"I have one too."

"One What?"
"Sense of destiny."

Once again my desire cannot be quashed.
No matter how defeated I might feel, something always pulls me back.
There's always the same goal, but a new angle, a new plan of attack.

Last year I wrote to Jason Reitman about my scripts and he told me to figure out which one would be cheapest to make, produce it myself, and get my foot in the door that way.
I thought it was a stupid suggestion to be quite honest.
Not putting one of my babies in the hands of professionals seemed absurd.
But lately, I've been thinking about it, really seriously thinking about it.

Take "Good Grief" for example.
There are only a few locations.
Grief Counseling itself (any classroom), two houses, and a video store.
No explosions, no special effects.
It would be very cheap to make.
And if it actually turned out well, it'd be easier to sell "Singing Swans" and get that one made for me.

So why couldn't I do it?
I know a lot of capable people.
Why couldn't I crew up and do it?

I'd need someone to help me gather resources and promote it and someone to help with cinematography, but other than that, the idea doesn't seem all that overwhelming.

The one thing that worries me is the acting.
To be honest, I wrote this for Alison Lohman and Ryan Gosling.
I couldn't deal with bad actors.
But the more I think about it, the more I'd like to try this.

Am I nuts?

With my whole heart under your hammer...

I wasn't built for failure.
All of this unfulfilled love...
Love of work that will never mean anything to anyone but me.
It weighs me down.
It crushes my soul.

Missed the final round at yet another film festival.
I'm so easily discouraged.
My heart just sank.

I'm going to miss the deadline on the Blue Water Film Festival, but I'm not really upset about that, because I know I couldn't make a film to save my life.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I don't know why I would feel such passion for something I'm not any good at.
Maybe I'm not a good writer.
Maybe my friends think they're doing me a favor by not telling me that everything I write is shit.
But I do love movies and I believe in their power more than most.

Within minutes a film can make you look at people you’ve never seen before, people who might not even exist, and see yourself and the people around you. You can get pulled into their world and see your own and in relating to them and understanding them, you walk away understanding more about yourself and more about life. I often hear "Ash, it’s just a movie" and sometimes it is, but when it’s meant to be a study of the human condition, when you can make people examine their lives when they otherwise wouldn’t, when they’re too scared to see the truth, that’s a beautiful thing. I'd hoped that in loving this so much and believing in it so much, I’d get to be a part of it. But it's becoming clear that's never going to happen.

I feel lost.
I can work at this job I hate and save up to move to LA or New York, but when I get there, people still aren't going to read my scripts (Hell, only one person here bothered to read my newest).
I can pay an agent, but I don't look like an actress and I won't find work.
I'm going to die wanting this.

It all just seems like such a waste.
I seem like such a waste.
There's this tightness in my chest that doesn't go away and I can feel myself breaking a little more with every passing moment.
It hurts to breathe.

What do you do when you're living with the illusion of purpose, but the world has no need of you?

I don't know how much longer I can be here.

Crazy-ass week.

July 4th
I felt great, for reasons which are probably silly to the average bear, but I felt really motivated. I couldn't sleep. I was bouncing off the walls.
I thought that now was the time for change.
I was gonna start working out every day, no slacking.
I think that all the time, but this time I really meant it.
I was going to stop drinking pop all together.
Having recently found out I'm allergic to coffee and cola, and having a strange obsession with the whiteness of my teeth (so I gave up tea too), my Mt. Dew intake had definitely increased.

July 5th
I wake with moderate to severe back pain.
I go to the bathroom and find that I'm urinating blood, a significant amount of blood.
And Aunt Rose isn't due for weeks.
I read about it online, knowing it's probably a kidney infection.
It says if you have a fever, go to the ER.
I did have a fever, but I didn't want to tell my parents.
Eventually I did and my mom took me to the hospital, which was packed because all the doctors' offices were closed.
We went to Physicians Health Care instead.
I peed in a cup.
By then it looked like say...grape juice.
The doctor told me I did in fact have a severe kidney infection and if I'm still peeing blood on Monday, which is my birthday, I probably have kidney stones.

I take some antibiotics, which I've taken before, which made me ralph.
I also got a nifty pill which numbs my bladder so I can't feel the pain, but I only have one left and it's only Thursday.

I still had to work and not being able to go to the bathroom as much as I need to or drink as much water as I'm supposed to be drinking was a bad thing.
I have the day off tomorrow and on Saturday's I'm there alone, so it should be better.

The upside is, caffeine causes my medicine not to work, so I gave it up completely.
Now I can really give up pop.

I'm still peeing blood, so we'll see what happens on Monday.

Not fun.