Nonessential

Essential workers are broadcasters, butchers, bakers, grocers, cops, pilots, Congressional staff, bankers, brokers, lawyers, morticians, doctors, nurses, and postal workers. Plumbers, plasterers, welders, auto workers, and electricians are mostly drinking beer, arguing with a wife and kids, and grumbling because they're waiting for parts or paperwork. Money is tight.

 

I don't see how an unsocialized bum in a tin barn could be an essential worker. I rarely write more than a few pages a day if conditions are right. The prospect of launching another novel amounts to gazing at a distant mountain that might be an active volcano. I wrote a three item grocery list: coffee, potato chips, and dog treats. My dog will not tolerate a dog treat diet. He's a total pain in the ass with a loud snort of increasing emphasis when he wants something. We have an agreement. He does what I tell him to do (a limited vocabulary, but adequate) and there are dog treats, food, water, a glop of pumpkin on his food to aid digestion, and walks uphill on the gravel road that bisects my property. I have to escort him so he doesn't get run over by a FedEx truck again. They barrel along on country roads because it's uneconomic to serve rural hayseeds. Do you know why farmers and ranchers are called hayseeds? Because hay grass matters if you have animals and you get covered in splinters and seeds when you mow. Some guys mow 200 acres a day. They have to be careful about the sun, or their necks and ears and noses will turn red, ratcheting up risk of skin cancer. Are hayseeds essential workers? Nope. All the dairy farmers and beef ranchers I know are family owned small businesses with a fleet of tax attorneys, government programs, inspectors, assessors, auctioneers, and suppliers. They also have wives, children, and grandchildren to amuse. I can't do 1/100th of the labor that industrious hayseeds do 7 days a week nonstop. If they're not mowing, they're feeding and doctoring the herd, moving them from one pasture to another, raking and baling and hauling so they can feed their animals in winter. If the pond freezes over, it has to be cracked open with an axe. I've seen a young thin blonde country gal do it in rubber boots.

 

Hah! some writer. Blaringly bad form. Previous paragraph too long.

 

Do you know why this Notebook is screenwritingdoc.blogspot? Because I used to be another sort of nonessential worker, writing and doctoring feature film screenplays that, like most "spec" scripts, are never filmed. They're a calling card, like an audition for prospective work for hire. I don't know which is worse, crafting something you love, or writing terrible shit for an idiot producer. In either case it's a sort of treason to work in show business. Movies and TV product are a mirror of contemporary society and its fantasies and fears, played on purpose, to justify whatever troubles us most. I was guilty of treason when I was a working director and film editor. I wanted a fantasy. I helped others because I feared being nonessential after suffering a year at Disney, doing a vaguely technical staff job 9 to 5 in a cubicle, my directing career kaput. I didn't even bother to keep dubs of my finest work, shot in London, Sydney, San Francisco, and Amsterdam, maybe three or four hours of signature art from decades of warfare to paint the screen with actors, crews, money, girlfriends, colleagues, and evil producers. Make a note. Money moguls who smile too much are dangerous.

 

I'm beginning to think that I'm finished as a writer (again). I've been through patches like this before, poor Foedorfski, wrote everything he could imagine, nothing left to say. Then a change of season and a flurry of new fiction, culminating in a literary adventure of life and love in the distant future, a space colony to save with blue collar dedication and courage. I don't seem to have anything to say about today's world. I don't want to spin a tale of armed patriot resolve, however much tempted. There are videos and books and posts aplenty, not much doubt what I think needs to be fought for, primarily to wield individual rights because government is an illusion. I won't bore you with a technical explanation. Just take my word for it. You're free. Pilot yourself appropriately. Shun cults. You're an individual. I know how much loved ones matter. Unfortunately, they're individuals, too, never totally at ease as objects of adoration and concern. One of my wives grumbled that I needed a hobby, ships in a bottle or something, to get rid of me, claw back her cherished selfhood and think about something other than me.

 

Generally, men are nonessential workers as far as women are concerned. It's nice to have a man around the house to do chores and occasional flirtation, but that's about it. Women are Men Plus. I won't bore you with a technical explanation. If you follow the breadcrumbs from wolfdevoon.net to the Wayback Machine and cthonia.com, there's a free pdf Bookstore that links to an All Purpose Guide on flirtation, much of it in acronyms and Boy Scout substitution code to deter ladies from reading it. There are things that women should not know. Men have tactical secrets to produce successful flirtations and magical conduct of additional procedures.

 

Was it essential to write the All Purpose Guide? Possibly so. The Freeman's Constitution was definitely essential to political progress, amplified by Vimeo lectures Abbreviated Wolf DeVoon Part One and Part Two, explicating defacto anarchy and the rule of law in a free society. What else was essential in my body of work?? — Oh. The Executive Branch novelette sketched a free independent Alaska.

 

I don't know what to say about my novels. It might be essential to light a fire in one's soul. Certainly to show that circumstances are inescapable and have to be fought. Love matters. Courage matters, right wrong or purple, win or lose. Unless there's something worth fighting for, we become domesticated herd animals, binge watching Netflix poison and fake news of government delay, confusion, fantasies, factoids, and hysterical fears. I don't want to memorize the cast of characters in a mudslinging match. Politics is show business for ugly people. I didn't coin that phrase. I don't have a monopoly on truth. Maybe a couple of my epigrams were essential. Two make a fire. Justice is the armed defense of innocent liberty. Futuristic repair tech Gadant sighs, "I'm surrounded by chickens."

 

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