In case you didn't know, Death As Usual hasn't always been a indie animated movie. Once upon a time I was frustrated with myself. This was about 10 years ago now. I had written my bad novel that every writer has to write and was starting to get really frustrated with life in general. I was making crap money working restaurant jobs (cooking, washing dishes mostly) and I was worried that being a paid writer just wasn't in the cards. That's a crappy feeling; which I think goes for anyone who wants to do something that you can't really get a degree to do.
Anyway, I was working at this bar in Kansas City, Missouri (not Kansas, that came later) and one day someone under-fried a catfish during the lunch rush. My alcoholic kitchen manager came back and slammed the plate down and said "What fu*#ing dumbass did this?"
As I watched the catfish bounce on the plate I couldn't help but feel sad and slightly pathetic. So I told my boss I wanted to speak with him in his office. I sat down and told him that even though I didn't cook the catfish I didn't appreciate being disrespected like that. He told me he understood. So I proceeded to thank him for the job. I went home and wondered if I did the right thing. In retrospect I don't think quitting was the best choice. I work in Hollywood now and have been called worse, so my skin mighta been a little thin.
The next job I got was a joke. It was in a University library, but not the kind students can just go browse in. It was this big old Gothic building with tons of floors and only the people that work there could search for books. Mostly professors and professional whatever's would get books from there. The workers would wait in the basement where there was a tubing system. A canister (like the kind at bank drive thru's) would shoot down with a slip of paper telling you which book to go find.
One day I was waiting at the table with the weirdos who worked there and a tube shot down at me. I opened it up and saw that the book I needed was up in the annex. That was the very top floor which was all dusty and scary. I went up there and couldn't find the book, which wasn't unusual, or a big deal 'cause the boss was a flake and never fired anyone. But as I was looking I found a book simply titled 'How To Write A One Act Play.' I thought to myself that maybe I needed to try something new and write a play. I forgot about my novel and being the next great American whatever and decided I would just focus on telling a fun story. I had just finished reading 'The Plague' by Camus and happened upon a History Channel special that mentioned medieval poison dealers. I started thinking and I was also watching a lot of 'Frasier' reruns for some reason and I can see now why the one act 'Death As Usual' came out the way it did.
After a few weeks I became obsessed with the characters and the story. I think it was the most important growth I ever experienced as a writer. It was definitely the first good thing I ever wrote. At the time, the year was 1999 and I didn't know what computer animation was, and I'm not sure how developed it even was, which I think makes it more special to see what this story became over the years.
It eventually went on to win a playwright award and earn a small production. I'll tell the story about the day I found out in a bit. That day was weird. I was taking an astronomy class to fill a science credit. The thing was, I took astronomy thinking it was going to be horoscopes and that kind of thing. (But that's astrology in case you don't know.) It turned out Astronomy is a lot harder than it sounds. And in time I would learn that getting an indie film into festivals and getting distribution is a helluva lot harder than getting a B in Astronomy.
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