Ah, Christmas.

A long time ago, my favorite day of the year. Now, just another day, but with more driving than usual. When my mom died, whatever leftover feelings that I still had for Christmas died with her.

My mom died on Dec 22nd 2010. This is my second Christmas without her.

The only thing that I feel is a hollow ache inside. Nothing is ever going to fill that, there aren’t any comforting words that I can read, or that people can tell me.

It is what it is, and I just deal and trudge on.

What I want out of life isn’t what most of my friends or family want; What they want won’t satisfy the thing that drives me.

My mom understood that about me.

I’m not saying that I’m better, or smarter, or more creative. Just different. To be honest, I don’t even believe that achieving my goals will bring me any happiness.

Achieving my goals will bring me a certain satisfaction, though.

I think that’s better.

I don’t know, maybe this just happens to me.

So the other night I have a meeting with someone, and as I’m leaving the restaurant, I run into somebody else that I know. He’s sitting there with two people, one that I know, and one that I don’t know. I’m having a conversation with him, and the other person that I know is pointedly ignoring me.

So I wrap up my conversation and turn to go, but not before saying “Goodnight (person I know), goodnight person I don’t know!” At this point, she finally seems to recognize me, and says something like “Oh, uh, hi Chris. Uh, this is so-and-so.” Then I nod politely and walk away.

I mean, what the fuck? Is there a certain class of people that does this bullshit? The “Oh, I’m to cool to talk to you” douchery? I guess I tend to run into it in and around the more ‘creative’ circles that I sometimes am involved with. I don’t know. Myself, I don’t ignore motherfuckers that I know, and I don’t act like I don’t see ‘em.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just me.

Regarding feedback: For the record, this is not exclusively about SON, and anyone thinking I’m specifically angry at them about that can relax. That is simply a contributing factor to a problem I’ve been dealing with for years. “Feedback” to me doesn’t mean ‘stroke my ego and tell me I’m great.’ It means I’ve reached a point in the story process where I need an outside opinion, and I value what you have to say.

I understand that everyone is busy, so I don’t expect people to respond within 24 hours with a 12-page dossier of notes. However, when I write something and I decide to share it with others, it means I’m excited about the project, and I want it to move forward. When I don’t hear anything from people after a week’s time, I feel like it derails whatever forward progress I’ve been making up to that point.

Nothing creative happens in a vacuum.

Writing the story is the most important part of the filmmaking process. I can’t speak for everyone, but as for myself, when I ask for someone’s opinion, it’s because I truly want to hear what they have to say.

I started reading the Song of Ice and Fire series, beginning with A Game of Thrones, a little while after it first came out, back in 1997.

One of the main reasons I started this series was the fact that I was sick of waiting for the next damn Wheel of Time book, by the late Robert Jordan, to come out.

First off, let me say that I really liked the old Wheel of Time series, even though I have yet to finish it. When book TWELVE finally comes out, I’m gonna start over from the beginning.

In any event, as much as I liked Wheel of Time, Ice and Fire kicked the shit out of it.

It was hands down the best, most compelling Fantasy series that I have ever read, but there’s one small problem with it….

THE MOTHERFUCKING AUTHOR WON’T FINISH IT!!

The last book that I read in the series came out in 2005, and I started reading this fucking series FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

I mean, shit, I started this series before I got married, before I got into filmmaking, before I became a Lab technician, pretty much before every major development of my adult life….and it’s still not done, or even close.

Yeah, yeah, there’s a new book coming out in a couple of months, and yeah, I hear the HBO series is awesome…but screw all that.

Until it’s done, I’m not gonna look at any of it.

Have you ever looked over the edge of a cliff, just to see what’s down there?

This SON story has stomped a mud-hole in my guts, and has given me untold amounts of grief. I’m up one minute, down the next. I have it, I don’t have it. I have never worked so hard on a story as I have on this one. Just when I think it’s ok, certain people keep pushing me.

Not to mention me pushing myself.

Just when the path seems closed, I get some new spark that ignites the creativity in me. I think this story has been this hard for a reason. I think that it’s a good one, too.

I’d like to hope that people care if I finish this or not. I’d like to hope that people are actually excited to see something new from me.

I’m getting closer.