In other words, I feel like shit.

Had a negative experience last Thursday. Apparently, the detailed outline of my Bob’s Burgers episode was due Tuesday, not Thursday. So I was super late on it, too, just like those versions of my Feature Development beat sheet I fucked up.

And what bugs me about that is that now I have had two teachers act like that’s how it’s always been. But it isn’t. It’s a fairly recent development. I admit that I am having trouble making the learning curve on this development. I still tend to assume things are due next class. But they are due 48 hours earlier so everyone in class has time to read it and generate notes for feedback.

I think I have a grip on the idea now. And in the process I have realized how I tend to just do assignments based on whatever I happen to remember about how to do them, as opposed to looking up how they are supposed to be done. That’s sure to bite me on the ass hard, over and over, so I better put an end to that shit ASAP.

The problem is that I am always so eager to write that I don’t want to slow down to research how it’s supposed to be done. I suppose that, on a subconscious level, I feel like things like that aren’t important, what matters is the quality of my writing.

Which is ironic coming from Mister First And Final Drafts here.

I feel like my current stage of evolution as a writer is the one where I come to terms with that big bad bugbear of mine : rewriting. And in a broader sense, the fact that writing for a living is going to involve a lot more work and effort than I am used to having to address.

That goes double for school. In a TV writer’s room, I will at least be, in general, only working on one thing with one deadline at a time. But in school I’ve got seven courses on the go. And the organizational aspect of being a student is growing increasingly complex.

Once more, I wish I had an assistant to keep track of everything for me. But I don’t. So I have to do it myself.

Back to rewriting. I don’t mind taking multiple cracks at something. Like I have said before, school gives me what I need to make that happen, which is that second party to look at the work, evaluate it, give me an idea as to what needs to be fixed, and give it back. That carries me across the threshold I can’t cross on my own, the threshold between how it is and how it should be.

I do not yet possess the ability to switch from creating it to evaluating it and fixing it on my own. if I try that, the whole thing falls apart in my head and I lose all belief in the thing’s merit, and my own. Editing is so radically different from creating. I can’t switch modes on my own.

More disturbing is what actually went down with said outline. Here’s a link to it : Outline for Bob’s Burgers.

They (my class) still don’t buy my take on Gene and Louise. That’s to be expected, I suppose. And they think the A plot should be the Bob and Linda Go Karaoke plot, which I thought of as a D plot. And if that was all, I would just shrug and chalk it up to artistic differences.

I’m artistic, and they’re “different”. Ha ha ha.

But seriously, they made the very valid point that this is supposed to be a spec script, and therefore should be as “typical” as possible. Which means I have to make it less unique and have it be less of a change for the characters. Which, to my mind, means making it less unique and less interesting.

I honestly don’t want to make anything I do more “typical”.

So now I have to face the first major challenge for any artist who wants to make a living with their art : compromise. When you are just doing it for yourself and maybe a few friends, you don’t have to compromise at all. You make it just how you like it, and that’s it.

But once you want to earn a living with your art, you have to start thinking about what the gatekeepers want. And that means maybe/probably having to make the art “worse” in your mind in order to get paid. And that goes directly against the grain of the drive towards self-expression that is the wellspring of art in the first place.

I really want to work in the biz. So I am going to have to rewrite the thing as being karaoke-centric and maybe choose either the Gene plot or the Louise plot as the B-plot, and Tina as the C. Also, I need to have the plotlines interact more often.

And that’s going to be a big shift for me. But I don’t think I will have too much trouble once I get over the psychological aspect. After all, a karaoke machine based episode of Bob’s Burgers could be a heck of a lot of fun to write. And it’s not like I have to discard the Gene and Louise plots forever.

I just have to decide not to include them, or at least eliminate one of them. Spec scripts are resumes, not think pieces. Like my prof said, TV producers want to hire a writer they can just drop into the writer’s room knowing they can already match the style, context, and tone of the show, and for that, you need to present them with a “typical” show.

And man would I love to work on an animated sitcom like Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, or the Simpsons.

So I have got a lot to learn. And I am not talking book learning. I mean the kind of learning where you have to change.

And you can’t study for that. You have to do the work, too.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Had supper at what is becoming a favorite of mine, a little hole in the wall diner call Bob’s Sandwiches.

Alert fans with good memories will recognize this as the place I described as “ethnic food” for the patrons of the otherwise all Chinese and Filipino (shut up, it’s spelled that way now) mini-mall that I pass through every school day when go from Skytrain to home.

Most of the other businesses there intimidate me too much for me to approach. Half of them are restaurants with little to no English on their signage. There’s a traditional Chinese Medicine herb shop that makes me feel like I buy a Mogwai there. There are a couple of Filipino bakeries. ^[1] Apparently Filipino style bakeries are quite popular in some corners.

And/or have insanely high margins.

The only other business there that I have been in in the past is a convenience store. I try not to go there because their prices are insane. But sometimes I forget to get my stuff downtown, and it’s the last place I pass before I get home. So I pay.

But mostly, it’s Bob’s. Not only do I love the old time diner feel to the place, it’s amazingly inexpensive. I got a hot dog, fries, and a can of pop for just $5! When’s the last time you paid that little for a meal? Hell, you can’t even get a meal for that little at McDonald’s any more.

And you can get a burger n’ fries and a drink for the same price^[2]. $6 if you want bacon n’ cheese on it. $6 for club a club sandwich et al.

And the food is decent. Not wonderful, but decent. I’m not surprised that the place is packed at lunch. Meals that cheap bring the people, especially those like me who are sentimental and nostalgic for the diners of their youth…. as well as the prices.

It really feels like a place that hasn’t changed in 50 years.

So now I have a place to go when I want to eat out but I am low on dough!

I had a great bit of tiny vindication recently. Let me tell you all about it.

There’s a place I pass on the way to school called the Bulldog Cafe’, or possible Seeds because it says that on the windows. Not sure what exactly their business is, because when I look in, it sure doesn’t look like any cafe I’ve ever been to. Looks more like a hookah bar. Possibly because it’s next door to a pot dispensary. I dunno.

But I digress.

They have chairs out front, and before I really got the whole walking from Skytrain to school thing down, there were a few times when I had to stop and sit there, even though the place is less than a block from school. I never gave it much thought. Lots of places downtown have chairs out front for weary potential patrons. It costs them next to nothing in upkeep, and it probably brings in business.

But one day when I sat there, this Bob Zmuda looking motherfucker comes out and hassles me about the chairs being for paying customers only.

And he says it in that bitchy “my words are polite but my tone and body language are hostile’ way I associate with bullying welfare office workers. Except for them, it’s suddenly raising the volume of their voice to loudspeaker levels while saying “I DON’T HAVE TO TAKE THAT LANGUAGE FROM YOU, SIR! PLEASE STEP BACK FROM THE COUNTER AND CEASE YOUR AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR!”.

Man I wanted to give that bitch of piece of my mind. And I wasn’t the one getting picked on. It was this frightened looking wimpy little guy who looked like he couldn’t be aggressive towards anyone. To be honest, I kind of wish I had done it anyhow. But a wise man does not enter into fights he might not win.

At least, not when the check that keeps him alive is on the line.

Anyhow, so this guy was a dick to me. Being me, I resisted for a bit, just to prove my point that he was being a dick and I didn’t have to do what he said, and then got up and left because I had to get to school anyhow.

Fast forward to last week. As I was passing the place, I noticed a sign out front that said “under new management”. Good, I thought. That asshole is gone.

So imagine my joy this week when I saw that there was a new, much larger sign, in a much, much larger font,and it read “Now under SUPER COOL and VERY FRIENDLY new management!”.

Ahhh, sweet sweet vindication. What that sign said to me was “Yes, Michael, that guy WAS an asshole, so much so that we need to reassure people that we are TOTALLY NOT LIKE THAT!”.

That makes me so damned happy. It’s like when Zellers had signs and ads talking about their “new, clean, wide, brightly lit aisles” and “easy to find, helpful staff” now. That was them tacitly admitting that the two biggest complaints people have had about the big Z (cramped dirtyaisles and mythical staff) were valid and they had now addressed them.

I attribute that to big box places like Wal-Mart moving into the same areas as Zellers and crushing them via competition through such underhanded, cheating tactics as “having much lower prices”, “making sure the staff actually does their job”, and worst of all, “not actively punishing people for shopping there”.

Those Americans, with their big ideas.

Then again, I have resented Zellers ever since they replaced my beloved Towers Department Store in my hometown mall.

It wasn’t exactly Rodeo Drive, but it was eons ahead of Zellers’ bullshit.

It says something about a chain when K-mart seems like the classier, more upscale choice.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.