Year 3: 1995

Tea with Lisa and Ginny in Brooklyn. Lisa was in much better spirits than at Christmas. She’s not tracking time or place too well, but everything she says is true; you just need to turn it around a little to make sense of it. Like the conversations you have in a dream. If you focus on the surface logic (or lack thereof), you miss the real content.

Three days back at work and, wow, I’m still standing.

Got in Monday night, happy to see S.F., drove Patrick and Sandrine and Tomi up to Fairfax, cooked dinner there and took a hot tub in the light rain. Ah California!

Tuesday was the first day back. Got up to speed pretty quick. Brian called to remind me I’d been nominated for a MacUser Eddy. We went to the awards but didn’t win.

Showed the game to Denis Friedman, and John Evershed.

The atmosphere at the office is intense. Progress is slow but steady.

Yesterday (Friday) Elia Cmiral came to the office and stayed the whole day. I liked him. I think he’ll be good. The problem, as usual, is how to get him the information he needs to do his job?

I spent all day today in the office writing up new versions of the screenplay and linear screenplay and NIS cross-reference spreadsheets, to try to communicate — not just to Elia but also to the sound designer, Nicki, Terry, and everyone else — just how these NISes fit into the story and the game as a whole. Long overdue. There’s too much info that exists in my head and no place else.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than spend your Saturday here?” Terry asked.

“No,” I said.

Dinner with Mark Netter, Elia and his wife at Mifune. Days of toil, nights of gladness.

I’ve been spending my driving and home time listening to violin and piano music for the concert sequence. I’m liking the Franck sonata (A major), though the Brahms D minor is still a contender.

Dinner with Robert at Greens after the gym. We drank a bottle of wine and played pool. He’s in an alpha state from being in love. I kept having to scrape him off the ceiling. Me, I’m just plugging away on this mammoth project that leaves no room in my life for anything or anyone else.

Saw Linda Fiorentino at the gym. She’s in town shooting Jade.

The negotiation with Broderbund (Tom) drags on.

I’m broke.

This project is HUGE.

Elia came in with a $30K bid, which is pretty much exactly what we were hoping for. So, we’ve got our composer!

This project is huge. Have I mentioned that lately? We’ll be lucky if it comes in at 2 million bucks.

I tied Netter and RAC down and forced them to watch me create a budget and cash flow in Excel. Out of the three of us, I turn out to be the business guy. It’s sobering: Even with the $600K from Broderbund, we’ll need another infusion of cash within just a few months — April, if not before. The total cost is up to $2.2 million for the PC version (assuming we ship in September); if we keep the office going through the end of the year, that adds another $250K. No chance I get back any of my $1 million before 1996.

I don’t think I want to do this again. Once is enough.

I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed by it all.

Life is bigger than this project. Remember that. I can lose the million bucks and life will go on. However it ends, I can still write, I can still live and love and have adventures... and six years ago, that was all I ever wanted to do. I’m doing it now. It would be a shame to get so stressed out I forget to enjoy it.