Feng Sui: Be Careful What You Wish For

Okay, so I don't feel exactly like Lindsay Lohan in "Freaky Friday" or Eddie Murphy in "Flubber" --- or was that Robin Williams, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish one from another.

Nearly three years ago, April 2006, on the brink of sudden and unexpected under-employment, my wife took my still-born "career" by the horns and whipped up some serious chi inspiring, energy friendly home re-decorating. What was it that I really wanted? To be a screenwriter, I guess.

About a month after the Feng Sui express roared through the house, I got hired to write a screenplay. Granted, Feng Sui is not a passive thing, you do have to work for it/with it. I had been religiously scanning the online screenwriting classified ads for two or three years at that point, sending out, by my estimation 5000 - 6000 e-mails.

So, May 2006, I got a gig, barely any pay and the script had to be delivered two weeks later. Done!

Less than a month after that job, I got another and soon another, more and more and more.

So, at this point, Winter 2009, I have been hired to write and/or doctor somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 feature films ---- one of them, the May '06 screenplay, was produced and is hitting the festival circuit, minus my name after a dramatic and I fear, fatal, re-write by the director.

After three years of asking me to sell, I decided my original screenplay, "Aftermath", to a producer in L.A., made the deal in August more or less, got the first check in January and I am still working on the paid re-writes. I have had to put off a job working on a pilot for some guys with solid ties to the TV world. One of the guys who hired me two years ago wants me to do a re-write. Another guy who has hired me to write two screenplays for him, wants me to write a third even though I told him I was too busy, my brother-in-law/editor wants me to adapt a musical that he wrote the songs for and last, but certainly not least, the producer of the first film, the May '06 job, wants me to write something for him and might even let me direct it.

Now, that's some Feng Sui. Not that I am complaining, I'm just wondering how I am going to get through it all.