Film Courage: I’m just trying to figure out the timeline?
So the six months ends and then you don’t go back [to work] at the Y [YMCA] it sounds
like?
Christine Conradt: Right…well it wasn’t like I was suddenly rolling in money and getting
offers either.
I did end up getting at that time a lot of interest and I was working and writing.
So what I actually ended up doing was I was hired to rewrite other people’s scripts.
I didn’t sell my own but a production company hired me to do some rewrites for a couple
of Lifetime movies (they were doing Lifetime at the time).
And I didn’t know if there was going to be more because I didn’t know when the next
one was coming.
During that time I decided I needed to maintain what I was doing during the day.
I needed to be able to take these meetings with production companies.
Part of working at the Y prevented me from taking meetings because of my responsibility
there.
So I basically need a job that had less responsibility.
During that time I worked for a temp company that catered to the entertainment industry
so I could pick which days I wanted to work and I was also bartending at night.
So that was something that wouldn’t interfere and I was waiting tables also.
So kind of doing what a lot of people who come to LA do who want to be in the entertainment
field do.
Because it was really hard to have a job where you can make a decent salary because with
that comes the responsibility which precluded me obviously from being able to go and have
the time I knew I needed to write when I was on those projects.
And eventually I could just quit those jobs one at a time where I was making a living
just writing.
Film Courage: Wow!
So would you say that it was a few years out or…?
Christine Conradt: Yeah, I would say it was about 4 or 5 years maybe before I could get
rid of all the other jobs.
But during those 4 or 5 years I was rather consistently working on screenplays and building
my body of work.
Film Courage: So you could almost sense that is was going to be around the corner?
Christine Conradt: Right, I just didn’t know when.
Film Courage: Interesting.
How were you dealing with being tired from working so many jobs?
Because it’s exhausting just getting ready for one of those jobs, but then you still
have to keep your mind intact to do rewrites.
Christine Conradt: Yeah…I think…first of all, it helps when you’re in your 20’s.
Film Courage: That’s true.
Christine Conradt: I don’t know if I could do that in my 40’s.
But in your 20’s you just have a lot more energy.
But also the writing was what I looked forward to.
So I would get up and go to the job (because you have to go to the job) but then I would
come home and the writing was something that energized me and so I never really looked
at it like I needed to be…that I was just too tired to write.
I don’t really think I’ve ever really felt that because for me it’s the thing
that I just want to do all the time.
I’m just so much more comfortable with a pen in my hand and a piece of paper in case
I have an idea or something.
So for me, it never felt like that.
Film Courage: I was just curious, were your parents super-disciplined?
Because you have this amazing discipline.
Christine Conradt: I think both of them were, my parents.
My dad was a very hard worker and I think my sister and I both got our work ethic from
him.
He was a door-to-door insurance salesman (back when they had those).
And he did very well, but he was always working.
And my mom was very much pro-education.
She has a doctoral degree and so I think we were just this combination of…he never went
to college but he worked very hard and my mom was all about…you know, she has multiple
degrees and so we kind of were a mix of both, of seeing both of those people in our lives.
Film Courage: And door-to-door it sounds like you would have to be so self-generating…like
you would have to be your own taskmaster?
Christine Conradt: And he very much was that.
He was very self-motivated.
Film Courage: Yeah, because you talk about that first knock on that door…that would
terrify me!
Christine Conradt: That would terrify me, too.
That’s definitely not me, that’s not my personality.
But for him, he’s the type of person that would say he could sell ice to an Eskimo because
he’s just that type of charismatic person and he loves getting to know people and talking
to them and selling them, he loves selling things.
So that for him was a great occupation.
But very self-motivated because you do have to get up every morning and you have to decide
where you are going to go and who you are going to try to sell to and he had a lot of
control over that.
Film Courage: Wow, interesting.