While attempting to reword the description of an embroidered boudoir pillow at the dayjob, a voice whispered in the back of my head:

Quit now.

What?

Quit now. Set yourself free.

I can't. Got bills to pay. Got shit I don't need to buy.

Not your job, silly. Your dream. Filmmaking. Quit now.

For a minute, I imagined what a relief the idea was. The voice was more than happy to chirp along:

No more scripts. No more rewrites. No more Goggling for negative reviews that you tell yourself not to take personally but you will anyway. No more wondering if money's ever gonna come through. No more getting into debt. No more query letters. No more rejections. No more wondering if when people don't respond, it means fuck off or be persistent. No more plans for futur e films. No more going up to strangers in noisy bars and introducing yourself. No more of this selling yourself bullshit. No more festival submissions. No more waiting to be accepted.

No more, no more!

You're not just doing yourself a favor. It's for your friends, your peers, all the other filmmakers. One less talent in the market. One less film to make. One more chance for everyone else.

Be angelic for once. Sacrifice yourself like Christ did.

You can see watch films. You can still be supportive when people around you do it. You can still say shit like, "Yes, you'll make it! Keep up the great work!" Most of all, you can now truly enjoy manipulative Hollywood entertainment without a sense of indie guilt.

I simply responded by reaching for a yellow Post-it, uncapped a Sharpie and wrote:

Hang in there.

It's now hanging on the side of my monitor.

It must be the boudoir pillow. I wished it was in front of me so I can punch it out and ripped it apart. Then I'll know what it's really made out of and describe it in graphic details.

~

I've been obsessing over the idea of having a proper budget for the past year, constantly chanting:

Quarter of a mil! That's the way to go!

The week after SXSW as I returned with a renewed sense of fuck 250K-let's-make-50K-DV-fi lms, I've slowly transformed into a telemarketer, always asking at every available opportunity:

Hey man, do you know anyone I can get 50K from?

You can so easily make 50K back!

I can make such a great film with 50K!

If I don't stop now, I'm gonna turn into one of those guys everyone makes a point to avoid. Eww, 50K's in the room y'all. I won't even give him 50 cents.

Sometime today when I stared at the picture of the boudoir pillow and the pricey silk sheets spread beneath it, I scratched my head and felt disgusted. More at myself than the marked-up retails. Me and my 50K price tag. I haven't even whored all the way yet but I already felt worn out.

Jerry said to me last week that I should stop thinking about it. The money. If it'll happen. If it'll all work out.

"It's like love, you know. It comes when you quit searching for it."

Maybe that's what the voice was really trying to say:

Not the dream, silly. The 50K.

~

Nick and I, in our own ways, had a blast at Ozone. It was a nice town with a laid-back Southern feel. So laid-back, only six people showed up at our first screening. And fifteen at our second. Ultimately, what made it all worthwhile was getting to know my fellow director better. Out of the three, I knew him the least. We drank, laughed, cracked stupid jokes, and most importantly, slept on the same bed without the slightest hint of homoeroticism.

"I didn't cuddle up to you last night, did I?" He asked the next morning.

"Yeah, you did. And you called me Kara."

~

At one of our gas stops, I grabbed a cup of coffee at the store and walked up to the cashier's. Then I saw him, standing by the soda machine, wondering if he should fill his plastic cup with Pepsi or Mountain Dew. It was Gabe, exactly the way I envisioned in "Pit Stop." The baseball cap. The Wranger's. The thick moustache. The blue eyes. The construction boots with dried mud sticking on its sides. I wanted to say hey mister, can I take your picture? But the check-out girl was giving me the evil eye. Like my Asian ass didn't belong there.

~

After our second screening in Ozone, James and David were celebrating for our very first award in College Station. Rumor has it that they were both surrounded by braless sorority girls.

~

It looks like our next projects, respectively, are David's "Drift", James' "Sid" and Nick's "Still Writing It As We Speak" (which involves a whistling hooker I must add, and from what he has described to me, sounds mighty interesting).

As for me, there's 'Pit Stop," which ideally should be my follow-up to "Happy Birthday." However, I can't, for the life of me, shoot "Pit" on DV. Not even HD. Only film can serve its narrative, unfortunately. Which brings me back to my obsession over 250K.

So there's "Ciao." Essentially, it's a gay "84 Charing Cross Road," a film I've always been fond of since I caught it on TV at the age of fourteen. Not as classy of course, and this involves an Italian and an American instead. Unlike Helene and Frank, Andrea and Jeff actually meet halfway into the film and eventually get it on. Well, not exactly. But they do dance with their tops off. I admit it sounds like the type of gay film I've sworn not to make: pretty boys living it up in the wonderful genre of romantic comedy. David, who initially was receptive to the first draft, gave a harsh but constructive criticism to my second. I needed that. A push to make it better. I questioned my intentions (this one will sell cause the Italian's hot!), then my bias towards the attractive characters. I couldn't help but feel like there's not enough of a content, as if cuteness alone would make up for the lack of substance. By now, I may be giving away the impression that "Ciao" is a fluff piece. It is to an extent, but I do strive for it to be something more. Over and over I remind myself my filmmaking motto: it needs to mean something.

In an example of life imitating art, I consulted with the person I loosely based Andrea on, Alessandro, who then presented me with a very insightful character analysis. Along with David's comments (and to an extent, his wonderful short film script submission to Berlin entitled "Red Notes on a Blue Film"), I was suddenly invigorated by all the possibilites introduced.

Another draft is on the way. Let's hope third one's the charm.