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I've been a screenwriter for a decade, and have had the opportunity to work with some terrific and deservedly acclaimed directors, from Doug Liman to Tim Burton to Steven Spielberg. Writing for directors is much like acting for directors; you come into the process with your own ideas, but ultimately your vision is subordinate to their vision.

That's not whining -- I love my job. I work a lot because I'm good at hiding my own voice. You want it funnier, scarier, more romantic? I can do that. Pushing words around is a craft. It's like acting, but with more typing.

I offer this preamble to help explain this important fact: I never set out to be a director. It wasn't a dream, a goal, or any aspiration. In fact, I strenuously avoided situations in which it might make sense for me to direct the scripts I've written, by picking projects that were simply too big, too expensive, or too complicated to put in the hands of a first-timer. It was self-defense. I value my life too much.

I like to see my family, watch Lost, and get to bed at a reasonable hour -- things a feature film director can pretty much forget. I also treasure my productivity. As a screenwriter, I can write four scripts a year. As a director, I can make one movie. Maybe.

Despite these misgivings, I pretty much had to direct The Nines.

For starters, a lot of the details in the story are personal. As many have surmised, the TV showrunner of Part Two is a very thinly veiled version of me. But I've written other very personal stories, and happily handed them off to other directors: I'm Will in Big Fish; I'm Claire in Go. I didn't sign on as director to protect my alter-egos, but rather to nurture this little flame I saw glowing amid the tinder and kindling of the words I'd written.

The script was asking a question: at what point is a creator allowed to abandon his creations? For me to walk away from the script, or hand it off to another director, seemed hypocritical. I needed to answer the question. So I decided to jump in with both feet, and abandon any sense of literary privacy. We shot in my house, with my furniture and my dogs.

My friend Melissa McCarthy plays my friend Melissa McCarthy, and the fight we have in Part Two is the fight we'd have in real life if things took an ugly turn. After an early screening, a colleague said (not entirely politely) that it was as if I'd taken my brains and splattered them onto the screen.

The movie spans genres, from comedy to thriller to existential drama.

That makes it hard to know quite where to shelve it at Blockbuster - you may need to ask someone. But real life is many genres simultaneously. I have yet to meet someone whose daily life is a romantic comedy. And I've had some of my best laughs while in the roughest situations.

Without its terrific cast, The Nines would flounder. I have my producers to thank for landing Ryan Reynolds and Hope Davis, the other two points in the central trinity. While the roles seem tempting ("You get to play three characters!"), the reality was much more challenging. Cast and crew had to shoot three completely different short films in 22 days.

Screenwriting is often compared with architecture: the writer provides the blueprints, but he's not that involved with constructing the final product. By that analogy, The Nines is the house I built for myself. I had terrific collaborators, but the structure itself is deliberately and peculiarly designed to fit me. That sounds indulgent. But I think many of an artist's most original works are the ones he's doing for himself, without the pressure of pleasing some imaginary mass audience.

So this is all a warning: The Nines is a key that won't fit every lock. But if you're a fan of science fiction, or head trip movies in general, you may be happily unnerved to find your mental pins and tumblers twisting in ways most films never ask them to.

The Nines is available to add to your list now!