cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The TV Show and Another Book Offer &shit Nat. Geo. came back and basically begged me to host this show. And I had to end up passing it by. I told them to talk to the company I'm optioned with, but they couldn't work out a deal. That hurt. Meanwhile, yet another piece of mine ran with Sl@te and it turned into a motherfucker. It got up to about 1,200 comments and over 6,600 F@cebook likes. This thing went totally viral. Search Sl@te for 'wh1te t1gers' and you'll find it. This thing was HUGE. Easily the most trafficked article on S1@te in months. After one more big hit like this I'm going to ask them to give me an official column or blog with a monthly salary. Otherwise I thin I could go to the Atlantic or something at this point and get a gig like that. Then today I got a really big deal email. A book editor at N@tion@l Ge0graphic asked me to write a particular book for them. The sort of thing I can knock out in 4-6 weeks. So I'm about to start another book. This one won't pay a fortune, but its stuff that I know and I can get it done quickly enough that its fine even if it only pays $5k or so. A couple of days ago I finished the rewrite on that elk article that pays $1,200 and the check will be here in about a week. On the TV front, my production company is at least really doing work even though they couldn't work out a deal with NG TV (by the way, the NG magazine, Society, books and other publications is completely separate from the cable TV network, which is run by retards). Discovery wants to pick up me and adapt my latest book (with its title) as a TV show. My production company has been doing a good job of pitching and selling it. We've gotten to the point where Discovery said that they want to see other talent that could appear. So that its not just me talking to the camera the whole time, they want to see people I know who could appear in the show. This turned into a whole golden ticket situation. I narrowed it down to 4 people. One chef, a primitive skills expert, a blacksmith, and a total neophyte. We did screen tests with each one, which were just edited into 2 minute reels that we sent off to Discovery two days ago. Now we're waiting to hear back from them about who they would like to have in the show with me. Oh, the neophyte. Just guess who that is. Just fucking guess. Yes. Gr@nt St0dd@rd. Character from two chapters of my book (re-named in the book), whom I have written plenty about here in this journal over the last few years. Gr@nt was the journalist who wrote a renowned column for N3rve M@gazine about 10 years ago. I was a big fan of his stuff, and then we happened to meet while I was working on my new book. Somehow I ended up on a cross-country road trip with this guy whose column I had read for years and we had a great time until everything got all fucked up when he pussied out and couldn't hack hard-core hunting in the swamps of Louisiana with me. Things got bad, he chickened out, etc. Shit got ugly. Then a few weeks ago the new issue of M3n's Journal hit the newstands. Look on page 36 and you'll see a picture of me. Grant's heavily redacted article about me and our trip finally ran. Compare it with my chapter about the same trip for shits and giggles. Grant is the perfect sidekick for this show. Perfect because he's such a coward and neophyte. He is a good contrast to me. He needs everything explained to him, which is useful to the camera. The English accent only reinforces his outsider status. So somehow I seem to find myself potentially working with Grant on this TV show. How fucking weird is that? I've come along far enough in this career to realize that I must never depend too much on any one thing working out. So I'm pleased that I have this new book to bang out for N@tional G30graphic, plus this new status as S@te's most controversial and possibly most widely-read writer (I have 3 more articles lined up for them right now), and at the same time I just proved that I can turn in 3,000 word print magazine features on time for big budgets. And I have 2 more weeks of working as a hunting guide until deer and bear season wraps up. Between all that shit plus the TV negotiations, I feel pretty good right now about surviving the rest of the winter. Guiding continues to be tough and weird. I'm honestly doing it as much for the stories, experience and credibility as for the money. This is my third winter as a hunting guide. I think I've done it long enough that I get to wear that badge for the rest of my life. I'm getting to be a *very* good tracker from doing this. My shooting under stress has gone from very good to astounding. I haven't allowed any of my clients to lose a deer all season, no matter how badly they have shot. I've had to stand up this season and shoot, off-hand, with a second's notice, and drop a running deer through the heart at almost 200 yards. Every time I do this shit my heart is pounding afterward. A sense of grace in slow motion envelopes me as I stand and pull the rifle in tight and squeeze the trigger. And every time, the deer dies. I have to do this and make it perfect and then pretend that it was not necessary and congratulate the client on 'their kill.' Diplomacy is all part of the job. Then I have meat to butcher, or at least to teach the student how to butcher. My shooting this season has transcended what I ever thought that I could do under stress and in the field. I've also gotten better as a shooting instructor. But the days are damned long and cold. This is not an easy trade. Its really lonely being me. I don't see other people very often, socially. I see my students to take them hunting and I spend a lot of time with my children. That's it most weeks. I get fan mail every day and I correspond with editors. But I'm very isolated here. 12:30 a.m. - 2012-12-26 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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