A Bad Marriage?

Writing is a lot like marriage.  Sometimes it works with ease and sometimes it's hard.  Sometimes you just have to tough it out until you make it through, and sometimes you just have to throw in the towel,  quit while you're behind.

So I write screenplays.  I've started over a dozen, but I have only managed to finish a grand total of two.  I'm currently working on my third one right now, a challenging story that I've yet to get a handle on, but its slowly coming along I think.  The first screenplay I finished was written with a partner, so I don't really count that as mine.  But the second screenplay I completed on my own, and it actually got very good feedback.  It made the top 25 at Scriptapalooza last year, and the success and recognition gave me the "Big Head" for a brief minute.  I won some writing software and a script listing on a fancy website, and I thought I was the bomb until a full year passed by and nothing happened with it.  ZIP..... NADA.... But that's how it goes most of the time in this business.  It's the waiting game.  But I'm patient.

I wrote the script in about three months.  I took a week off from work to do the first draft working eight hour days.  I continued to do rewrites in between work and family, keeping up with my normal duties of preparing most of the meals at home and putting the kids to bed at night.  My wife's a great cook, but she treats me nice when I do the cooking.  And she treats me especially nice when I put the kids to bed.  But back to the subject at hand.  I rose each morning at 4 am, worked out for 20 minutes, wrote for an hour and a half, then put in a full days work before I'd go at it again in the evenings.  Funny thing is I didn't feel tired.  In fact, I felt the opposite, energized, raring to go.  And it paid off.  I got a script finished.  Now I have something substantial in my hand, to show what I can do, show what I'm about.  Now mind you, I accomplished this with a full time job, two weekend music gigs, a wife and three kids.  And I was also serving on the executive board of my church which met every thursday evening.  It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.

On the flip side, I tried that formula again with my next screenplay.  So far it hasn't worked out so well.  The main problem is, the story is a beast.  It keeps shifting and changing with every new idea, creating new problems and situations that need to be solved and resolved.  It's driving me NUTS.  Also, my place of work is getting ready to be uprooted and moved to another city, and everyone involved is antsy and out of sorts.  Not a great environment for creative thinking, but I've toughed it out before, why should this be any different?   I also kinda sorta fell off the exercise wagon and haven't managed to get back on the horse yet.  Gotta do that.  It keeps me sane.

Now several months have passed and I feel like I'm trapped in a bad marriage.  Mind you, I actually started this particular story over ten years ago and it has continued to evolve over time into one big unruly mess.  I feel like I should leave it and work on something else, but it has been a part of my life for so long now I don't want to cheat on it with another screenplay.  It has become the elephant in the room.  I've now spent so much time on it I can't quit... AGAIN.  I was actually working on it before I started my second screenplay.  I put it aside, let it jell for awhile, wrote something else.  I thought I was ready to come back to it, but maybe not.  There are many more stories I want to write, and this marriage is holding me back.  So what do I do?  Do I cheat and find another story, one that thrills me more, gets me excited again?  Or do I tough it out with this old bag, see it to the bitter end?  What are your thoughts?