My discipline has slipped a bit over these past two weeks, this week especially. I’m feeling the need to re-evaluate, re-commit, come clean, and continue. I almost just wrote “start over,” but that’s not really fair, is it? I’m not starting over, really. I’ve come very far, and it’s really about picking up and keep moving forward, right?
I haven’t written the past two days. I have done my editing work, so that’s the baseline, I suppose. The goal, however, as it’s really always been, is to get the writing to become the baseline along with the editing. And, it will. I *will* finish this week, or at least the next, having written 3 pages for each of those days.
I was just tired today. It’s been a tiring week. A fine week, capped off by a truly wonderful time on the 4th, but a tiring week nonetheless. And when I get tired, I let my discipline slip. That’s really the honest truth of the matter.
But, next week looks like a completely normal week. I can’t wait. I get to work the schedule I want, and I can hold myself to that. I’ve recently gotten away from doing my work calendars on my editing days, the result being that they tend to run a couple hours longer than they really could. So, that’s happening. I also want to spend some time journaling outside of these pages tomorrow about what my goals are for then 3rd quarter of the year.
That shouldn’t be too hard to do work-wise, since I already know that 180 pages of my novel and a polished 3rd or even 4th draft of the pilot script are on my plate, as well as working straight through these next 8 weeks, and then getting married.
Oh, and finishing this working-out-thing strong. That’s another area that I’ve fallen down on this week, partly because of jury duty, but also because of laziness. It’s hands-down a hard thing to keep up with. I’m not going to lie to you about that. The diet too. I haven’t been diligent about that either. But that changes this week. I’m back on, being mindful, and eyeing the final goal.
8 weeks. It’s like a countdown. That’s how long until I will be marrying the love of my life. Literally, right now in 8 weeks, we’ll be married, drunk, and either at our after-party or passed out, the Ho and Coops at my side in either case. It’s going to happen. Crazy to think about. And exciting.
Hopefully by that point I’ll also have a plan on how I want to attack the final quarter of the year. Finishing the first draft of the novel, probably, and maybe then the short story I started on. Ooo, and maybe pre-work on my next script. Haven’t quite decided what that will be. Another pilot, most likely. While I do really want to write a feature, my heart really lies in TV at the moment, and if I want to get a job doing that, I really need to be writing TV scripts, right?
I have an idea for a feature, actually. A story that actually occurred to me a long time ago, in my first year in college, living inside a tiny little grove of redwood trees in the middle of the Humboldt State University campus. I don’t have a name for it, but it’s an idea I never really forgot. It’s like the Black Stallion meets…Willow, maybe? Or Moby Dick? Gross approximations, really, but a story I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. I don’t know…we’ll see. Maybe it’s a novel and not a feature. But, the real inspiration comes from the second Black Stallion movie, where the boy is going after his horse, and everyone keeps telling the boy “It’s not your horse.” That, for some reason, really left an impression on me as a kid. I remember being really pissed off at every character who said that. Of course it was his fucking horse. They’d saved each other in the first movie. What do any of these strangers know, anyway. Of course, the message was that the horse belonged to himself, wild and free…but even that pissed me off as a kid. They were friends, the boy and that horse. Why we gotta fuck with that. I’d be really interested to see that movie again, actually…
Anyway, that’s all for tonight. See you kids tomorrow!
ps – 250 posts! We’re at the quarter-millennia mark!