>So, is it that
>you are working on something you are really excited about, or that you
>feel validated, or some of both?
I would suspect it's a combination of things. In Excalibur it was said, of
Arthur, the king and the land are one; when one suffers the other suffers; when
one flourishes, the other flourishes.
With me, it's always been a case of "joe and the work are one; when one suffers
the other suffers; when one flourishes, the other flourishes."
I'm at my best when I'm doing a lot of things, when the work is solid, and it's
been appreciated by people in the industry, and the number of new coming gigs
kind of validates the work that went before...and, though I know it shouldn't,
it kind of validates me *to* me. I'm a writer, I define myself as such, so my
self image and the work are inextricably interwoven. This is not always a good
thing, but by the same token it is not always a bad thing.
So on balance...yeah, I'm happy. Most days. Like you, there are some days I'm
most emphatically NOT happy. I try not to go on line during those moments
because I'm not fun to be around. But in general I'm more happy than not.
And after Crusade, it wasn't so much that I wasn't *happy* as I was *pissed*.
I knew what that show was going to become, what it could be, and I was mainly
angry at the loss in terms of talented cast members, the stories we would have
told, and so on.
But I never once considered that it would be a long-term problem. Every show
runner takes a year or so to get another project going because if you do the
math, there are 10,000+ WGA members, of which a large number are producers,
and, what?, 25 or 30 network series, of which most already have show runners
attached. It takes time for a slot to come open. Many EPs have spent as much
as 2-3 years between gigs. In this case it's just about a year, and that's
very good...not to mention that there's been a lot of other work in the
interim, the Murder She Wrote TV movie, the comic, the radio dramas, that sort
of thing.
And, I must confess, there's a very small part of me that is happy knowing that
there are some people who will be absolutely annoyed to hear that I'm doing
well. It's a definite character flaw on my part...but it's one I can live
with.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
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