Dear Daniel Craig

Dear Daniel,

Good morning. Today promises to be a brilliant day. A great night’s sleep. Meds taken. The sun is shining. Music is rocking. And today I come to you happier than I’ve been in awhile.

I’m working on the Guardian Episode 4 and I’m thinking of working on a novel. There’s something very cathartic about working on a book. Something soothing and healing that you don’t necessarily get when you’re working on a screenplay.

It’s funny. As irritable as I’ve been over the last few days I have felt myself getting better. Although I’m sure those living with me might disagree. I guess the best way to say it is that I don’t feel unstable and fried and depressed.

I know I felt lost and alone and like I could trust and reach out to no one when maybe that wasn’t necessarily the case. Isolation and loneliness are nasty, tricky little monsters that my disease likes to unleash on my brain when I’m at my most vulnerable.

People ask what my most cherished dream might be. Truthfully it changes. But my most cherished wish is to meet Daniel Craig.

When I’m feeling blue or like I can’t handle the world on the world’s terms I pull down Cowboys and Aliens or Skyfall and pop it in and do a little daydreaming and set to writing with him in mind as the lead. Or rather the physical incarnation of him that I can project some dysfunctional version of that I can lead to some sort of redemption by the last page of the story that I can pen “the end” on.

Truthfully it is difficult to clear the mind and rest when everything is noise, noise, noise. Sometimes I just want to sleep and forget that the world has other plans for you and your sanity.

I have been listening to music. Now I have to turn it off. It’s too much for my jangled nerves. I figure once I eat and have my tea I’ll sleep for another hour or so.

Sometimes I dream of the day I meet Daniel. And I fear he might ruin it. How can he possibly live up to the dream and the fantasy I have in my head of the advocate and the sweet man I hope that he is?

You’re  an incredibly private man. And even though I know sharing my life and journey of healing and pain in such a way that it invites some sharp tooth critics to take aim at my very soft heart and criticize me I don’t know if I could take my hero’s “rejection” of the advocacy platform that I have been using to reach out to the world at large when I feel so isolated and alone from this world.

I don’t know if my family understands how important it is from me to talk to another human being. That physical human contact and comforts and love is crucial to my healing and continued recovery.

I certainly don’t expect Daniel to fill this void. As we don’t know one another. And truth be told he has no clue I exist. Or what this blog is about. He is a universe away and the reality is we most likely will never meet. And  that’s okay. This blog is about me reaching out to the world and the world reaching back and somehow we figure out how to make it through a day living with severe mental illness without giving into it’s awful tendrils of darkness. And allowing our collective lights to shine through.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle

Dear Daniel Craig

Dear Daniel,

I came. I saw. I conquered.

ICFF was a success! Major interest in Letters to Daniel. An explosive response to The Guardian! Usually I’m lucky if I make 5 or 6 connections that seem to have any real chance of panning out. I came away from ICFF with 14 solid connections and have already heard back from five with varying degrees of potential.

To say I am glad to be home, relaxing, enjoying lunch with Missy and hanging out with my cousin Rebekah tonight as she works on a novel and I wrap up my to-do  list for the day I have to say recovery is always nice to embrace after a tense and anxious yet glorious week of hard work in the name of making Letters to Daniel and quite possibly making The Guardian a reality  is nice.

Being on my feet, shaking hands, screwing up the courage to talk to the big time speakers and try to get mine and Missy’s work into their hands. Connecting with people who have more money than me who can facilitate our mental health advocacy stories and vision for ending stigma and fostering understanding and healing.

It’s been an awesome time to be sure but now I am ready for some serious rest. People are telling me how impressed they are with how organized I am compared to others. I have to admit I’ve had some wonderful mentors. Ray and Kristina and Del and Theresa. And so many others.

It’s funny that they would call me organized. It is now the following morning. I was dragging yesterday. I am not so sure I am not dragging now lol.

Amazing things are happening to me and Missy and I really can’t believe. But sometimes you really just have to step out on faith and just let go of your preconceived notion of what the the Universe has in store for you.

I have been pushing Letters to Daniel since 2013 in some fashion. Whether it be the blog, the book or the documentary or the script. And at ICFF this it was no different.

But this year our episodic project The Guardian seemed to just rocket into the mainstream consciousness where everyone wanted to see it.

That’s where it seemed the money was going. I wanted to make a project so that’s where our preparation was going to have to go.

Not that it was a bad thing. The Guardian has quickly become a bad thing. Writing as the show runner for a series that seemed to have a direction, interest from the mainstream and a television executive and a producer(s) maybe God and the Universe was trying to tell me and Missy something.

Cindy Bond talked of I Can Only Imagine being a mustard seed seven or eight years ago. Perhaps Letters to Daniel will be mine and Missy’s. And Letters to Daniel will be an Oscar night triumph where we prove the naysayers wrong. And The Guardian will be the major step we take to get there.

ICFF was a triumphant week where 14 solid leads have already transformed into two producer follow-ups this week where I will be talking to one producer over the next two weeks and another today.

I am blessed. I am lucky. I have worked hard. May everyone else be so gifted by the Universe.

Sincerely,

Amy McCorkle