365 days of 40 #200-203

I can't believe that I've been 40 for over 200 days.  Where has the time gone? Truly.  Some days seem to fly right on by, while others drag on forever. A lot of it depends on how productive I feel on any given day, when I'm rocking it with the writing, the days seem to go by fast.  Other days, not so much.  I know that for a while I needed to take a break from JAL, which is why I was working on other scripts, but I'm bound and determined to get this script written.  It has taken longer than I had hoped, but if I hadn't set the goal in the first place, it never would have happened.

I finished the scene between my two main characters that was causing me all kinds of problems.  It was an intimate scene, not a sexual one, and the only advice I could find about writing it was about sex scenes, which were decidedly unhelpful.  I knew the tone I wanted but it took forever to find it.  I'm now writing the companion scene, another intimate non sexual scene, but this time the feelings are about pain and betrayal.  I can see the scene, but I can't quite hear what they're saying.  Once this scene is done, I'm almost done.  It's really just about pumping up the end so the third act is strong.  Not that it's horrible now, but it needs a few more hurdles before I get my ending.  It really needs to be earned.  And I can't wait.

I want to send out the best possible script, and after I got feedback about it, I realized that while it was close, it still want good enough to send out.  The last few days I've been rereading older versions, just to see where I had been going with certain ideas.  Many scenes are still in this version, but there are others that I read and I want to gag because they are so bad.

I'm getting to be a better critic of my work and understanding better what works in a screenplay.  I wish I was better at writing witty dialog, but it's not bad.  I know I am really good at writing action sequences.  Sometimes I miss writing with a partner, but I know that when I send this out, it's all me, good and bad.  While daunting, it's also quite satisfying.  I've worked my butt off.

Consistency has been the name of the game.  Power 90 really helped give me a good foundation to put action to my goals, and I'm learning to not beat myself up if I miss a deadline that I came up with, because in still working.  Granted, once I'm working as a paid writer, different story entirely, but my writing most everyday has been getting me in the habit.

That consistency is something I never had before.  I had to mature and grow up.  While I wish I had figured that stuff out sooner, it's really nice to know that things are falling into place.  40 is feeling pretty good.

365 days of 40 #198-199

Today would have been my brother's 35 birthday.  I can't believe it, because in my mind, he's always going to be 14, and that makes me so sad. He was a good kid and I miss him a ton.  My kids would have loved him and the fact that they will never know him truly breaks my heart.  Tomorrow, we're going to do a family dinner, and I'm looking forward to that, because as I get older, I'm realizing how important family is.

Family is why I spent half the day yesterday with my kids at their school's take your parent to school day.  It was a lot of fun to see my kids as individuals as opposed to my babies.  M had issues with being seen with me, but since I'm her mom, I guess it's too be expected. She's at that age.  X on the other hand came to get me so that I could go with him to his classes.  He really wanted to show off in his woods class, and since they were getting introduced to some of the tools, his teacher had X do the honors, so he could show off for me.

Thankfully, I survived their middle school, and there were no major traumas for me to deal with.

I love my kids and they make me so proud. 

365 days of 40 #195-197

The last few days have actually been kind of busy. Yesterday, I went on a field trip with X and M. The 8th grade English classes went and so did the theatre classes, so both kids got to go. If was to see Diary of Anne Frank at the high school.  Since its only a few blocks, the kids walked over to the high school, and I was with M. She, her 2 cute friends and I were the tail end of the herd of kids.  The performance was really good and the kids were a pretty good audio, though, it was pretty funny to listen to then react to the whole "kissing" scene.

The play inspired me with my rewrite that I've been stuck on. I did some rearranging is scenes, so they build better on each other.  I'm really liking how much better it flows.  Now I'm stuck on this scene between my leads that is making me crazy.  It needs to be completely intimate and honest, but not have on the nose dialog. Thus is the scene that really shows how the relationship develops between the leads, so it is extremely  critical to the story.  I almost know what I want to happen, it's getting close.  Once this scene is done, it's just back to tweaking a bit here and there, making sure the buildup is good.

I know why I've been taking my time sending this out, because I knew there were places that just weren't as strong as they needed to be.  When it goes out, it will be the best I can make it.  I really want to submit to Nicholls this year. Maybe a couple of the other big ones as well.  See what happens with stuff.  This is the best my writing had ever been.  I know it's only going ti get better. Exciting stuff.

365 days of 40 #192-194

Being broke really limits the amount of things one can do.  In my case, I didn't leave my house except to run to the grocery store to grab a couple of things so that I could eat.  So between having no money and no kids, I did absolutely nothing exciting.  I watched Dexter which caused me to have weird dreams, I cooked up a few things and worked on my slide show for RS. I'm so excited for my paycheck to come and in theory, my tax return. I can't wait. I'm a little more than completely desperate. I need to get my act together and send out my query letters soon, or I'm going to be stuck for the rest of my life in this  hellish spiral, a constant state of feeling like I'm not going anywhere.  Things have got to change.

365 days of 40 #191

With it being Valentines Day, I had wanted to write some poignant blog about love and relationships, but that seems extremely cliche and I just don't feel like it. Single Awareness Day is not my favorite day of the year. I spent the day working and then watching Dexter which is always fun even if it puts me in a rather grim mood, but it kind of matched everything else about the day, so what the hell.

However, it was at work that I met someone who completely embodied the character of the kid that I wanted in Confessions. We struck up such a completely comfortable conversation, it felt like we'd known each other for years.  It just gave me new insight into the scenes with him and I figured out how to make one if the new ideas that I had come to life and I can see how it will work.  I didn't write as much as I had hoped though, there were more employees than patrons in the lab.  Instead, I worked on the video slide show that I'm making for Relief Society.  It was fun and it was nice being creative.  I'm going to have to work at it everyday. 

So, another Valentines Day bites the dust.  Maybe, eventually I'll find someone, but no rush.  I'm worth the wait.

365 days of 40 #187-190

The last few days have been challenging, I've not gotten nearly the amount of writing done that I had hoped to do, though yesterday and today I was significantly more productive in other ways: from balancing my checkbook too filing my taxes, I did get quite a bit done.

I know that I'm still getting the hang ups about my job get to me. Hopefully I won't be employed there much longer, and the full time job that I want will happen, but in the meantime, I do need to take advantage of the time that I have and finish the freakin thing. I know it has to do a lot with my anxiety when it comes to going back to reading my script, but I know I need to get over it. There's no such thing as a perfect script, and mine is no different I just need to make it as good as I can so that when I do send it out is going to knock people sucks off.

I think getting all of the other odds and ends that needed to be done of my plate has definitely helped my mental well-being, and since I have to go to school early with Marquella tomorrow, I plan on spending several hours in the morning before going to work at the library. I'm so much more productive there, till tomorrow.

365 days of 40 #186

Last night I got to hang out with my power 90 buddy, which was great.  It was nice to feel back in the system, even for a short time.  We had baked potatoes and chocolate, what more could you ask for.  We played catchup and watched Shakespeare in Love, a favorite film of mine that I hadn't seen in years.  It was nice to share it with her, it was one she hadn't seen.

In preparation for her coming over,  I got a good portion of the house cleaning done.  The kids rooms still desperately need help, and so does mine.  My goal is to keep the house up so this weekend I can clean my room.

I managed to make it to church today, two weeks in a row.  It's been a while since that had happened. It was quite lovely and I'm glad I went, though when I got home, I was quite tired and I took a long nap. 

More strange dreams, if only I could figure out how to remember them, they would make great movies.  I really have awesome dreams.

Now, I'm just rambly, so it's time to call it quits and head to bed.  My goal is to head to the computer lab early tomorrow and write for a while before I report to work.  We'll see how that goes.  I want to finish my rewrite by the end of next week. Entirely doable, I just need to be disciplined.  Let's see how my newfound goal setting works.

365 days of 40 #182-185

The last few days I've deliberately avoided writing anything because my new job has been rather depressing and I know that I've allowed myself to be depressed about it.  I know that's a very selfish attitude; I know that I'm lucky to have a job, but I'm just tired of going in a backward direction and feeling like I'm not moving forward.

Starting on Monday, I'm going to be at the other campus and it's going to be beyond quiet, so I just need to take advantage of the time and work on my writing. I don't want the inertia of inaction to become contagious and keep me trapped in the black hole that keeps me from my dreams.

I'm so close, I really am. 

There is no reason that I can't finish my stuff.  In fact, I can send out query letters next week and continue to work on my rewrite at the same time because it's going to take me a while to hear back, kill 2 birds with one stone.  I need to get a handle on my malaise before I tumble into a deep depression again, because I am feeling good about most everything else.  X and M are doing fantastic, they both did fantastic on report cards this quarter, X is back in school full time, M and I have Fiddler on the Roof, and my writing is the best it's ever been.

40 really is good, I can't let life's setbacks keep me down.  I have so much to live for!

365 days of 40 #181

I wish I could say that I was productive, I was, just not the way that I was hoping, ie writing. I downloaded a new app on my phone,  a to do list that even links with my calendar. I created my to do list, and then put timers on different items. One of the timers that I put on, was on clean bathroom. I decided it was going to be easier to actually just cleaned the bathroom as opposed to trying to change the timer. Who knew. :-) and yea, I have a clean bathroom.

I've had a few other things happen today, the Relief Society meeting about relationships was very well done, and I started my new job.  Not exactly sure how I feel about that, but it's a job. Gotta make the most of my time.

My internal time clock is telling me it's time for bed. 

365 days of 40 #179-180

The problem with being alone and broke means that my life is extremely boring at times, and I go back to wasting time that could be used for getting things done.  But since I start my new job tomorrow, hopefully my life will be at least a little bit more exciting.  I know I'm stressed about it, but maybe it's going to be a good thing.  Having a large chunk of time to work on writing and its associated tasks, ie, looking for an agent, is going to be a good thing.  I want to shoot something this year, and this time will help move that along.  Of course, wondering how I'm going to pay my bills is not conducive to being creative, so we'll just have to see.  I need to be positive about things.  I have a lot riding on this.

365 days of 40 #177-178

I'm stressed about life, though I am now officially employed.  I got a job back at SLCC working in the computer lab.  Unfortunately, it's a part time position, but work is work, so I'm not going to complain too much.   I'm just going to take advantage as much as possible of the position and do everything I can to keep moving forward, so I don't lose momentum.

The last few days, I've really been focusing on script writing, in this case, it's Just After a Lifetime (a new title will be forthcoming), which is coming along slowly.  Once I got into my rewrite, it became more intense than I was expecting, but not necessarily in a bad way.  The action sequences are working just fine, it's the relationship between my leads that's where the problem was, so I've been working on improving and pumping it up.  It took me a lot longer than I had expected to figure out the problem or rather how to fix the problem, but at least I figured it out.  The hardest part now is actually writing the scenes.  I know what the outcome of the relationship is, it's just filling out the scenes with more "juice" between them.  I think they don't have as much substance as they need to have and consequently, the relationship feels really anemic, and since anemia is bad in many many ways, I'm trying to give it a blood transfusion.

Okay, I can tell it's getting really late and I'm getting loopy, because I'm starting to use really bad analogies for my writing, which means it's getting to be time for me to go to bed.  Tomorrow, I need to spend the day cleaning my house, I can't stand it anymore.  Hopefully, I can have a good productive day, writing and cleaning, then do something very exciting in the evening.  What that might be, I have absolutely no idea, though it's probably going to have something to do with my Kickstarter project that I started.  I'm going to take my time getting it all in order, there is no rush, but since it's February 1st, having a deadline to launch it of May 1, gives me 90 days to put it together.

All of a sudden, I feel good about that, especially since I set that arbitrary date just now.  90 days is a good amount of time to have a good concrete plan for the next step in my career.  I'm excited about getting my project off the ground.