Leaving Los Angeles or Dwight of the Living Dead

Former Laker Dwight Howard is leaving Los Angeles and taking his talents to Houston. I left Los Angeles and took my talents to . . .Albuquerque? I was once the Dwight Howard of screenwriting.

Like Dwight, I was all upside. In the year 2000, I had just received an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute, and within a few weeks I was an associate producer on a TV show called Arrest and Trial. I wrote about a dozen episodes of the show, and while it was canceled, I was still very much in the midst. Did I mention that my first novel, Rattlesnake Lawyer had been published, and I was pitching it to Dick Wolf's people, the executive producer of my show (and also a little series called Law and Order)?

So no, I didn't win a championship in 2000, but if I stayed I could be playing with the big boys. Dick Wolf might as well have been the Phil Jackson of TV.

In late 2000, my Dad fell ill and after the show was canceled, I came back home to help out. In  January 2001, I went back to LA for one more month. As I related in my non-fiction book Amarillo in August, I appeared on the TV show, Win Ben Stein's Money. If I won, I could received the 5,000 prize and I could stay. If I  lost I would have to go home. I looked at it as a choice between writing and law. Unfortunately, I tied.

I moved back home to New Mexico in February 2001. After house-sitting for my Dad for six months, I blinked and twelve years have passed. I have a lovely wife, my own law practice and I own a loft that I would never be able to get rid of. I'm not going anywhere.

Do I have regrets? Part of me wishes I could be JJ Abrams and go from Lost to Star Trek to Star Wars. That probably wouldn't have happened. However, I was able to write TV scripts very quickly. I could probably be a staff writer on something on the ID channel right now.

But did I make the right move? Dwight Howard was not going to win a championship in LA, especially with an injured Kobe Bryant. He has a real chance of winning in Houston. The stars finally seem to be aligning for me right now--in fact the entertainment industry is coming to New Mexico. I might win a championship of my own by staying in the loft I would never be able to get rid of.

We'll have to wait an see. I'm keeping my talents right here.