Sugarfix
It began with a box of M&S cranberry and yoghurt oat crunchies. Well. It didn't begin right there. I did eat some savouries earlier in the day, nice vegetables and stuff at the Alley Cafe. But yes. M&S sweets. I'd bought them to take out in the evening. Except that didn't really work. I sat at home watching Primeval (Lucy Brown ftw!) when my hand just crept across the settee and flipped open the tub. Before I know it half of them are gone and I'm figuring I may as well just finish them off. So aside from the resulting bloatines there was also a bit of a sugar rush. I figure I'd better lay off for the rest of the evening.
That just didn't happen. My friend was hosting a poker night, complete with tins of chocolates and awesome brownies. So I snack some more. My sugar levels rise. I crash. Hard. I'm sitting pretty much comatose. I lose badly. But on the way home... Goodness! I'm sitting in the back of the car muttering to myself. Thoughts turn to script. I don't know what it is about sugar but for some reason I was able to keep a lot more plot threads in my head than normal. I made them fit. Sort of. I spent the next twenties minutes trying to keep those thoughts straight and another twenty minutes after I got home writing in a notebook. Looking at it now it sort of makes sense.
So yeah. Sugar + exhaustion = good thoughts and probably awful writing.
Aaand Rest…
So tonight I'm taking the advice of pretty much everyone (including myself). I'm sitting on the settee. I've got a bunch of movies. I'm not moving. I'm not opening Scrivener. I'm not opening my notebook. I'm going to do my level best not to think about my writing projects at all. I'm going to get an early night and tomorrow morning (because I will get up) I'm going to edit like crazy.
Five Ways I Raise My Vibrations
Five ways I raise my vibrations:
1. Eating. It's not comfort food. It's motivational food. I always feel better and therefore more likely to write when I've eaten something tasty.
2. Hot drinks. One mug of milk. One microwave. One jar of coffee (or hot chocolate). When I sit down to write I like to have a hot drink to hand. It's a ritual that helps me focus.
3. Exercise. It's easy to dismiss exercise as something other people do but I find endorphins seem to be accompanied by ideas and ideas = stuff to write.
4. Talking. When I write I invariably have one or two people on messenger chatting away. I like to be able to fire ideas at them or just commentate on my own thoughts.
5. Sleep. That time when you're not quite awake and your thoughts start to collide is one of the best times for ideas. I keep a notebook by the side of my bed as ideas have a tendency to develop on their own.
Just as mundane as anyone else. I can't be bothered to tag anyone else... If you read this feel free to tag yourselves!
Shorter Posts
Posts here are getting less frequent and, most of the time, a lot shorter. That's mostly because instead of trying to analyse my writing I'm just trying to do it. I feel like I'm learning the same lessons over and over. So I'm just writing in the hopes that some of it has sunk in. I mean... There's no point studying writing if I'm not actually going to end up doing any...
From One To The Other
I've come full circle. I started as a free writer. Then I tried to be a planner. My attempts to determine every last thing in advance (scripts an exception) and caused my writing to turn stagnant. This just made me worry even more. So I talked to a couple of friends about it. They knew I worried. They told me to start over. To remove the structure of the plan. To just write. So I did. I wrote something. It's short. But I like it. It's different. It's not planned. It just kind of happened. And tomorrow I'm going to read it out...
Crisis, Risen
The first half of this week has pretty much been a crisis. Not a proper crisis you understand. Rather a series of self-inflicted abuses that fed on themselves and amplified each other. A few friends gave me a stern talking to and that seemed to do the trick. By Thursday afternoon I'd managed to define where I was going with a couple of things. Today I'm looking forward to getting home from work and seeing about putting some order back into one my script plans. I figure I should be able to get it done this evening. We'll see.
The Deluge
So I've been dry for the last week or so. I was thinking about script so much that my prose had kind of dried up. Then today there was a story on the BBC. And just like that they were there. I'm very bad when it comes to writing practice but today was different. Today was easy. I don't know what it is about mystical creature type things that get me...
That Perfect Word
I do my best to describe my writing and musical tastes. Every so often I happen across a word that sums it up perfectly.
This week's word: Bleak
A Much Needed Dunking
So far in the script classes we've looked at structure and technique. While we had shared our work, we'd not yet received detailed criticism of our work. This left me feeling as if I was "doing okay" and "getting better". Last night provided exactly what I really needed. Our new script tutor went through our work and told us exactly what was wrong with it. I guess thinking about it now it's exactly what I'd wanted all along. Learning structure and technique is great and I wouldn't be here without it, but now we come to the meat course. I always do best with a harsh task master and I'm really going to have to raise my game. The feedback was sobering yet ever so slightly awesome. It's so on!
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Okay Destiny
I thought it might end. This whole up late, never rest thing. For now at least, I guess it won't. Not till Friday anyway. Not till we get all these submissions in. I really need to work on my script stuff but I need to know I've made my submission as good as I can. It's hard though. Asking for feedback is difficult. Receiving it? Acting on it? Those are the easy parts. So for now I'll be up till two thirty. Up for work too. I wonder if tomorrow will be the day I sleep through my alarm.