Mind of Migg

Blogs are a difficult thing. One minute, you’re in a groove, getting in a couple posts a week. Then you miss a week. Then another. Then a month goes by and you wonder how you ever possibly managed to find the time to blog so regularly. It’s the same as going to the gym regularly. It’s easy to let it slip and it’s tough to get into consistent habits once you have slipped. This post is my attempt to start creating good blogging habits again.

Each year, I like to take a look back at how I did with my New Year’s resolutions and then set new ones for the coming year. Last year was a tough year. I wanted to call it the “Year of Rejection” last January. I was going to put myself out there, with the thought being going through a lot of “no’s” to get to a “yes” in regards to my work. I think the more appropriate title for 2010 was the “Year of Blink and You’ll Miss It.” 2010 flew by, and not in a great way. There were some positives, but it was a challenging year that required taking a step back to really see where I wanted to go with my work.

I had a few goals for the year. Let’s see how I did:

- I will submit to as many publications as possible to get a short story published.
Result: My short story writing fell apart by February. There was just too much going on. I started off the year working 2 part-time jobs, 1 job with a startup, and writing when I could. My only source of income was from one of the part-time positions. I finished the year with a full-time office position. No time for all the writing I wanted, sadly.

- I will apply to at least 5 different writing fellowships or workshops
Result: I only applied to one.

- I will apply to screenwriting contests
Result: I applied to one and was rejected, but received pretty positive feedback.

- I will apply to filmmaking fellowships and contests
Result: I applied to one and was rejected. The main reason I applied to so few was because of two reasons – lack of application fee money and lack of new material.

- I will send out query letters to at least 50 agents and managers
Result: The worst thing that can happen to a writing career on the verge of beginning is to get a nibble on a script. I got a couple nibbles throughout the year. Instead of reaching out on my own to get an agent or manager, it felt like these nibbles were going to do the work for me. Granted, one of those nibbles led to an option of Monsoon, which I’m very excited about. However, the lesson I learned last year is that the moment it seems like something is going to happen is the moment you need to work twice as hard as if it’s not.

- I will join a writers group
Result: I did not join a writer’s group for two reasons – some of them cost money, and I had none, and some of them I wanted to attend were full, so I couldn’t get in. I did join the South Bay Filmmakers Meetup Group though, and finally made it to a meeting this month.

- I will scratch, claw, and fight my way to getting Monsoon funded using as many creative funding techniques as possible (and good old fashioned, “asking everyone I know to pitch in” methods as well)
Result: The nibbles strike again. There was interest in an international adaptation and I sat on that longer than I should have. Then a wonderful thing happened and a producer really loved the script. He even wants to make it. Crazy. Monsoon is my baby all grown up and I’m comfortable letting it go. I’ll find another project to make my own this year and I am very excited about Monsoon getting made.

Once I started up with an office job again, the year flew by. There are moments when I feel I let it all go to waste. Then I remember that the only reason it flew by is because so much was going on. I finished a TV drama spec. I co-wrote a TV comedy spec. I wrote a web series. I outlined and started work on Tulsea Pictures’ first indie feature. There’s a lot to be proud of, despite the challenges.

New year now, so new resolutions. Here’s my 2011 resolutions:

- Engage more. In person and online. Go to more networking events, and TALK TO PEOPLE. Use twitter as more than a place to re-tweet. Rule #1 of 2011 is to engage.
- Comment on blogs and in forums. This sounds simple, but I always lurk rather than make my presence known. I find a lot of great articles and writing online, but rarely take the time to give kudos for the writing, or offer my opinion on an article. Rule #2 of 2011 is to comment.
- Make the time. There’s not enough time in the day to do everything I’d like to do. There is room to prioritize though. I need to cut back on frivolous TV and iPhone games if I want to get in some short story writing and reading in addition to writing scripts. Rule #3 of 2011 is to make the time.
- Enjoy the moment. It’s so easy to get caught up in counting down the hours until I’m out of the office. It’s easy to put things on a calendar for the following week and then overlook everything that happens in between. Last year flew by because I was more focused on crossing things off a checklist than I was on truly enjoying them. No more. Rule #4 of 2011 is to enjoy the moment.

There’s only four resolutions, but they’re going to each require some effort. I’d like to build on the learning experience of last year and really capitalize on real opportunities that are finally so close. I hope it’s a fun year.

Moving sucks. The cost to pay people to move all your junk (a lot of which should’ve been thrown away years ago) far outweighs the savings of doing it yourself. If only I had the money. Sadly though, I didn’t. So we moved, for the third time in three years.

When we left a place we really loved in Redondo Beach back in 2008, we moved everything into storage. That’s easy, you throw everything into boxes and you’re done. Violet lived with Britt and Andrew for three months and I spent time in Phoenix, Santa Fe, and couches (rough time, long story, involved a three month job in Vancouver that fell through).

We found our new place in West LA and only had to transfer big boxes out of storage to the new place. A year later, we moved from a one bedroom, to a two bedroom two doors over. That didn’t even require packing. We mostly just carried things here and there over the course of a week.

So we may have done a lot of moving, but it was never really “moving”. Until this recent move, we never had to load up, unload, pack, and unpack, all at once. It’s exhausting.

West LA was never our style. It’s crowded, loud, and expensive. Moving back to South Bay was always in the back of our minds as Violet was finishing up at Pepperdine. When our plan of moving somewhere new, like New York or San Francisco didn’t happen, we knew we were still moving.

A move allows a chance to make a fresh start. Unpacking allowed me a chance to go through reminders of road bumps overcome along the way:

• My acceptance letter to the Chapman School of Film and Television for 2004, and provisional acceptance for 2005, neither of which I was able to accept.
• Bottle of anxiety medicine to help me sleep post-accident back in 2004. I saved the last pill to prove to myself that I didn’t need it.
• My 8^th grade short story assignment – 3 pages were required and I turned in a 20 page story.
• The first chapter of two other stories I started as a freshman in high school.

Strangely reassuring to see little mementos I saved to remind me of my passion and motivate me to get healthy. Strange too to see snippets of my writing style so early in the few pieces I did when I was young. A little sad that I stopped writing altogether after those unfinished stories until five years later when I realized economics wasn’t for me.

Now that the new place is unpacked and livable, I’ve realized I don’t need to save everything. The writing samples are fun, but the painful motivators are no longer necessary. I read a quote earlier today, from a screenwriting motivation blog:

“Finishing unfinished business casts us into the next phase of our lives.”

A new place let’s me do that. A few letters to send out, a few things to throw away, a new phase to start. It’s good to be home.

There’s a couple quotes floating around about what to shoot for, but I find it best to stick with the original:

“If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s ok. But you’ve got to shoot for something. A lot of people don’t even shoot.”

This quote is saying that if you aim as high as possible, you can still end up hitting something pretty big. The other version is:

“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.”

This one is saying to aim for something big and far (but not the biggest or furthest) and you’re bound to hit something large.

The original gives a sense of having a plan, the other sounds like throwing ideas out hoping to strike it rich. So it should be no surprise that the original comes from Confucius and the latter comes from a motivational speaker. When you aim as big as you can, you can hit nice big things along the way, but if you aim big, hoping to hit anything and become a star, then you’re bound for failure. You have to have a plan, especially when you have big goals.

Don’t expect one swing of the bat to get you there

There’s nothing wrong with singles. So don’t step up to your first major league at bat, or even your first AAA at bat for that matter, thinking that all it will take is one swing to hit the longest shot out of a stadium. You’re not going to write the most epic script ever your first time opening Final Draft. You’re probably not going to make the highest grossing film of all time in your first attempt.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t expect a home run. But even if you do, hitting a single home run doesn’t guarantee you a spot in the Hall of Fame. Maybe that night’s highlight reel, but not much else until you produce over many seasons.

My point is, you can’t swing for the fences from the start without appreciating the ability to get a lucky slap single, hit a nice double to the gap, or even be the ultimate team player and take a sacrifice. If you think all or nothing, you’re likely going to end up with nothing.

Know what it takes to have a successful swing

Worse than going for nothing short of a long bomb is doing so without knowing how to swing a bat. You can’t assume that just by reading up on how to swing a bat means you know what you’re doing. This is true even if you think all the other players are swinging it wrong. They’ve still spent countless hours taking batting practice. Sure the theory of your swing may be genuis, but you won’t know until you take a couple of live pitches. When you stand in that batter’s box for the first time, don’t lower your expectations, but respect what it takes to simply get a hit.

There’s no shortcut to the moon.

It’s a long way up there. Further even to the stars. Moving away from baseball analogies and into NASA, think about it this way: we can’t get the stars until we get out of our solar system. We can’t get to Mars until we can comfortably get to the moon. And we couldn’t get to the moon until we could make it out of orbit. There’s a path to greatness. Yes, you should aim for the targets way out there, but have a plan for the steps along the way.

Shooting for the stars doesn’t mean you take one giant whiff after another. It means you have a plan to lofty goals. You need to have the guts to take the chance, but you also have accept that it’s a long process. That’s why it’s not so bad to wind up hitting the moon, when you realize how far away it truly is.

Well, you don’t have to be your job, if you don’t want to. A few months back, I was speaking to a friend who had recently been laid off. Here’s how the conversation went down:

Him: “So how’s it going?”

Me: “Well, I have a job.”

Aaaaand, cringe. Only I didn’t mean it to be rude. It was a sigh of resignation because I had recently returned to a “day job”. The way I meant it was that things weren’t going so hot for the stuff I truly had a passion for. It was one of those moments where I wished I could hit “undo” on the words coming out of my mouth. (side note: my friend is brilliant and has since found a job that is not only better than his previous one, but he found the time to do some amazing writing work and come up with a great concept for a new feature during his time between jobs.)

Being a creative person who needs a day job to make ends meet is tough. Too often, we are labeled by the positions we have. We allow it to define us. But that’s not fair. I can still call myself a writer, even if the only time I’m writing is when I stay up late, get up early, and spend weekend afternoons struggling to get in writing time because I have to work 40 hours a week in a completely unrelated field.

Many times I would doubt myself. I’d hesitate to refer to myself as a filmmaker or a writer because I didn’t feel I had “made it” yet. That is backwards thinking. You don’t need an external measure to decide who you are and what you do. I write, so I’m a writer. I make films, I’m a filmmaker. I recruit financial advisors (which I do well and don’t mind), so I’m also a recruiter. And that’s not the end of the world.

Even if the job you have is your dream job, you eat, sleep, and dream it through other actions. If all I did was write and make movies, eventually I’d run out of things to share. My life would be confined to such a limited scope. I’ve realized that trying to fit work into every waking hour is counterproductive to my goals. So I travel. I play sports when I can. I cook. I read (scripts and books). I try things outside of my comfort zone because when I look back, I almost always tell myself, “yeah, that was worth it.” Even when it’s not worth it, the experience gained becomes hindsight for later stories to tell.

People are more than the work they do. Having a mundane job, an exciting job, or not having a job at all doesn’t determine personal success and satisfaction. There’s a lot more to it than that. Experience. Share. Cringe. Have fun.

When I was a freshman in college, I had an internship that I walked away from because I was unsatisfied.  The internship was through an organization dedicated to placing talented minority youth in business positions.  I walked away because I felt it was training interns in how to be middle management, instead of truly successful leaders.  I wanted more.

Read more…

Two days is a long time to go without meat, let alone two weeks.  Violet and I decided to try it anyway.  We finished up a two-week period with no meat in our diet (save one exhausted night where I failed to associate a can of tuna with meat and mixed it in with pasta and vegetables, but that doesn’t count).

Why did we do it?  The basic idea was that we want to reduce the amount of meat in our diet.  Don’t get me wrong, I love meat.  LOVE IT.  But we’re making an effort to follow Michael Pollan’s general rule, “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”  Too often, when we don’t have meat available as the centerpiece of a meal, we opt to go out instead of creatively throwing vegetables together to make a dish.

We wanted to try some new vegetarian dishes and get used to less meat.  The first week was a lot of fun.  I made risotto, butternut squash chipotle soup, and eggplant Parmesan.  Violet made an awesome meatless chili with cornbread.  Then I got the new job, we didn’t go grocery shopping over the weekend, and the second week turned into a long craving for our meat on Saturday.

Being a vegetarian requires some thought and prep to have filling food available.  Mixed greens don’t cut it, especially from fast food places I ended up going for lunch in my first week at work.  I didn’t necessarily eat healthier, but I think my stomach adjusted to smaller portions and I realized that a veggie burrito isn’t all that terrible.  We had Indian food multiple times.  It was the easiest place to go with vegetarian food that wasn’t just a salad or mixed vegetables.

Finally, Saturday arrived and my mouth watered imagining the steak I’d be eating at Victor and Gen’s wedding reception (sidenote – awesome wedding.  Had a blast.).  Before the meals, there were appetizers, so my first taste of meat after two weeks was actually some grilled chicken on stick.

It was fantastic.  The first thing I noticed was the texture.  I’d never had an appreciation for the texture of meat.  The flavor was great.  It was like eating a special treat.  And that’s the way we’d like to keep it.  Not only is it healthier, it means we can afford to buy meat that’s organic and all natural.  Our plan is to have higher quality meat only two or three times a week.  We hope this helps in building good habits for better food in general and healthier eating habits.

On a related note, there is a new show out, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution”.  It airs Friday nights on ABC.  I turned it on by chance and instantly became hooked.  The basic premise is Jamie’s desire to teach children about food and healthy eating.  You can watch him outline his wish at his TED prize talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html.

And we’re back.

It’s been a while.  I blame my friends.  Click on those links to the right.  Slackers, all of them (except James).  It’s hard to stay motivated to blog when all my friends have let the dust gather around their own blogs.  Granted, my google reader is full of other blogs that I should make a bigger effort to read regularly, but that’s beside the point.

The lesson here, and we can all learn from this, is: never go to Vegas while sick – you’ll lose every time.  Getting a fever down to 99 a few hours before leaving does not qualify as being “healthy”.  So that’s what happened.  I was getting sick and I made matters worse.  I kept working, I went to Vegas, I kept working some more, and then I collapsed for three days straight.  It was the best rest I’ve had in a long time.

That was a week ago.  Since then, I’m healthy again and have a new (old) job.  Yep, I’m recruiting again.  It’s easy, I seem to be good at it, and it’s a real full-time grownup paycheck.  Forget the soul sucking cubicles, I really need that paycheck.  That, and there’s still some cool people who work there that I’ve kept in touch with.  It was like a mini reunion on my first day back.  The old Cutco salesman part of me even enjoys the recruiting.

Not to say film and writing things aren’t happening.  On the contrary, things are progressing forward more now than they ever have.  But those things take time.  A whole lot of time.  Nobody will ever confuse the movie industry with a fast-moving…anything.

Things are moving forward, I have a normal job and a normal schedule to write around in the meantime, and my cough is almost gone.  Not bad for an extended break from blogging.

In order to maintain my sanity (and my paycheck) I’ve come to treat my time working at the Seattle’s Best Café inside Borders as a large social experiment.  Based on the last few posts I’ve made about my experience thus far, it wasn’t a reach to take this attitude.  It only meant that I observed all behavior through the lens of research rather than through the lens of “I hate my life”.  Being a café worker making enough to cover my gas and lunch money is depressing.  Being witness to all kinds of interesting social behavior is fascinating.

Observation #1:

People follow groups

People don’t get in line one at a time.  There are a lot of people that spend hours in the café.   They’ll buy drinks and snacks here and there throughout the day.  But they won’t do it when there’s no line.  Oh no.  They’ll wait until they see others walking up to the line.  Once there are two people in line, you can count on a third and fourth person stepping up.  It’s as if the line creates a sense of urgency.  The same thing happens at the checkout register downstairs.  “We need to hurry.  Others appear to be leaving.”  It’s like the retail equipment of keeping up with the Jones’.  “If he’s buying a coffee, I’m buying one now too.”

This works with the tip jar too.  I haven’t done a control (because I don’t want to risk a day of crappy tips), but adding a dollar at the beginning of the day to the tip jar makes a huge difference.  If I let people decide on their own what kind of tip day it’s going to be, I’ll see a handful of pennies and nickels.  In fact, most people won’t even notice it’s there with a few coins.  Dollar bills hanging out of a jar sends a pretty clear message.

Observation #2:

Large retailers aren’t bothering to adapt to changing technology

I can go to Amazon, read reviews, and make a purchase with all of my information already stored.  One click and they’re shipping to my apartment.  The Borders.com website doesn’t have reviews.  It doesn’t offer similar recommendations.  Borders only recently began offering free shipping to items that weren’t in stock in-store.  About two years too late.

They also only recently started offering a Sony reader.  Amazon has Kindle.  Barnes & Noble finally got their own reader.  Borders brought out the Sony reader just in time for the 2007 2009 holiday season.  You seeing a trend here?

Now, there is the argument for the experience of the bookstore.  You can count me in the group that says there is something special and fun about browsing a bookstore.  Technology these days has made most people mindlessly nod their head in disagreement.  But technology has made people connected in new ways.  Want to share what you’re reading with others?  There’s probably an app for that.  So why don’t bookstores find a way to make bookstores an experience?  Why not tap into that?  It’s a sad day when retail bookstores are shut down because people would rather click a button than walk around and take in the smell of real books.

Observation #3

The few people that do actually go to a store to buy things aren’t tech savvy.

There’s a reason why they’re still going to the bookstore.  These aren’t the browsers and book lovers that I just spoke about.  No, these are the people that cringe when they hear e-mail and can’t find a way to make purchases online.  Before I became an employee, I always preferred Borders to Barnes & Noble because they had computers that customers could use to search for items.  Barnes & Noble has “employee only” computers.  No, you can’t touch.  At least you can help with your browsing at Border.  Don’t remember the exact title?  Type in some keywords.  It even tells you which section it’s in and everything.  Follow the map and you can’t go wrong.  Or can you?

Things are organized into rationally categorized topics, but that doesn’t stop the angry computer illiterate customers.  They don’t just ask for help, they’ll demand it.

“Excuse me, there is nobody here, can you help me find a DVD?”

“No, but I can call someone to help you.”

(exasperated)”Yes, please do that.”

I’m sorry, but I’ve never sought out help at a Best Buy to find a DVD.  I’ve always though Drama/Action/Comedy/Horror were self-explanatory.  I guess that’s just me.

It’s strange the things that make people angry.  Some people act offended when I offer them a free Borders Rewards card.  They can’t deal with the “spam”.  I had a card before I became a barista because I always write out at a Borders café.  I just did a quick scan of my inbox and found 10 coupons since the beginning of the year.  These are all coupons – they are offers for discounts and notices of new items.  I’m sorry, but if 10 emails of discounts from a store you buy from time to time in six weeks are too much for you, I question your familiarity with e-mail.  It’s no different than Amazon, Bev-Mo, or Apple emails that take me half a second to delete unless something in the subject line catches my eye.

Worse are the people who go to exorbitant lengths to lie their way out of a card.  Just say no, it’s not that difficult you passive-aggressive jerk (and yes, I’ve told someone they could’ve just said “no thanks” after being caught in a clear lie.).

But enough ranting.  Those last few paragraphs strayed from my point.  It’s all a social experiment.  These behaviors and memorable lines will be invaluable to my writing for years to come.  The more I let myself laugh about it, the less bitter it makes me.  To close, two gems since the last time:

Old man – That drink the woman just picked up, it looks really good.  What is that?

Me – That’s an iced coffee.

Old Man – I’ll take one of those.

Me – One iced coffee?

Old Man – Yes.

Five minutes later…

Old Man – I can’t drink this.  Here, throw out the rest of it.

Me – Is there something wrong with it?

Old Man – It’s cold.  I wanted a hot drink.  I thought it was a hot drink.

At the register…

Me – Would you like a Borders Rewards card?  It’s free.

Old Lady – A what?  Sure.

Me (realizing this might be a bad idea since it requires an e-mail address or it’s useless) – You need an e-mail address to sign up.  Do you have an e-mail address?

Old Lady – Yes, I’d like a card.

Me – Okay, what is your e-mail address?

Old Lady – 1622 North…

Me – No, your e-mail address.

Old Lady – Oh.  1622…

Me – No.  Not your home address.

Old Lady – What?

Me – Your e-mail address.

Old Lady – (slower) 1622 S. Jones Street*

Me – I need your e-mail address.

Old Lady – E-mail?  I don’t have e-mail, I’m too old for that.

*Changed the actual address to protect the confused.

Sometimes it’s good to slow things down.  I had just finished a screenplay, and between juggling two jobs I commute to, one virtual job based out of India, and my own writing and producing, I was beat.  Combine that with the gloomy weather and my productivity took a nosedive.  I had a cold that didn’t quite become the flu, but wouldn’t go away either.  There was a lot of work to be done, but beyond forcing myself to go to my first two jobs, it was nearly impossible to get any of my own work done at home.

So instead of trying to fight it, I did something else.  I took a break.  After a few sad attempts at doing some writing last week, I didn’t even think about opening Word or Final Draft until this week.  I wasn’t feeling the creativity and I was only making myself feel worse physically.  I took a step back, got plenty of rest, cooked some great meals, and did some mindless video game playing (something I hadn’t done in a really long time).  Mindless nonsense is actually surprisingly effective for breaking writer’s block.  You’re much more likely to clear your head and get a creative spark when it’s not at the front of your mind or task list.

This week, I feel refreshed, the sun is out again, and I’m ready to work.  Back to our regular schedule.

Despite what some say, 30 Minute Meals is a good thing.  There’s a lot of Rachael Ray hate out there, but I don’t really see it as justified.  She’s not a chef, but she never claimed to be.  She is exactly who she says she is and simply because she’s built a food empire out of a personality rather than gourmet dishes doesn’t mean it’s ok to bash her as a fake or phony.  Unless you’re jealous and petty.

I’ve recently been taken with Anthony Bourdain.  Love his travel show, and love his books now.  After watching Julie and Julia, I’ve become inspired to learn French cooking.  I browsed through the classic Julia Child original French cookbook, but settled on the Bourdain book because it had a modern take on the same recipes and was an entertaining read.  I feel like I can learn a lot from it.

Back to Rachael Ray.  As I looked up more about Bourdain, I found an entertaining blog post http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html where he bashed many of the Food Network stars, and complimented a few (like my favorites, Emeril and Alton Brown).  His criticism of Rachel Ray was similar in tone to others I’ve heard: “Her recipes are crap.”  “She’s not even a chef.”  “She says things like EVOO.”  I suppose from the perspective of real chefs, she was dumbing down the general knowledge of her audience and teaching people to make lower quality meals.  To a certain degree they are right, if her viewers watched her and only her, and then proceeded to make nothing outside of her many cookbooks (which mostly repeat the same recipes over and over substituting a few small ingredients here and there to call it different).  But everyone has to start somewhere, right?

Enter me, circa 2005.  Violet and I had just moved in together and started learning to be domestic.  The dishes I knew how to cook included spaghetti, hamburger helper, chilidogs, and fish sticks.  I didn’t know how to make anything from scratch.  But I did enjoy the Food Network.  Her easy dishes and chipper attitude sucked me in.  Her black bean stoup was probably my first successful dish outside of my comfort zone. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/black-bean-stoup-and-southwestern-monte-cristo-sandwiches-recipe2/index.html After that, I was making marinara sauce from scratch instead of buying it from the can.  Then it was pork chops with homemade applesauce, meatballs, and fried rice.  I started learning that it was fun and easy to avoid pre-packaged foods.  It was healthier and tasted a whole lot better.

From there, my interest in cooking only grew.  I graduated to a Mexican cuisine cookbook and then Gordon Ramsey’s.  His mushroom risotto is probably my favorite dish.  My learning curve is growing more now that I’m trying some of the new French recipes in Anthony Bourdain’s book too.  I’m brave enough to try different things or tweak recipes I find online to my liking.  Recently, I looked up one of my old go-to’s, the fried rice recipe in Rachael Ray’s cookbook and thought, “I can do way more with this now.”  And I did.  I have to give credit where credit is due though.

Thanks to Rachael Ray, I’m a halfway decent home cook.  Her recipes were tasty and easy enough to give me the confidence to continue trying new things while cooking. And her show recipes still come in handy for when we’re in a hurry, but would like to avoid going out or making something processed.  I’ve gone from chilidogs to Beef Bourguignon in no time.  So I disagree with Anthony Bourdain’s statement that she’s “selling mediocrity”.  Some of her viewers were actually inspired to learn more.