your tax dollars at work.
Today is the day I was supposed to start substituting. I awoke, dark and early, and was ready to start my day before eight o'clock. No call. Nine o'clock came, with no call. By then, the schools had all started, so I went back to bed. Only, I had already drank enough coffee to prepare for not being really tired, so that failed, too.
While still awake, my mind raced on uncontrolled, and I dreamt nonetheless. Stories came to me, unbidden, without me even trying or having to think at all. Of course it's not a new idea for one to get one's inspiration from dreams, but that's never worked for me. I mean, I've always been asleep at the time. How helpful is that? I can't direct this inspiration, the dreams make no sense and have no literary value, and of course I forget them anyway upon awaking.
However, I was fascinated by how easily stories come in dreams, usually during my sleep, even if they're bad stories. There is the dilemma: When I'm awake and alert, I got nothing. The blank page stares back at me and remains blank. When I'm exhausted or asleep, the stories flow like a stream through a valley filled with reds and greens in which little elves play and build birdhouses for forty-something baby boomers to hang from their trees and watch during their morning constitutionals while they ponder their drab day ahead of them at an office doing accounting for a nameless firm that's being investigated for tax fraud - where was I? Oh, yes. So, ideas come, but I'm either asleep at the time or too unable to concentrate enough to write them down or otherwise solidify them.
There must be a way to bring the best of both worlds together. Well, let me qualify; there must be a way other than psychotropic drugs to bring those two worlds together. I must experiment further with controlled sleep deprivation. Say, force myself to wake up extra early Saturday morning (hah! That'll happen), then drink lots of coffee near a pen and paper.
Anyway, laying there in my bed, with my mind on overdrive, I remembered that this is now "NaNoWriMo," or National Novel Writing Month, (what's the deal with everything being abbreviated this way all of the sudden? Are conventional acronyms now passe?) when people are challenged to write an entire novel in a month. Well, what reason do I have to NOT participate in this? I call myself a writer, right? Here I am with all these new ideas suddenly floating through my head. Granted, they're not good ideas, but as I said up above, I'll work that out later.
I guess one's supposed to write fifty thousand words or 175 pages by the end of the month, but I'm not concerned with that. If you force limitations on me like that, it's not going to get done. The moment I fall behind schedule and don't have the required number of words, I'll get discouraged and stop. It's enough I have an end-of-the-month deadline.
So I lay there in bed and mapped out some kind of plan to promote actual productivity this month. Basically, it involved a series of commitments. Mostly to keep myself accountable, the first commitment is to list all the other commitments right here in this journal.
Yeah, that's basically it. It's not a complicated list or anything. I give myself about three days before I give up. Or maybe tonight.
listening to: Astral Projection, Beatles, Crystal Method, the Residents.
in my sink: water.
While still awake, my mind raced on uncontrolled, and I dreamt nonetheless. Stories came to me, unbidden, without me even trying or having to think at all. Of course it's not a new idea for one to get one's inspiration from dreams, but that's never worked for me. I mean, I've always been asleep at the time. How helpful is that? I can't direct this inspiration, the dreams make no sense and have no literary value, and of course I forget them anyway upon awaking.
However, I was fascinated by how easily stories come in dreams, usually during my sleep, even if they're bad stories. There is the dilemma: When I'm awake and alert, I got nothing. The blank page stares back at me and remains blank. When I'm exhausted or asleep, the stories flow like a stream through a valley filled with reds and greens in which little elves play and build birdhouses for forty-something baby boomers to hang from their trees and watch during their morning constitutionals while they ponder their drab day ahead of them at an office doing accounting for a nameless firm that's being investigated for tax fraud - where was I? Oh, yes. So, ideas come, but I'm either asleep at the time or too unable to concentrate enough to write them down or otherwise solidify them.
There must be a way to bring the best of both worlds together. Well, let me qualify; there must be a way other than psychotropic drugs to bring those two worlds together. I must experiment further with controlled sleep deprivation. Say, force myself to wake up extra early Saturday morning (hah! That'll happen), then drink lots of coffee near a pen and paper.
Anyway, laying there in my bed, with my mind on overdrive, I remembered that this is now "NaNoWriMo," or National Novel Writing Month, (what's the deal with everything being abbreviated this way all of the sudden? Are conventional acronyms now passe?) when people are challenged to write an entire novel in a month. Well, what reason do I have to NOT participate in this? I call myself a writer, right? Here I am with all these new ideas suddenly floating through my head. Granted, they're not good ideas, but as I said up above, I'll work that out later.
I guess one's supposed to write fifty thousand words or 175 pages by the end of the month, but I'm not concerned with that. If you force limitations on me like that, it's not going to get done. The moment I fall behind schedule and don't have the required number of words, I'll get discouraged and stop. It's enough I have an end-of-the-month deadline.
So I lay there in bed and mapped out some kind of plan to promote actual productivity this month. Basically, it involved a series of commitments. Mostly to keep myself accountable, the first commitment is to list all the other commitments right here in this journal.
- I will write every day. I mean, duh, that's kind of an obvious and necessary one, right? Again, I'm not going to be concerned about how much I write, because this can only serve to discourage.
- I'm not going to concern myself about this website. This doesn't mean I'll stop posting, but I'm going to try not to worry about it if I don't. I may post here more often just to procrastinate writing something else. I'm stupid like that. Then again, I may not. I have no idea. This may have to go for the Chicago Metroblogging site as well. Really, this post has already taken me an hour to write. No wonder I never get anything done.
- Mainly for inspiration, I'm taking Rich's suggestion (made in a comment to an earlier post) to read for twenty minutes each night before sleeping.
- I must be in bed no later than midnight. Without the laptop. This is more for self-discipline reasons than anything, and maybe to make it easier to get up before um, idunno, noon on Saturday. Actually, there's nothing terribly good on television after 11:30 when Sealab ends, so there's no reason I shouldn't be in bed by then anyway. Without the laptop.
- I will drink eight glasses of water a day. This... oh wait, that's another list.
- I will eat a donut every day. Mmmm, donuts...
- You know, I may have fallen asleep at this point in the list. Again, I don't think writing with little or no sleep is the answer.
Yeah, that's basically it. It's not a complicated list or anything. I give myself about three days before I give up. Or maybe tonight.
listening to: Astral Projection, Beatles, Crystal Method, the Residents.
in my sink: water.
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