish even more that this was my job. Every day that I sit and write and send emails and sign up for screenings makes me sigh and say "Why can't someone pay me to do this?"

You and me both, right?

I keep reminding myself that I'm at a point where all I have to do is make this script great. It's commercial, original, interesting, and in a genre that sells pretty well. I have people ready to read it who can get it where it needs to go. So if I just make this the best script I can, this may be the way to making my vacation life become my real life.