A proud New Englander born and raised in southern New Hampshire, my own love of film and my mother's desire to never shovel a front walkway ever again relocated us to sunny Los Angeles shortly after my 16th birthday. While there I obtained a mostly useless degree in film theory from USC that I will be paying off for the rest of my life (stay in school, kids!), wrote a handful of screenplays that are currently gathering dust in a storage unit, and worked as a script supervisor on a bunch of independent films likely to turn up in a supermarket bargain bin, and a couple short-lived TV shows.
In 2013, when I'd finally tired of doing the "starving artist shuffle" I pulled up stakes and headed for Seattle, or, more specifically, Indianola, a quiet little village just across Puget Sound from downtown Seattle with one main street consisting of only a country store and a post office. I worked a regular job at a dry cleaners with regular hours. I read and reviewed screenplays at home for extra money (baby steps...). I was a dog sitter. I reconnected with my brother and sister in law who lived just a few miles down the road. I was there for the birth of my first nephew. I went on a LOT of terrible online dates. I lived the simple life for two years and it was exactly the kind of 180 I needed to shake the Hollywood off me. But the one thing I couldn't shake was the nagging desire to be anyplace other than where I currently was.
It wasn't that Washington was bad, but rather that there were just so many places I hadn't seen yet that I wanted to see, and every second spent not seeing those places felt like a second wasted. I'm still young(ish), I'm single, I have no kids or commitments holding me back. It felt like a case of now or never. And so I gave up my home, my job, and any sense of security that I had built over the last two years. I chucked what stuff I couldn't sell into a tiny storage unit, came up with a half-cocked plan to cycle across the whole of Scandinavia by myself (did I mention I'm a terrible cyclist?) and once again I'm off. A new adventure, a new chapter, and for the first time truly unscripted in every sense of the term. I have no idea where the next year(s) will take me, but I'm beyond excited to find out...
In 2013, when I'd finally tired of doing the "starving artist shuffle" I pulled up stakes and headed for Seattle, or, more specifically, Indianola, a quiet little village just across Puget Sound from downtown Seattle with one main street consisting of only a country store and a post office. I worked a regular job at a dry cleaners with regular hours. I read and reviewed screenplays at home for extra money (baby steps...). I was a dog sitter. I reconnected with my brother and sister in law who lived just a few miles down the road. I was there for the birth of my first nephew. I went on a LOT of terrible online dates. I lived the simple life for two years and it was exactly the kind of 180 I needed to shake the Hollywood off me. But the one thing I couldn't shake was the nagging desire to be anyplace other than where I currently was.
It wasn't that Washington was bad, but rather that there were just so many places I hadn't seen yet that I wanted to see, and every second spent not seeing those places felt like a second wasted. I'm still young(ish), I'm single, I have no kids or commitments holding me back. It felt like a case of now or never. And so I gave up my home, my job, and any sense of security that I had built over the last two years. I chucked what stuff I couldn't sell into a tiny storage unit, came up with a half-cocked plan to cycle across the whole of Scandinavia by myself (did I mention I'm a terrible cyclist?) and once again I'm off. A new adventure, a new chapter, and for the first time truly unscripted in every sense of the term. I have no idea where the next year(s) will take me, but I'm beyond excited to find out...
Hi. I am a Washingtonian. I wish we'd met while you were here. I love your writing style. I can immerse myself in exactly what you describe. Keep writing. You have a major talent here.
ReplyDeleteSincerely yours, Greg