Nervous Energy
I have to be honest: I’m nervous. The launch of Misguided Season 4 is tomorrow, and my heart is full of nervous energy. It feels the same as it does moments before standing at the microphone on stage to tell a story during Mortified. It feels the same, but also very different. This season is unlike any season we’ve done before… the series started out as a comedy, but this season there aren’t as many laughs. It’s sad, it’s heartbreaking, and at times I’ve watched and wondered if I’m simply emotionally masturbating on the internet. It’s hard not to feel that way when I’ve seen these next six episodes on a constant loop, but for everyone else, this will be their first (and probably only) watch-through. Am I overthinking everything right now? Me, a creative, overthinking? That’s preposterous.
I will say this though: with all that nervous energy comes a bit of excitement. I did this thing. I created this world, and I played in the sandbox with people I’ve admired for a long time. I turned a broken heart and grief into something compelling. The emotions right now are all over the place, but I figured before the train officially leaves the station tomorrow and the first episode drops, I would write a little bit about how I am feeling in this moment. And yes, the biggest thing running through my body are the nerves. Because what if people don’t like it? What if people don’t watch it? What if people don’t respond well to it? While I know those are valid fears (and I tell myself not to worry about them constantly) it’s hard ultimately to let those feelings subside and focus on all the positives this series has become.
I once was at a dinner party, and this “YouTuber” was genuinely interested in Misguided and wanted to know if I would be interested in having my content, my series, on his channel for a larger audience. As we were talking about the show, I brought up that in the series I go to the Susan Lucci Hollywood Walk of Fame star. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language before asking, “Who’s Susan Lucci?” I looked at my friend who had invited me to this dinner party, utterly confused. I told him that I would politely decline having Misguided on his channel, and that my show probably wasn’t for him after all.
Maybe that’s not the correct way to build an audience, but this show is, and always has been, a love letter to soaps, to soap fans, and to the entire community. If you don’t know Susan Lucci, even from a pop-culture standpoint, there will probably be many things within the series that will go over your head. I bring up this dinner party for a reason, though, because at the end of the day, I made this series for myself, as a vehicle for people to buy a now-nonexistent book. It became a way for me to enhance the story I was telling through Mortified, and eventually found people who enjoyed it outside of my circle of friends. I made this series to challenge myself, to grow and develop as an actor, and now writer, director, even editor. And while the nerves are there, I am constantly reminding myself why I did this in the first place. I did this for me. In an effort to hold on to the possibility of being on Guiding Light just a little while longer. As Susan Coochie says in Episode 5, “Dreams change and evolve…” and that’s what I’ve done through these seasons, alongside the series. I’ve changed, I’ve evolved, and now it’s time to release it into the wild and see what’s next.
Misguided: Episode 17 - The Comeback debuts August 14 at 12pm Pacific on YouTube.
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