In continuation to: Room Notes #1: Where Does the Time Go?
As promised, I did ship out the screenplay to the director by 6:10 pm. Now, it’s about waiting to be reviewed for that project.
But it’s still too early to call it a day.
Next on my plate for today:
• Script coverage for a Hollywood project — a peer-to-peer consult for a friend.
• A documentary pitch deck — for someone telling the story of a man who lost everything before finding himself.
Occasionally time decides to mess with my chilled-out vibe and thrust all the gigs at once. Two of the projects are for the agency — one, the feature film, that was delivered, and the documentary one that’s in the pre-sales phase. In the middle of that, there’s this service-to-fellow-comrade gig.
So, here’s me switching gears from socio-political drama based in India, to a western-period-sports-drama based in Kentucky, to a documentary that spans across India and Kenya.
If you ask me, would I be able to wrap this before the sun checks out for the day, I would say, definitely before the sun clocks in for work tomorrow.
But if you ask me how, I would be just like the page in front of me — blank.
That’s how any ordinary day is. Switching gears at the drop of a hat, with only a cigarette break to help with the transition. So, even though the dream was to write, the commerce of it is unavoidable. Fortunately, my brother showed up just a while ago with beer cans. That helps too.
But we are not gathered here to discuss the project update. I’m more interested in discussing something so subtle that it often gets ignored.
So, let’s dig into it.
When you first thought of being a writer, what was your vision of an ideal life like? If it was about professional success, fame, reputation, money — take it from me, those joys are like the fizz of a beer. Fades away quickly.
Eventually, you are left with the grind. And that’s the reality. So, ask yourself — what kind of writer do you want to be:
1. Someone who writes
2. Someone who’s in the business of writing
3. Someone who’s in the business of writing, but at least gets a chance to write all day.
And those are quite different things.
Often it happens that we are conditioned to chase a dream. And we get so accustomed to chasing, that we do not realize when we have actually reached the finish line. We still continue running — new goals, new ambitions, same old chase.
Living in a society shaped by the notion of success over failure, it is not easy to avoid getting influenced and losing sight of what is important.
But an endless chase is not ambition, it is greed. And greed serves no one. The day I stopped was the day I felt the burden lifted off me. And despite my fear and anxiety, nothing in the professional world got affected by it. Rather, it only allowed me to function more passionately.
So, next dream you pick up for yourself, chalk out the exact details of where you will stop. And stop for sure. Because life’s a marathon, and you can’t sprint through it.
For me, stopping isn’t about quitting or giving up—it’s about setting boundaries where I reclaim space to breathe, reflect, and reset. It might mean saying no to one more project or turning off the phone at a certain hour. It’s a deliberate act of self-preservation amid the chaos.
As for the two projects, ideally I should see which one is more appropriate to pick next. But I prefer a different approach than weighing writing gigs among themselves. So I did — “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” — and it turned out that the next in line will be the Documentary Pitch Deck.
Off to my cigarette break.