Mordechai Stone

Contempt never breeds with familiarity

Small Life

Since I moved back to California in 2007 I have attempted to make my life manageable. I followed a formula. I cut expenses to the bone. I quit spending money on entertainment; no movies, no books, no dining out. I quit dating. I bought a disposable car. I rented a cheap one room apartment. And I did all of this in the name of art.

I reasoned that it would be good for my writing. I could work odd jobs and live off the money I’d saved while working on South Padre Island. Not having a full time job I could spend vast swaths of my time creating new stories. And it would all be manageable.

In the last three years I have completed one screenplay and three short stories. I began numerous other screenplays and a major novel. I wrote several screenplay synopses and registered a bunch of story ideas with the Writers Guild. But considering the amount of free time I had the writing output has been dismal. And now the disposable car is gone – sold for scrap, the bank account is empty and I am unemployed.

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have the company of a female as we watch moving images on the silver screen, to enjoy a nice meal out with friends, to smell the fresh cut grass at the ballpark. I have robbed myself of the joy of my existence. What artistic inspiration can possibly come from that?

I believed that if I did penance and sacrificed for my craft that I would be rewarded for my pain and suffering. What an ass I am. The person I’ve always had the easiest time lying to is the one I find it hard to look at in the mirror every morning.

By trying to get a life small enough to manage I have ended up with a very Small Life.