Blogaversary Party

A year ago I started this blog because I was a writer nobody wanted to read. I'd had enough of opening the trades to news of another record spec sale I hadn't made. When blogs I hadn't created were optioned for books, sitcoms and three-picture deals I hadn't landed, I became even more annoyed. Eventually it became clear that if I didn't have a blog I'd surely never be tapped to adapt a blog into a New York Times bestseller and the feel good movie of the year. If also else failed, I would at least have created a repository for my work, forcing myself on a daily basis to chronicle the tail end of my ten-year struggle from successful journalist to failed screenwriter. The truth is, I wasn't at all sure I had a full year of struggle left in me.

Looking back through my early postings, I see that it took awhile to find my bloggerly groove. There is comedy in misery, I soon discovered, especially here in Hollywood, where the world's class clowns and homecoming kings and queens share the dubious goal of wanting in. What I hadn't counted on, of course, was getting in. What's fun about that? While selling my first script has opened all kinds of doors I spent so many years kicking in, the immutable truth is that success isn't nearly as funny as failure.

I used to record my thoughts here every day because I didn't have anything else to do with them. Now I have all kinds of things, and lo and behold, they're not all that fascinating. Today, for example, I have the shades drawn and the A/C on. I'll be in my pajamas all afternoon, working on a revised outline for my producers at Universal. Should my literary agent call to inquire into the latest re-write of my book proposal, I will either screen the call or pick it up and lie. At some point, I will make an egg salad sandwich and watch back to back episodes of Judge Judy. While I may tell myself I'm too busy to blog, the reality is I no longer have the requisite desperation to be heard.

Over the last year, my readership has grown from a single visitor, my sister, to many thousands of you every week who seem to pop by in equal numbers regardless of how long it's been since my last post. I can't promise I'll post more frequently now that I'm not as miserable or hilarious a girl as I once was. I do, however, urge the mysterious throngs who missed my early missives to get your fix in my archives. You might find, as I did, that success isn't so different than failure after all.