2014 was unequivocally a better year than 2013. I wouldn’t have guessed that any year that began with a 12:01 rejection for a short-story would go on to be a good writing year, but it was definitely my best yet.
Nature published two of of my flash pieces and Alex Shvarstman worked with me to hone a third piece for his latest Unidentified Funny Objects volume.
If asked, though, I probably would have guessed that this would have been a year of continuing more of the television and film writing that I spent most of 2013 studying. Instead I mostly bailed on my pilot after some well-considered Blacklist criticism pointed out a number of areas for significant re-writes that I haven’t been able to solve.
I am also trying to come to terms with the limits of time and energy and creative output. In late 2013 I was accepted to Toronto’s Bad Dog Theatre’s inaugural Ensemble Studio series, a year-long program of long-form improv that has given me a stellar cohort of improvisers to possibly call troupe-mates in some possible future. In addition, I’ve been competing regularly in the Oakville Improv weekly Theatresports bubble tournament, playing monthly shows at Kerr Street’s Moonshine Cafe, and even working the odd workshop or community centre performance.
If time and energy and creativity are finite quantities (and I’m hoping to prove this wrong) then I’ll have to abuse the laws of conservation of such energy to make even greater things happen in the new year. Priorities, damn it!
I’m grateful for a good year, and like the nihilistic, ungrateful, misanthropic pessimist that I am–here’s hoping that 2015 is even better!
