tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life

This is the third blog I've started in the past year. I can't even remember how to find those other attempts. I don't know why I didn't keep them up but if I don't keep up this one, I'll stop trying.
My new film "Lovable" premiered at Hot Docs in Toronto two weeks ago tomorrow. Then it showed again a week ago yesterday. Then it had its TV premiere this past Wednesday. It will show one more time on TV tonight (in Ontario only).
Of course that won't be the last time it's ever shown. There will be more TV plays in six months or so. And I suppose there will be some festivals. But effectively the Lovable whirlwind will be over for me and so... tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of my life.
What am I hoping for in the rest of my life?
I hope to make a living and pay the mortgage. I think that's number one.
I bought a house last summer. I still had money left over from my inheritance. Then I spent all my leftover money on the renovation. I should have kept a blog about that but suffice to say that I've always been bad with money and I had no idea how much work was going to be required when we started the renovation.
A year ago I felt rich. Now I have a house but no money.
But if I can make a modest living - and find an upstairs tenant - I should be okay. That's easier said than done though. I haven't always made even a modest living.

What else do I hope will happen in the rest of my life?
I guess I hope I'll make a few more films that I can be proud of, though pride does not come that easily to me. I guess another way to put it is, I hope that, while I'm making a living doing whatever comes along, I'll have a chance to make a couple of my "own" films.
But at this moment anyway, that's not a priority.
For the moment, I feel satisfied creatively. I feel like I've made a few decent films and gotten a lot more attention than I ever believed I would get. So now I don't need to be an "auteur" anymore. Or so I'm telling myself. If I can just be a working filmmaker/writer, I'll be satisfied....assuming of course that a working filmmaker makes more money than an auteur.

In my thirties and early forties, I was filled with inspiration. I would write a screenplay just for the pleasure of working out a story that was banging around in my head. I would work on an idea even if I had no real expectation of ever making the darn thing. I had all this stuff I needed to get out of me. Or so it seems.
It was also a lot of fun, in the larger sense of the word.
Or maybe it was more cathartic?
If you took everything I ever wrote in my life and subdivided it into categories, I'm pretty sure you'd find the highest page count listed under "breakup diaries". Writing down everything that happened was a surprisingly effective way of dealing with the pain of relationships ending.
I never wrote a script that was specifically about my love life or even all that autobiographical. But I think that I wrote screenplays for many of the same reasons I wrote those breakup diaries. It was about getting stuff out of my head. Expressing myself.
It was also about learning to write. And I did make a bit of a living from it.
And even though writing a script isn't the same as making a film, it can satisfy a lot of the same urges.

It's been a long time since I wrote anything or worked on anything just for the sheer need to get it out of my head and on to paper. And probably the biggest reason for that is that I've actually made some films, rather than just writing scripts for films that never get made.
But it's also because, in my best writing period, from about 1990 to 96, I wrote a few pretty good scripts that went nowhere. So why write more?
I had two interesting, nagging script ideas in the last couple of years but I never got past making a few notes.
That could change. I have been writing something for the past few months. But the difference is I've been writing it with a director that has a pretty good chance of getting the film made. And two, there was a promise of some money, a promise which subsequently paid off.
Maybe my days of working out ideas speculatively are gone. Maybe it'll be all about money and deadlines and making a living. That wouldn't be such a bad thing.

This might even explain why I've had so much trouble keeping up a blog. I'm not sure I have it in me anymore. Before there were blogs per se, I had a website and I posted huge long diary pieces. I obviously still have the impulse to unload my thoughts and stories onto an unsuspecting world but maybe the impulse is not strong enough to do more than start a new blog every six months.
Then again, I've had the thought that now that I'm no longer making confessional or autobiographical documentaries, if I'm no longer blabbing into a mirror with my camera, maybe I'll need a place to tell those stories.
It's a reasonable theory.
I'm going through something with a friend right now and I do have the urge to write about it. It's almost like writing about it helps me think about it. Or it helps me stop thinking about it.
Anyway I got carried away there. Let's get back to how I hope to spend the rest of my life.
Number one, become a professional filmmaker (and maybe writer) and make an adequate living from it.

What else?
I'd like to lose weight, eat well, learn to cook more (take advantage of my lovely kitchen), keep up my exercise routine, get into yoga or pilates.
I'd like to make my backyard into the oasis it could be.
I'd like to quit smoking. I'm going to try one more time this year or before my next birthday. I have to. I think it might be too late for me but just in case it isn't...

Then there's women, relationships, sharing my life. That'll be my next post.