Keep Going

Last week, at about this time, I had a breakdown. Sobbing, gut wrenching, curled up in the fetal position in my bed. "What am I doing with myself? Is this what I really want?"

I know the feelings of career high and lows are cyclical, but are they circular? Am I going in circles?

What do I want? What do I need?

"I need an idea!" I sobbed to my empty room, my empty apartment, my empty heart.

I went to bed that night exhausted, desperate, defeated. I'd been feeling creatively dead inside for a few weeks. I was hoping it was hormones; my moods were swinging like mad like ecstatic like depressed. Please, god, let it be hormones.

I fell asleep with wet eyelashes.

At 3:30 am that morning, I woke up. I had an idea. An older woman mourning the death of her husband. I can work with that, I thought.

At 8:30 I woke up again. It can't be an older woman. It has to be me.

I didn't go back to sleep. I couldn't. I was too excited. I spent the next three hours writing out the plot points, dialogue snippets, and images I wanted. At noon, I read everything to my husband. And with tears in his eyes, he said, that's great. And you should include this. And what about this?

I took his notes, moved some things around, and now finally opened up Celtx and started putting it into film script format.

And I know that once I start writing, and getting excited, I also start to doubt. Is this really good? What am I doing? Why am I pretending this is any good at all? and I have to battle myself and keep going, keep going, Keep Going.

Because if I don't, I am nothing.