May 23, 2006
My wife pulled out "National Treasure" last night. It's a fun movie. What stuck in my head, though, was the ending. And more importantly, the alternate ending that's available on the DVD. If you haven't seen the movie and this will spoil it for you, don't read on.

The regular ending they find the treasure, give it to various museums around the world and walk away with about 1%, which is a fortune. Their geeky computer buddy is giving them a hard time about only taking 1% when they could have had 10%, but Nick Cage tells him it was too much. His geeky buddy says, yeah, well, you got the girl, then jumps in his Ferarri and pulls away, showing the huge estate they bought with their share of the money.

It works. It's funny.

The alternate ending has Nick's father, played by John Voight, showing up and telling him he has a clue to ANOTHER treasure, and they should get a flight to somewhere, Virgin Islands or somewhere, to start on this NEW historical treasure hunt.

I actually like this alternate ending better. They probably didn't use it because I imagine focus groups thought it seemed like a setup for a sequel. But I thought the writer really got something there, and that is, for a lot of treasure hunters, the hunt is more important than the treasure.

I'm about 19 or 20 months behind on reading Smithsonian magazine, but I just read an article about a guy who's a treasure hunter, tracking down pirate treasure in the Caribbean somewhere. It's ruining his life, or so the writer hints. The guy seems to be giving up everything in pursuit of this treasure, sure that it's just around the corner, just around the corner, just...

Thinking about this today, I thought: Been there.

Still am, in many ways. I think for novelists, possibly novelists or scriptwriters who are aspiring and for those who have made sales, the treasure is just around the corner--the big deal, the movie deal, the bestseller list, the fame, Oprah, whatever.

I'm not actually one of those 1960s hippy-like guys who goes, "It's all about the journey, man."

The journey's important. But so is the destination, and I don't discount meeting goals. The problem is, with writers, sometimes we get focused on the goals--the contract, a certain amount of money, the movie deal, etc.

Writing a novel is tough. It's not tough like digging ditches or fighting cancer, but it's a long-term project with precious little concrete to base the quality of the work on. You can work months on a novel without a clue as to whether it's any good, let alone whether or not it will get published. This can make the actual writing of a novel sort of debilitating, something that on my worst days I compare to an animal having his foot in a trap and considering whether to chew his leg off to get out. (If I quit, I'll never get published! If I continue, I still won't get published, but I'll have wasted a ton of time).

There's an underlying theme to this blog, which is: Get a life.

I don't intend that in an angry or sarcastic way, but I spent years with a huge amount of my life and energy focused on the novels. I would be at work and every time the phone rang I would jump, thinking, "It's my agent calling to tell me..."

Warped. Unhealthy, too. But I still had a life--wife and kids, a decent job, activities. But I know some people who've given up an awful lot for pursuit of something that may never happen, some "GOAL" that may not be achievable.

So get a grip. Find some balance. Enjoy the journey, even if it involves writing something unpublishable.

Best,
Mark Terry