I got some good news Friday: Universal has renewed the movie option on Enchanted, Inc. What this means is that a movie remains a possibility. I knew the decision would be made on Friday, so that was a pretty unproductive day. I spent much of the day anxiously checking my e-mail every few seconds, and then after I got the word, I had to deal with some paperwork (I still have to make a trip to the FedEx place) and was generally too keyed up to concentrate. I celebrated by watching Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day that night, but perhaps I shouldn't have watched the bonus feature on the journey from book to movie, as the fact came up that Universal owned the rights to that book for nearly 60 years before the movie actually got made. I suppose it's reassuring that it did eventually happen, but it's discouraging that it can take so long. However, that situation is different from mine, in that they just have an option currently, and that does expire. I'm sure contracts were different then, but it sounds like they'd done an outright purchase and were about to go into production in 1939 when things got sidetracked by the war. Incidentally, that 1939 version was going to be a musical starring Billie Burke (Glinda in The Wizard of Oz) as Miss Pettigrew.
When I got the initial film deal, I bought a new car -- but since it was a Ford Focus, to replace an 11-year-old Saturn, I don't think it was exactly a Hollywood splurge. This time around, I'm just glad it means I can go another year without worrying about finding a real job, though I may splurge and get a new ballet leotard. I hope the recurring nightmare about going back to all of my former jobs at once will now stop. It was getting old. The commute alone was exhausting me, as I had to keep rushing from one office to the next to put in face time and convince them that I really did work there. I hate waking up tired because I put in a full day's work in my sleep.
Hmm, that might be a good plot for a chick lit book, if that genre still existed -- a telecommuter "double dips" by having multiple jobs at once, and no one knows because she's working at home. I think that would actually be pretty easy to pull off because I was so much more efficient as a telecommuter that I could have done two "full-time" jobs -- measured by work output -- in a less than full-time work week. The only difficulty would be if they started expecting a day a week of "face time," like my last job did just before I got laid off. That was silly because on that day I got nothing done while I was in the office. It was an entire day essentially dedicated to saying, "Hi! I still exist!" Those are the days that still show up in the recurring nightmares, only all the jobs I'm doing require the face time day at the same time.
But now I can eat for the year and pay my mortgage without having to get another job, thanks to movie money and my ongoing freelance job. I do hope to sell some books this year, though. It's just nice to not be in a panic/pressure situation.
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