Part 4: Everything Happens at Once.
Part 4: Everything Happens at Once.
As I said, I sent a submission package to the Seattle Weekly on the advice of a friend. I didn’t expect the Weekly to bite. I just wanted to be able to say I had given it an honest shot. You can imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail back from the editor of the Weekly saying that he was interested. We played some phone tag and we talked money. I am happy with the deal, and happy that I have a day job, if you catch my drift. We set a day for me to come into the paper’s office to finalize everything. It turned out their office was only a block away from my day job, so the plan was for me to take a break and walk over. My years as a stand-up had taught me that no matter how good a deal looks, there’s always a way for it to fall through at the last minute, and 9 times out of 10 it’ll be my fault. I saw this meeting as my last chance to screw the whole thing up. No pressure.
As I was getting ready for work the morning of my meeting with the editor of the Seattle Weekly, my wife’s phone rang. She picked it up and said several positive but non committal things. Then she hung up and said that she had received a job offer from Disney World. She was offered a full time job at the Comedy Warehouse at Pleasure Island as a member of the house improv troupe. It was better pay than my day job, better benefits than my day job and the job was to do what she was already doing as a hobby in Seattle with Jet City Improv. (If you are in Seattle, you MUST go see Jet City Improv) The down side was that the job was in Orlando, and she had to start in 5 weeks. I knew I wouldn’t be a very good husband if I stood in her way. There were many people in Seattle I would miss tremendously, but my day job had no real future and I knew I could do the strip from anywhere, so it came down to what she wanted. When I left for work she hadn’t decided.
I had the meeting with the editor, and I think it went well. I really don’t remember much about it. In fact, I don’t remember much about that day. I was stressed all the way out. I didn’t mention the possible move to him (a move I still feel morally weird about) because I didn’t know for sure what the decision would be, or if moving would even really be possible, and I knew I could e-mail him strips from Florida as easily as I could from Seattle. Why destroy this deal over something that only had a 50/50 shot of happening. I rode the bus home with a finalized deal to run Basic Instructions in the Weekly. When I got home my wife told me she wanted to take the job. We started researching whether moving in the time allotted was possible. The day I put in two weeks notice at my job I also told the editor at the Weekly that I was moving, convinced that he would call off the deal when he heard. He didn’t, but it didn’t make him happy either, and I can’t say I blame him.
Two weeks later, my wife and I were in a car, headed for Florida. Some day I’ll post the story of the drive across the country. There’s too much of it to shoe-horn in here.
We got here, set up housekeeping and she started her job. I went through the Disney casting process (which I may post about some day, keeping my various confidentiality agreements in mind) and got a job, as a bellhop at the Tower of Terror.
So there it is. That’s how, in a little over 2 months time you can go from being a former comic/office drone in Seattle to being a professional cartoonist/Tower of Terror bellhop in Orlando and all it’ll cost you is some hard work and one day of mind bending stress.
Postscript: My wife just passed the 90 day mark at her job and I will do so in a couple of weeks. We are enjoying Orlando a great deal, but I anticipate much suffering for myself this summer. The bellhop gig doesn’t pay well but is tremendously satisfying, and the Seattle Weekly has been very good to me. My strip is still running and I recently did some comics to illustrate their special dining issue.
My birthday is Friday, and we’re most likely going to one or more Disney World parks to celebrate. We both get in for free.
As I said, I sent a submission package to the Seattle Weekly on the advice of a friend. I didn’t expect the Weekly to bite. I just wanted to be able to say I had given it an honest shot. You can imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail back from the editor of the Weekly saying that he was interested. We played some phone tag and we talked money. I am happy with the deal, and happy that I have a day job, if you catch my drift. We set a day for me to come into the paper’s office to finalize everything. It turned out their office was only a block away from my day job, so the plan was for me to take a break and walk over. My years as a stand-up had taught me that no matter how good a deal looks, there’s always a way for it to fall through at the last minute, and 9 times out of 10 it’ll be my fault. I saw this meeting as my last chance to screw the whole thing up. No pressure.
As I was getting ready for work the morning of my meeting with the editor of the Seattle Weekly, my wife’s phone rang. She picked it up and said several positive but non committal things. Then she hung up and said that she had received a job offer from Disney World. She was offered a full time job at the Comedy Warehouse at Pleasure Island as a member of the house improv troupe. It was better pay than my day job, better benefits than my day job and the job was to do what she was already doing as a hobby in Seattle with Jet City Improv. (If you are in Seattle, you MUST go see Jet City Improv) The down side was that the job was in Orlando, and she had to start in 5 weeks. I knew I wouldn’t be a very good husband if I stood in her way. There were many people in Seattle I would miss tremendously, but my day job had no real future and I knew I could do the strip from anywhere, so it came down to what she wanted. When I left for work she hadn’t decided.
I had the meeting with the editor, and I think it went well. I really don’t remember much about it. In fact, I don’t remember much about that day. I was stressed all the way out. I didn’t mention the possible move to him (a move I still feel morally weird about) because I didn’t know for sure what the decision would be, or if moving would even really be possible, and I knew I could e-mail him strips from Florida as easily as I could from Seattle. Why destroy this deal over something that only had a 50/50 shot of happening. I rode the bus home with a finalized deal to run Basic Instructions in the Weekly. When I got home my wife told me she wanted to take the job. We started researching whether moving in the time allotted was possible. The day I put in two weeks notice at my job I also told the editor at the Weekly that I was moving, convinced that he would call off the deal when he heard. He didn’t, but it didn’t make him happy either, and I can’t say I blame him.
Two weeks later, my wife and I were in a car, headed for Florida. Some day I’ll post the story of the drive across the country. There’s too much of it to shoe-horn in here.
We got here, set up housekeeping and she started her job. I went through the Disney casting process (which I may post about some day, keeping my various confidentiality agreements in mind) and got a job, as a bellhop at the Tower of Terror.
So there it is. That’s how, in a little over 2 months time you can go from being a former comic/office drone in Seattle to being a professional cartoonist/Tower of Terror bellhop in Orlando and all it’ll cost you is some hard work and one day of mind bending stress.
Postscript: My wife just passed the 90 day mark at her job and I will do so in a couple of weeks. We are enjoying Orlando a great deal, but I anticipate much suffering for myself this summer. The bellhop gig doesn’t pay well but is tremendously satisfying, and the Seattle Weekly has been very good to me. My strip is still running and I recently did some comics to illustrate their special dining issue.
My birthday is Friday, and we’re most likely going to one or more Disney World parks to celebrate. We both get in for free.
posted by Scott Meyer at Monday, May 07, 2007
2 Comments:
Excellent! Glad to hear that all is going well in the world of Basic Instructions.
Keep enjoying it, this strip is priceless.
Congratulations to both of you and that's awesome! Disney is a great place to be...scary, but great.
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