November 18, 1987
The Yale Alumni Magazine came in today’s mail. The Class of ’85 notes had an entire paragraph about Yalies in film. David Kipen is living in L.A., writing a screenplay about Yale “the themes of which are suicide and murder”; Mandy Silver is going to USC film school; David Lee is shooting a movie in New York; Bob Simonds is doing deals in Hollywood. These are my classmates – how come I’m not with them? What am I doing in an industrial park in Northern California, hanging out with people in their thirties?
OK. I’m calm now. Whew.
November 20, 1987
Yesterday I went in to work for the first time since I can’t remember when. I booted up the game and looked at it. It was deeply depressing.
“Think of the game as an old car you’re fixing up in your spare time,” Tomi suggested, urging me to resume work on it. This old car has an engine block that’s rusted solid. I can’t even think about how much work lies ahead.
November 24, 1987
John Avildsen read the script and declined. Larry is still waiting to hear from John Boorman, Michael Apted, Michael Ritchie, and Peter Yates; but something tells me he’s pinning his hopes on dark horse Thomas Carter, director of the Miami Vice season pilot, and doesn’t really expect any of these big names to say yes. It all feels pretty remote to me now.
January 7, 1988
On impulse, more to escape cabin fever than anything else, I drove into Broderbund and actually put in a full day of work, oiling the gears that have rusted in place inside my head. I was startled to realize that the most recent code printouts in my folder are dated March 26, 1987.
In essence, I stopped working on the game the day I got the call from Virginia Giritlian… eight months ago.
What the hell have I been doing for eight months?
January 12, 1988
I’m back in work mode.
For a solid week now I’ve been going into Broderbund in the mornings and coming home late at night, happy and tired. It’s hard to overstate the transformation this has wrought in my attitude toward life, the universe and everything. A week ago, I’d pretty much given up on the game. I only had to take the final step – a formality, really – of informing Ed that the project was dead.
Now Ed’s overjoyed; at dinner last night he was grinning from ear to ear; even Robert Cook is impressed with my renewed dedication. People at Broderbund have been greeting me enthusiastically and asking “Where have you been?” and when I tell them about Hollywood, they get all excited.
A week ago, I was an aspiring screenwriter. Now, I’m a working computer game designer with an ace up my sleeve.
It’s daunting to contemplate the vast amount of work that lies ahead – it’ll be six months before the game is close to code-ready – but I’m getting excited.
January 13, 1988
My agent, Toby Jaffe, called me at work and asked: “So, how’s the screenplay going? Writing away?”
“Yup,” I said (recompiling a source file as we talked).
