Kickstarting 2010: "...all the way to the end" - A Personal Note

This will be the first personal entry for me on this Blog; a break from the tradition of news and analysis. I have spent a great deal of time in the past few years (8) working for other people and not enough time working with other people, or for myself. 2010 has reared its head and has already shown me that it represents a paradigm shift for me on a great level. Despite all the travel over the more recent years, I have felt trapped. Overall, 2007 was horrible, it took me away from my Home under the illusion that it was on my terms, but the reality was anything but and it left me isolated and alone. 2008 wasn't much better, but I laid the foundation for something great. 2009 was an improvement, but not until the final quarter, when all the pieces I've been playing started falling into place. The first two weeks of 2010 have shown me that my greatest attribute is not a talent or a honed skill or even my strange ability tell you how long you've been cooking something on the stove for, rather, it is my patience and my ability to put my faith in the right people.

At the end of 2009 I spent some time at an amazing writer's lab where I began work on a second screenplay and put the finishing touches on another (Our Last Days As Children). And even though my partners and I have been working hard to continue to raise funds for Our Last Days As Children and it has seen many drafts, I have never ended a draft with a sense of finality, until now. I believe I have the writer's lab to thank for that as well as invaluable input and support from others. Its there now. Its ready. So confident am I in that, that I have written it down for the record. And we're ready. We have the plan, we have the knowledge, we have the right people and the right places, all that's left to tie up is just this one loose end; the rest of the financing, which we are confident about.

So why the paradigm shift? What is so different? Well, its simple really: The cycle has been broken. The cycle of hope and disappointment, more hope and more disappointment, of goals and constant defeats; it is ending. The short that I wrote that got me into the writer's lab (Pork Chop Night) is no longer just a script. I have decided to shoot it. I'm using Kickstarter, a resource which allows people from anywhere in the world to contribute to a project, whether its a game, a website, a service, a studio recording or a film. And although the project is new to the site, it has already garnered enough to support to happen. For lack of a better term, I'm fucking humbled by the support of the people I have connected with over the years. When I finally decided to do something for myself, they supported it in a very real, very tangible and fundamental way. Again, I'm fucking humbled. Previously, whenever I had even the slightest thought or the mumbled even the faintest whisper about doing something for myself, the Universe made it very clear to me that it was not going to happen through the various ways the Universe does that. This is the first time it has happened in more years than I care to mention.

And even more is the fact that because they contributed, it is OUR project, not just mine, and it feels so much better knowing that. Where I once felt tired, I now feel committed, and convinced that I've been doing the right thing all along and will continue to do the right thing all the way to the end.