Two years...as of November, I have two years until I can either wrap up my sails and get out of the Navy, or I can reenlist for another two to six years. Now, I'm not trying to sound like a whiner, or anything, but FUCK ALL, that is a pretty hard decision to make. Let me walk you through this for a minute.I joined the Navy in 1999, straight out of high school because I seriously had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. And it was a great choice, because I was a wisked loser. But over the last eight years, I've gotten married, had a kid or two, pretty much saw all of the world, and just enjoyed the ride. Some of my greatest memories thus far have come from being in the Navy. I mean, how many people can say that they ran up on stage at the David Letterman Show during Fleet Week and gave Dave a Dixie-cup (Our cute, white sailor hats) and said, “You’re the shit, Dave?” How many people have scars from getting wasted, forgetting that they're not a Navy SEAL and jumping through the roof of some poor Frenchmen's garage in a covert op to "stop the terrorist?" My point is this...I love the Navy. Whole-heartedly, I do. It’s in my blood, it’s in my heritage, and it’s in my heart.
You see, the Navy is just like any other job while I’m in the US, and not deployed. I wake up at 0430, get my shower, get dressed, fight traffic and report to work no later than 0545. I struggle to look busy, take long smoke breaks, and even longer lunches. I have ten different bosses of various ranks and sizes. It's the epitome of an Office Space environment, only when the shit hits the fan, the guy writing memos about TPS reports is the President himself. Those are the times I love. When something global happens, or when I see an operation on the news that I had a hand in planning at some point or stage. But this is just the day to day.
A deployment is the shit! The shit, people! Now, while it sucks to be away from my family for six-12 months at a time, there is no freedom like the open seas. When the only hindrance of the sunrise, set, horizon and heavens is a large white fluffy cloud. The action at sea is real with fire drills weekly, weapons checks daily, navigation details whenever, and every now and then you get to witness something truly beautiful that you never knew existed (you'd never get it, so I wouldn’t describe any further), but you get my point. Steaming on the open ocean, in my opinion, can only be shadowed by childbirth, your own wedding, and the first time you discovered porn.
I love my job.
So here I am, asking myself, do I really have the nuts to bail on this when the time comes? Do I even want to? Pay wise, with all benefits, allowances, special pays and bonuses...I make around 50-60,000 a year (relative to a civilian job). I can live on that, so it's not a matter of money. It's a matter of creative expression and wanting to do what's right in my heart, by me.
When I sit at my laptop, and I stare at that empty first page, with my outlines, and my stack of character notes, and it all starts filtering through my head to where in a few hours I can have 30 pages done. They are a shabby 30, but I've at least written them all. I once finished an entire first, sloppy, rough-ass draft in 15 hours of binge writing. Not because I was on a deadline, nor because I didn't feel like sleeping. It was because I wanted to tell the story and couldn't stop. I actually got off of work, went home, started writing, finished the spec, took a shower and went right back to work. I was fueled by passion to finish...passion to be a writer for that small amount of time.
When I finished my latest rewrite of The Yank, there was an accomplishment in my heart, this feeling of glowiness, that made me smile with more satisfaction than the day I landed in Iraq. This is why I feel like I’m in the wrong place in my life, that I’m not where God wanted me to be. So this is my dilemma now...get out and chase the dream of screenwriting, or stay in and never truly have the freedom to chase anything more than a blip on my radar screen. How big are my nuts?
6 comments:
This blog is gay.
But keep posting.
Gay means happy, Rod.
Happy.
Sheesh.
Don't go getting all emo on me.
Plus you have like three comments now, thanks to me.
I'm your number one commenter, and you'll always remember me as your first.
Now I sound gay...
Agreed...gayness is greatness!
Don't quit your day job.
Never quit your day job.
At least not until your passion (screenwriting) pays off first.
Really, don't leave the Navy until you are making more money at writing than you are making in the Navy.
That's just common sense. You have a family to support. Besides, being in the Navy provides you with life experiences to draw from for you writing.
Being in the Navy can have its advantages. It's a stable day job that you are probably quite used to at this point.
Stability and routine are very important when pursuing a writing career. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon.
Leaving your career to pursue writing will still require you to make a living while you are pursuing writing. If not the Navy, what?
A different day job will require an adjustment period, they usually do, which will take time away from your writing.
Beyond that, it's not always easy to find a decent day job that pays well and offers stability and security.
Staying in the Navy might be your best route to a writing career because it might be your best support system for living and for pursuing your dreams.
What you might want to do is see if there is anything in the Navy that can help prepare you for your dreams. Journalism is excellent training for screenwriting because it puts emphasis on: clarity, brevity, active voice and Who, What, Where, When, How.
The Navy also makes industrial films and works in all media. Look into writing for the Navy. It'll get you moving in the right directions, while retaining a decent paycheck.
Good luck.
As a 20 year Navy veteran, I can sympathize AND empathize.
Unk
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