Earthquakes, Part 1

Around the end of June, I dreamed of an earthquake.  It was so violent, it literally shook me out of sleep.  I could've sworn I was lying on a bucking bronco of a bed, and I thought it was strange, because the Shaby Shack is situated on a granite hill that absorbs tremors.  (Totally true.  You all are gonna wanna come see me when the Big One hits.  We'll still be standing.)

I don't usually have intense dreams like that, unless I take a handful of Benedryl to knock out the allergies.  But here I am, gripping the mattress, staring at the ceiling, jumping on Facebook to see if anyone else is posting about a monster tremor.  Did this really happen?  Was it just me?

Turns out it wasn't real.  It was just me.  And it was an unfortunate omen of what was to come.

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My Golden Gecko Gymnast movie is gone.  The bright side is that it wasn’t my idea, it probably would’ve hurt so much more if it was.  The other bright side is that it wasn’t because of the work that I did that it died (like if I had turned in a really shitty outline.)  It is, quite honestly, not my fault. 

I went against my better nature, and told people this project was happening, because there was zero reason to think the rug was going to be pulled out from under me.  I had a contract.  I had a payment schedule.  I had notes from my creative exec that I incorporated into a second draft of the outline.  I turned in the outline.  I got paid for the outline.  There were meetings, and emails, and a company with a track record of animal movies, all of which I took as evidence that yes, yes, this is happening, and Amy is On Her Way.

I turned in the outline on August 1^st.  On August 4^th (sister Agatha’s birthday!), I got an email from the creative exec saying that everything is “sort of on hold.”  The creative exec went on to praise all the work I did, and how impressed she was with how quickly and thoroughly and seemingly effortlessly I was able to incorporate all her notes (that “effortlessly” was basically a 24/7 IV drip of Red Bull)  “I will get you produced one way or another, with this project or another one, so hang in there with me,” Creative Exec says, “I'll be in touch soon!”

Okay.  Okay, no problem.  I’ll just switch gears and go back to rewrite Red Llama, so I have something to work on until Golden Gecko revs back up again.  No problem.  None whatsoever.  I could use the break, really.  I’m not that big of a fan of Geckos.  Sure, I’ll write a gymnastic movie about them, but they’re kinda freaky looking, and I’m much more down with Llamas. 

The following Monday, August 8^th, I get another email saying the Gecko movie is officially dead.  Not my fault, it’s a matter of the Company Powers That Be not liking how much this movie is going to cost (I never got an idea of how much that was) versus what they thought their rate of return would be, and pulling the plug before we went any farther.  Much like how Universal has pulled the plug on several projects lately like The Dark Tower, and At The Mountains Of Madness.  The Geckos are apparently too expensive to train or something.  I honestly don’t know, and they wouldn’t tell me.  They just offered copious apologies.

It's basically like, I went walking in the jungle, a Golden Gecko jumped into my lap, I played with it for about a month, it gave me a small check, and ran back into the wild, never to be seen again.

Looking back now, from that Thursday to Monday, I feel a bit like Wile E Coyote, speeding off the cliff and remaining airborne for longer than normal, and in that five seconds before freefall, thinking everything was fine, not realizing the truth of the situation, that there’s about to be a terrifying fall and a painful splat.

In those blissful five seconds, you don’t know anything’s wrong at all.

At all.

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(Continued next week.)