Redshirts: A Novel Part 30

Yes, I see no way that this perfect plan could ever go wrong.

But on the other hand I don't have a better plan, do I. So here's what I'm going to do: Make a list of writers whose characters break the reality wall one way or another.

Contact them and find out if it's based on their actual real-world experience, without coming across like a psychotic freakbag.

Profit! Okay, not profit, but if their work is based on their real-life experiences, find out from them a way to keep writing.

Off to craft introductions that don't sound too creepy. Wish me luck.

AW.

Guys, seriously now: Stop trying to guess which show I work for. I'm just not going to tell you. Because I don't want to get fired. Which is what happens when people like me talk about their jobs to people like you, i.e., the Internet. And especially when people like me are claiming their characters are coming to life and talking to them. I know it's good fun for you to be guessing, but, come on. A little charity, please. I promise you that after this is all done, if everything works out, I'll tell you. Say, in five years. Or after I win an Emmy. Whichever comes first (bet on five years).

Okay? Okay. Thank you.

h.e.l.lo, Internet. You're wanting updates. Well, here we go. I've identified some creative types who have written stories similar to my situation, including those we mentioned here earlier: Woody Allen, for Purple Rose of Cairo, Jasper Fforde, Zak Penn and Adam Leff (Last Action Hero), Zach Helm (Stranger than Fiction) and Denise Hogan. The plan here is to approach them credits first-to at least suggest I'm not completely insane-and then to ask them in a very subtle way about whether what they've written has any connection to their real-life experiences. Then off they go to the writers. And we'll see if anyone nibbles.

And, to antic.i.p.ate some of you raising your hands out there in the audience, yes, I'll share with you the responses-after I snip out major identifying details. Oh, don't look at me like that. Remember that anonymity thing I'm striving for? Yeah. Too many details and I'm out of my very peculiar little closet (it's a lovely closet; it smells of pine and desperation). But on the other hand, as you've been helpful, I figure I owe you continuing updates on this thing.

Also, to make no mistake about it, I fully expect that the responses will be, "Wow, you're even crazier than most random people who write me, would you like my suggestion for antipsychotic pharmaceuticals." Because that's how I would respond to this showing up randomly in my inbox. It's how I have responded, in fact. You wouldn't believe the sort of random crazy gets sent to you when you're a writer on a successful television series. Or maybe you would. Crazy is highly distributed these days.

(insert pause to send off e-mails) And they're off. Now we get to see how long it takes before anyone responds. Want to start a betting pool?

AW.

Wow, so that didn't take long at all. The first response. E-mail posted below: x.x.x x.x.xXX via gmail.com show details 4:33 PM (0 minutes ago) Dear ANON-A-WRITER: h.e.l.lo, I'm x.x.x x.x.xx.x.x, a.s.sistant for x.x.xXX x.x.xXX. We received your query and wanted to know whether it was some sort of creative or interview project you're doing for a major magazine or newspaper. Please let us know.

My response: h.e.l.lo, x.x.x x.x.xx.x.x. No, it's not for any newspaper or magazine or blog (well, it might be for my own personal blog). It's more of something I'm asking for my own information. Thank you and let me know if x.x.xXX x.x.xXX has time for a chat. It would be very useful to me.

The a.s.sistant's response: Unfortunately x.x.xXX x.x.xXX doesn't have any availability at this time. Thanks for your interest and good luck on your project.

Translation: Your crazy would be fine if it was for People magazine, or maybe even Us, but if it's freelance crazy, we don't want anything to do with you.

Sigh. There was a time when freelance crazy was respected in this town! I think it was the early 80s. David Lee Roth was hanging out at the Whisky then. Or so I have heard. I was, like, six at the time.

One down, five to go....

AW.

New response. This is kind of awesome, actually.

To: ANON-A-WRITER From: x.x.xXX X x.x.xX, Esq., partner, x.x.xX, x.x.xXX, x.x.x and x.x.xXX Dear Mr. Writer: Your e-mail query to x.x.xXX x.x.xx.x.x was forwarded to us by his a.s.sistant, as is every letter for which they feel there is some concern about. Mr. x.x.xx.x.x values his privacy considerably and was greatly unsettled by your e-mail, both for its content and because it arrived in an unsolicited manner at a private e-mail.

At this time our client has decided not to escalate the matter by asking the x.x.xx.x.xX Police Department to investigate you and your e-mail. However, we request that you do not ever again attempt to contact our client in any way. If you attempt to do so, we will forward all correspondence both to the x.x.xx.x.xX Police Department and to the FBI and file for a restraining order against you. I do not need to tell you that such a request would instantly become news, severely impacting your career as a staff writer on x.x.xx.x.xx.x.xX.

We trust that this is the last we will hear from you.

Yours, x.x.xXX X x.x.xX, Esq., partner, x.x.xX, x.x.xXX, x.x.x and x.x.xXX Whoa.

Just for the record, the e-mail I sent did not begin: "Dear x.x.xXX, as I happened to be standing over your bed last night, watching you sleep..." It really didn't. I swear.

Either this person gets more crazy e-mails than usual from people who dress up as their cat and then stand outside their house, or this person got spooked by this e-mail for an entirely other reason. Hmmmm.

Is it worth getting the FBI involved to find out?

No. No, it is not.

Not yet, anyway. Still curious.

And now I'm fighting off an urge to dress up as this person's cat and stand outside their house. But it's early yet, and it's a weeknight. Maybe after a few more gin rickeys.

AW.

From the comments: I'm not entirely convinced you've seen your characters come alive, but as someone who suffers from writer's block all the time, it's amazing to me that you can joke about your situation as much as you do on this site, especially when your actual job is on the line. If I were you, I would be wetting my pants right about now.

Oh, trust me. I am. I so very am. My local Pavilions is entirely out of Depends right about now. I shop for them at night, so my neighbors won't see me. And when I'm done with them I put them in my next door neighbor's trash can so they can't be traced back to me. I'm not proud. Or dry.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Internet: Part of the reason I'm writing this blog right now is in fact to keep from s.h.i.tting myself in abject fear. The last time I went a week without writing something creative was when I was in college and I spent six days in the hospital for a truly epic case of food poisoning. (Dorm food. Not always the freshest. I wasn't the only one. For the rest of the year my dorm was known as the Puke Palace. I digress.) And even then, when I thought I was going to retch my lower intestine right out past my tongue, I was plotting stories and trying out dialogue in my head. Right now, I try plotting a story or thinking about dialogue for a script and a big wall comes down in my brain. I. Just. Cannot. Write.

This has never happened to me before. I am absolutely terrified that this is it, that the creative tank is all out of gas and that from here on out there's nothing for me but residuals and occasional teaching gigs at the Learning Annex. I mean, f.u.c.k, kill me now. It terrifies me so much that there's only two things I can think to do at the moment: 1. Make a special c.o.c.ktail of antifreeze and OxyContin and then take a long, luxurious bath with my toaster.

2. Write on this blog like it's a methadone treatment.

One of these options doesn't have me found as a bloated corpse a week later. Guess which one.

As for the joking, well, look. When I was twelve, my appendix burst, and as they were wheeling my a.s.s into the operating room, I asked the doctor, "How will this affect my piano playing?" and he said, "Don't worry, you'll still be able to play the piano," and I said, "Wow! I wasn't able to before!"

And then they ga.s.sed me.

My point is that even when I was about to die of imminent peritonitis I was still going for the joke. Failing, but going for it. (Actually, as my father said in the recovery room, "All the jokes in the world you could have made at that moment, and that's the one you go for. You are no son of mine." Dad took his jokes seriously.) Shorter version of all of the above: If I actually wrote in a way that indicated how bowel-voidingly scared I am at the moment, you would have all fled by now. And I probably would have gone to play in traffic. It's better to joke, I think.

Don't you?

AW.

Hey, now we're getting somewhere. The following e-mail from the next person on my list: Dear Anon-a-Writer: Your e-mail intrigues me on several levels. In fact, there is some crossover between what happens in my books and what happens in my real life. Your canny ambiguity in asking the question suggests to me you might have some of that same crossover.

As it happens, I'll be coming to LA tomorrow to meet with my film agent about a project we're pitching at x.x.xx.x.xx.x.x Studios. After I'm done with the industry glad-handing, I'd be happy to meet and chat. I'm staying at x.x.x x.x.xX x.x.xx.x.xX; let's meet in the bar there about 5, if you have the time.

Yours, x.x.xx.x.x x.x.xx.x.x.

So that sounds wildly promising. Now all I have to do is keep myself from exploding with anxiety for the next 24 hours or so. Fortunately I have meetings all day tomorrow. And yes, I said fortunately-the more meetings I have to sit in at work, the less anyone asks about the scripts I'm supposed to be working on. This is getting harder to keep up. I did suggest to one of the other staff writers that he and I collaborate on a script, and that he bang out the story outline and maybe the first draft. I can make him do the first draft because I'm senior. I can do it without guilt because he owes me money. I question my moral grounding. But at the moment, not as much as I would otherwise.

Hopefully the writer I'm meeting tomorrow will have something useful for me. Meetings and taking advantage of underlings only goes so far.

AW.

Okay. I've met with the other writer. She's Denise Hogan. And in order to describe our "conversation," I'm going to use a format I'm used to.

INT. COFFEE SHOP - CORNER TABLE - DAY Two people are sitting at the table, coffees in hand, the remains of m.u.f.fins on the table. They are ANON-A-WRITER and DENISE HOGAN. They have been talking for an hour as ANON-A-WRITER has described his crisis to DENISE in detail.

DENISE.

That's really a very interesting situation you've gotten yourself into.

ANON-A-WRITER.

"Interesting" isn't the word I would use for it. "Magnificently screwed" is the phrase I would use.

DENISE.

Yes, that would work, too.

AW.

But this has happened to you too, right?

When you write the characters in your novels, they are always arguing with you and ignoring how you want the plot to go and running off and doing their own thing. It's your trademark. You write it like it actually happens.

DENISE.

(gently) Well, I think we need to have some definition of terms on this.

AW.

(draws back) Definition of terms? That sounds like code for "No, it doesn't actually happen to me that way, you crazy crazy person."

DENISE.

(beat) AW, may I be honest with you?

AW.

Considering what I just splashed out to you over the last hour? Yes, would you, please.

DENISE.

I'm here because I read your blog.

AW.

I don't have a blog.

DENISE.

You don't have one under your actual name. You have one as Anon-a-Writer.

AW.

(beat) Oh. Oh, s.h.i.t.

DENISE.

(holds up hands) Relax, I'm not here to out you.

AW.

f.u.c.k!

(gets up, thinks about leaving, shuffles back and forth for a moment, sits back down) How did you find it?

DENISE.

How anyone with an ego finds anything on the Internet. I have a Google alert tied to my name.

AW.

(runs hands through hair) f.u.c.king Google, man.

DENISE.

I clicked through to see if it was some sort of feature piece on writers who break the fourth wall and then I saw what your blog was really about, and I put it into my RSS feed. I knew you were going to contact me before you sent your e-mail.

AW.

You're not actually in town to see your film agent.

DENISE.

Well, no. I had lunch with him today, and we did talk about that Paramount thing. But I called him after I got your e-mail and told him I was going to be in town. Don't worry, I didn't tell him why else I was here.

AW.

So your characters aren't actually alive and talking to you.