Good News and Bad News

Good: I actually managed to download and install Skype all on my lonesome. This is no small feat for a Natural-Born Luddite.

Bad (but not unexpected): It doesn't work.

Good: I'm attending this year's Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo and will have a spot of my own, something that was very much in doubt up until a few days ago.

Bad: Still not attending this year's New York Comic Con the week before. My so-called career wants to know if the hole is deep enough yet or whether it should keep digging its own grave.

Good: THE HOLIDAY MEN in THE MASSACRE MEMORIAL DAY SALE MASSACRE EXTRA-SPECIAL COLLECTIBLE BLACK AND WHITE VARIANT PRINT EDITION #1 is almost ready to go to the printer! Which means the first online adventure is nearly finished also!

Bad: Getting THE HOLIDAY MEN in THE MASSACRE MEMORIAL DAY SALE MASSACRE EXTRA-SPECIAL COLLECTIBLE BLACK AND WHITE VARIANT PRINT EDITION #1 done--just getting the first storyline done for the ChemSet--has been an incredible slog. The script for the first adventure was something like six thousand words long; the new text stuff for the print version come in at around 2500. I wish I was just a hack, as opposed to a hack with pretensions of having something more to offer the world of entertainment than a hack. Life would be much easier that way.

Good: I'll almost certainly have copies of THE HOLIDAY MEN in THE MASSACRE MEMORIAL DAY SALE MASSACRE EXTRA-SPECIAL COLLECTIBLE BLACK AND WHITE VARIANT PRINT EDITION #1 at this year's Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Bad: I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to pay for my copies of THE HOLIDAY MEN in THE MASSACRE MEMORIAL DAY SALE MASSACRE EXTRA-SPECIAL COLLECTIBLE BLACK AND WHITE VARIANT PRINT EDITION #1.

Good: All the management folk "feel really good" about THE HOLIDAY MEN, and feel even better about having a print version to show people.

Bad: After paying for my copies of the H-Men print version, I'm going to have to give more of them away for free than I'm going to want to, in the hopes that someone with money will like it enough to give me and Nick some.

Good: Hollywood Manager says the office is "feeling really good" about my second spec television pilot script.

Bad: Hollywood Manager says the office finally figured out what was making them hold off on going out aggressively with my first spec film script.

Bad: Fixing the problem with the FSFS is going to be a royal pain.

Good: I don't need to fix the problem if I don't want to. They'll still go out with it as is if I don't want to deal with the note.

Bad: If they go out with it and it doesn't sell, I'll always wonder if it would've sold if I'd addressed the problem.

Good: If I fix the problem and they go out with it and it doesn't sell, they'll go to additional lengths, seeking funding to get the film made independently.

Bad: Fixing that story problem (if one accepts that it is a problem--it's a Hollywood thing, don't ask) is going to be a REAL pain the behind.

Good: Hollywood Manager says the San Diego Comic Con is now too chaotic an environment to get anything substantial accomplished, so I don't have to feel bad about not going ever again (till next time I end up going.) Yay!

Bad: The Hollywood Manager thinks the only thing I could possibly do to speed things up on that end would be to go to LA for a few days and do lots of meetings.

Bad: Before the end of April.

Bad: If I can't get down there for some meetings before then, the earliest going down would do any good would be September.

Good: T and I have enough Airmiles to get a return flight to Los Angeles!

Bad: At the moment, T and I don't have enough actual money for food, never mind living and transport expenses for me in LA for three days. Flying Spaghetti Monster bless overdrafts.

Good: I'll be signing the contract for an editing assignment next week.

Good: An editing assignment I got independently on my own merits (as opposed to knowing someone who knows someone.)

Good: An actual paid editing assignment.

Bad: The assignment doesn't pay enough that I can "safely" go to LA.

Bad: Most successful major bank heists don't pay enough that I can go safely to LA. I'm beginning to realize that 2007 was no more tangibly successful than 2006. Which is awful.

Good: Taking the wide view, I didn't get ripped off as much in 2007 as I did in 2006.

Bad: I still got ripped off in 2007. By a Christian publisher, no less.

Sigh.

Overall, the good news this week outweighs the bad, and that's unusual. However, there's been so much stuff going on--this is just what I can comfortably talk about--that there's more bad than usual to try and weather. And as anyone who reads this blog regularly is well-aware, I'm predisposed to dwell on the negative.

Everyone seems confident that great things (or at least self-sustaining things) await if I just hang in there. Everyone but me. But the only option other than hanging in is letting go. And even if the people who've been supporting me in this foolish endeavour could forgive me for quitting at this point, I don't think I could.

Upward, ever upward.

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