Life of Crime

Last Thursday I began work on Mark and Robb Cullen's newest TV show "Heist" (which the New York Times incorrectly credited as having been created by Doug Liman; he directed the pilot). It's stars Dougray Scott, and is a one-hour drama about a jewel caper that will unfold over the run of an entire season, like Prison Break or 24.

This is big news for me. Huge, actually. Primarily it's big because the cold, rusty door of poverty was creaking open to let me in. With only one somewhat depressing employment opportunity looming, I realized I had overestimated my checking balance and, whoops, thought I had three grand more than I did. Sort of that feeling like you're the pilot and you look at the fuel gauge and suddenly it's dipping into the red, and the plane's over the Pacific Ocean.

Needless to say, for reasons of survival and all that, I'm thankful for The Job. As for The Career, getting on this show is an amazing change of pace for me. It's a set direction for at least the next 20 weeks. It's an opportunity to get paid to write. It is an opportunity to learn. It is fucking thrilling, frankly, to meet other writers (one from The Sopranos) and get to sit in a room and talk out story lines with them. It's great.

A few things have come together, too. I finally finished Air Conditioned Jungle and it's going to go out to a few close personals, then to a larger group of folk. Also, agents are calling and it looks like I might be getting an guy at one of the big places. Also, I met with the author of a true crime book about adapting it and he gave me his blessing to see what I could do with it. And we just got the final piece in the puzzle to find out about financing for the Duvall movie. Now we just wait for two weeks to see if the financiers are legit and can come up with the money. In two weeks, I could have a motion picture in the works (and another paycheck in hand).

I'll get more than just news bulletins down in the next post, I just didn't want to sit on the news. So stay tuned, as they say in the TV game...