I guess I am really lucky because I have a job that pays well enough for me live pretty darn comfortably and yet doesn't suck up all my time. Sure I could be making more money but then I would mostly likely be in a job where I would have to work 60-80 hours a week, instead of my normal 40 hours. I worked for about 8 years straight like that and it was exciting but not very fun. I breathed and lived my job. I would come home at 10 pm, eat and go to sleep. I didn't have time for anything else. My only friends were the people I worked with and when I did relax, I totally overdid it. I was living from one extreme to the next.

But when I figured out there was more to life than getting a raise and promotion every year, I had to seriously think about finding a job that would still pay well but not eat up most of my time. I think I've found that, at least for now. Now that the transition wasn't difficult. During that first year, I freaked out and felt like a total corporate failure because I wasn't working 60-80 hours a week. What kind of corporate drone was I, if I wasn't living and breathing my job? But now that I'm used to it and finally appreciating the job of coming home at 6 pm, I can't imagine working those crazy work hours ever again.

I mean after all, nobody says on their death bed that they wished they had worked more hours at work. It's hard to get this concept, but it's totally true. If you don't set your life up to follow your dreams, your fantasies then on your deathbed you will be lying there and thinking about all the things you'd wish you'd done, all the fantasies and dreams you put aside because you were busy working too hard. And who wants that? How dang depressing! If I thought I'd be lying on my deathbed thinking horrible thought about what I didn't do in my life, I would kill myself today. I mean, what would be the point of living, why not get it over with now because at least I would have less regret.

This is my new mantra. Be proactive about avoiding misery now and in the future, especially on that dreaded deathbed!

So I'm reading over the interview I just typed up and I'm like, I think I did the whole exercise wrong. I don't know. Character work is so hard. I thought my guy was going to start telling me the story so I would know what to write. Instead he's like telling me that in reality, his father did die but he thinks that if I tell his story over, then his story will change as well. God, maybe I've been watching too many twilight zone episodes, outer limits or even amazing stories.

I'm thinking right now that I need a new character. I like the old Jim Reilly from my first draft better. This new Jim Reilly is bitter, too bitter. I mean, you're supposed to care about your movie character, not think he's the biggest jerk in the world. I thought I wanted my baseball character to be more like a lost soul looking for hit father. Instead he's turned out to be some hustling scumbag in the game for the chicks and the jack. I want him to be different. I want him to rediscover his love for the game of baseball through his interaction with his father, but I don't know how to get him there.

I heard on NPR today that the movie Animal House took 7 drafts before it was complete. And Animal House turned out to be such a great movie. I guess I shouldn't be complaining. I'm only on my second draft. I definitely need more character work though on Jim and the rest of the cast. It will be interesting to hear what his father, his mother, his wife, his brother, his son, his sister in law and all their kids have to say about Jim and what's going on. Especially the dad. Was the dad as mean as Jim says, or is he just looking at life through his 9 year old eyes still at age 38. He wouldn't be the first if he was.

Below is a transcript of me interviewing Jim Reilly, the baseball player in my screenplay. I was trying to do more work character work and one exercise is ask 12 questions of your character. I'm not sure I did it right. I wrote it on my computer instead of by hand. Maybe if I did it by hand, it would have been more stream of consciousness. I think I need to interview him some more, but this is what I've got so far. My questions are in parens. This was really hard to do and I felt so schizo doing it.

Interview with James "Jim" Reilly, lead character in my screenplay, Playing Catch with Dad.

1. (What's your name?) James Samuel Reilly. Most people call me Jim
2. (What is your occupation?) Professional baseball player
3. (How long have you been in your occupation?) Forever. I played little league, high school ball, got into college on a baseball scholarship, then I got drafted into a minor league team. Spent a couple seasons in the minor league before going up to my first pro team at age 25.
4. (I was interested in writing a story about a baseball player who has a dying father and your story popped into my head. Why is it so important that I tell your story as opposed to someone else's?) Because my story is important. I mean, everyone has an important to tell, but mine is exactly what you're looking for. I've had a strained relationship with my father since I was little. My old man pushed me, pushed me hard. And not only me, but my brother too. See my old man used to play the game too, but he never made to a pro team, he only played minor leagues. Then he met my mother and they got married and my mother got pregnant and that was the end of the old man's baseball career. But he never forgot it. I think he always thought in his head that if only his own father had been more supportive or maybe if only he'd never fallen in love with my mother, he would have been a great player, gone to the world series, broken a record or something. Baseball was all my father had. He didn't go to college or nothing, so when he married my mother, he did what his father did before him. He became a painter and started his own business. You know not a big business, but small time stuff. Sometimes I think if maybe my father had made some other dream in his head other than being a hot shot baseball player, he wouldn't have been so hard on my and my brother Michael.
5. (So you father was hard on you?) Oh yeah. It's like the old man was trying to make up for his own father not supporting him, so he went overboard on the support. He came to all our games, argued with our coaches. Even when we were little, he would argue with our little league coach Mr. Riordan. And it was baseball all the time. I don't even remember playing anything else. And I was a good athlete. I would have like to play other sports, maybe play some football or basketball, but my old man wouldn't hear of it. (And you resented your father for this?)
Yeah, I did. Because I'm living his dream and not my own.
6. (Did you have a dream of your own? ) I don't know. I don’t remember. It's been so long. But the point is I wasn't even allowed to have my own dreams. Everyone takes freedom for granted. The freedom to choose who you are, who you want to become, to fail or to succeed, to know that it's your dream and your vision alone and no one else's.
7. (So, why are your still angry after all these years? You're a professional ball player. You've made great money over the years. You've been a great player all your life. It sounds like your father did you a favor?)

Did he? Yeah, I guess I had a great life. But look I'm 38 this year. I'm on the last year of my career and I feel like shit. Some dream huh? To tell you the truth, I don't even like baseball. It's a stupid game. It's like I'm in this dream job and I hate it. Do you know what it's like to have done something your whole life that you hate but that you're good at and make a lot of money at? It's fucked! And you can see it in my attitude too. I'm what's known as a problem player. I've got great skills so teams hire me, but I'm a troublemaker. (how so?) I get into fights. (You mean you cause fights?) Nah, I'm not that stupid. But let's just say I’m not the friendliest guy on a team. (And that causes fights?) Yeah. Guys on the team want this togetherness team crap. It's all total bullshit of course. Guys play ball for the money like me, because if they weren't playing ball, they'd be nothing. Half the guys on any given team would be total losers if it wasn't for their baseball skills. But because they've got skills, from a very young age, they're fussed over, chicks flock to them, everyone treats them like royalty. You grow up thinking the whole world is your oyster and you're just a long for the free ride. And for what? All you gotta do is hit the ball out of the park every now and again, catch the stupid ball, and give interviews and say stupid things like you're doing it all for the team. What bullshit! If it wasn't for the money and chicks, most guys wouldn't even be playing ball.
8. (Is that why you're playing ball, for the chicks and the money?) Yeah. I've been playing the stupid game all my life. I've don't know anything else. From the time, I was able to walk my old man put a glove in my hand and told me I would be a great player one day. I mean, can you imagine your old man telling you every day of your stinking fucking life that you were going to be great one day? It sucks. And when I made a mistake, but my old man would tell me I was lazy and not living up to my potential and I was blowing my future and I was only 7 years old when I first heard this. He totally brainwashed me. Well, I showed him. I walked out on him when I left for college. He thought he was going to harass me all through college, but I left, walked out of the house and never looked back.
9. (Did you cut off contact with your whole family?) No, I still had my mother and my brother. But I haven't had said two words to my dad since I walked out.
10. (And now that he's dying? How does that make you feel?) I don't know. Part of me doesn't care. And the other part feels bad you know, like I shouldn’t be that way with him. At least that's why my shrink and my wife say. (What do you say?) I don't know. The old man pushed me so hard. I didn't need to be pushed like that. Other guys had it differently with their fathers. Their fathers encouraged them, stood by them, didn't continually tell them what failures they'd be when they make a mistake.
11. (I still don't get why your story is important for me to tell. You sound like a spoiled white guy who's taken for granted a life that most guys have fantasized about all their lives. So your story doesn't get told, so what?) Because the real story is my dad died and we never made up and I regret it to this day. This is my chance to tell the story the way I would have wanted it to go with my dad. Look my dad died and I wasn't there. I wouldn't even see him the last two years. He made me so mad, so angry. I still remember that day my mom called and told me the old man died. You know I felt nothing inside. Nothing. But when I went home for the funeral and I was staring at the old guy in the box, I realized that I wanted to tell him so many things. I wanted to thank him for teaching me about ball. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for walking out on him in high school. I wanted to tell him so many things and I couldn’t. Do you know what's that like to know that you can never tell somebody you love them because they're dead. You go to sleep at night after that and you feel so much guilt for all the things you didn't say, you wished you'd said, you wished you'd done. It weighs on you, affects your life, your family. Look, after my dad died, I went into a tailspin. I was on last year of my career, I was causing fights in the locker room. They benched me the last year of my career. I sat on the fucking bench the whole last year of my career. I mean you talk about a hell of a way to end a career. And my marriage went to hell as well. Shit, me and my wife were having problems anyway and when my dad died, things just got worse. She moved out a month after my dad died and then filed for divorce. She claimed that I was violent and that I shouldn't be allowed to see my own kid because I might harm him. I would never harm my kid Sammy. But sometimes the kid would just do things and it made me furious. But I would never seriously harm him. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I never see him or my wife anymore. The lawyers take care of everything including sending the child support checks. That bitch robbed me blind in the divorce and custody battle. My shrink says I have a lot of left over anger about my father and I would take it on my kid and my wife. Maybe she's right. (So what you do you now?) Nothing. I sit at home and drink. Don't got nothing else to do. The shrink wants me to go AA but I told her I just drink like normal guys.
12. (So you think if told your story a different way, your life would turn out differently?) Yeah, I think so. You're a storyteller. If you tell my story a different way, my life would have a different ending. (And you think if I let you make up with your father your life would turn out differently?) Yeah, I do. Look, most people never get a second chance in life. They fuck up and then they've got to live with the consequences of that fuck up for the rest of their life. With you telling my story over the way I would have liked it to happen, I get my second chance. (And how would you change your story?) I would have made up with my father on the weekend I was back in San Francisco for a a three header game that last year. I had a chance that weekend and I blew it. I went home that night, my dad and me got into a fight. I knew he was dying, hell everybody knew he was dying, but I just let it go and walked out. The next day, my father died right after my game. If I could relive that weekend again, I would have listened to Michael. I would have marched into the asshole's bedroom and had it out with him. And ask him why he pushed me so hard. Maybe if I understood why, I could forgive him. You know he threatened to pull me out of little league once when I was about 10 years old, said I wasn't working hard enough. Got mad at coach riordan and threatened him saying he would get him fired. I remember my mom crying about it the whole incident too. That whole incident with coach riordan was the start of all my anger at him. My old man was totally jerking with me and causing mom to cry and my coach to get angry. Over the years, he just got worse and worse. How my mother put up with him all these years is a mystery, but she loved him to the very end. After that time, my mom stopped coming to games too, like she lost interest in anything I did. I blame my old man for that. He made it so hard for her. By the time I was a senior in high school, I couldn’t take it anymore so I walked out. I didn't want my old man manipulating my life anymore. But now I want that second chance to make up with him. I know that if I could make up with my dad, my life would turn out so differently. (And what if it doesn't? What if it all ends up the same, even after you make up with your dad? Sometimes, life is like that you know.) I know, but I know myself. I know if I had just had it out with him that night, I know my life would have turned out differently. You won't know till you tell the story. I might surprise you. I'm not the jerk, I know I come across as. Write the story and find out.

I've been thinking about my writing process today. Berating myself at my lack of self discipline. I want to write but it's a total act of iron will for me to sit down and write for an hour every day. I mean, I do get stuff written, but only if I'm on on external kind of schedule. I really want to be able to get to the point where I can follow my own schedule, but how I do that is such a mystery to me. I'm driven but I guess I'm not driven enough.

In Stephen King's book on writing, he said he wrote about 10 pages a day and he's very regular about his writing. Joyce Carol Oates is the same way. She's totally self disciplined about her writing, writes about three books a year and has a full time job I think teaching at Princeton. Both have been writing since they were kids, so they're been writing for years. I've only been writing seriously for four years, which means I don't have the years of discipline and habits that they do. I wonder if I'll ever get this way.

I keep thinking I will one day, if I just work at it. But then another part of me just thinks I'm fighting this losing battle against my own laziness and inertia. When I do sit down to write, I really enjoy it. I read somewhere today that Joyce Carol Oates said writing is another way to tell yourself a story and I think it's true. When I write, I tell myself a story. So writing has never been a painful, pulling ideas out of thin air kind of thing for me. Writing for the most part has mostly been very enjoyable for me. But it's the discipline of doing it every day that I don't like and that's the painful, hard part; the forcing of myself to sit down and work. It's bad enough I have to do it at work to earn a paycheck, but it's another thing to do it at home when I could be doing all sorts of other things that are equally enjoyable and not such a pain.

But I have to break through this not writing every day barrier and I guess I'll keep reading and trying different techniques till I do.