I’m back…

So, I haven’t written anything on here in a LONG time. My fault, just kinda let it slip away. I’ve been in Austin, TX for about a month and a half and some days are good and some days are, well… not. I don’t have a car and for those of you who have been to Austin I’m sure you can appreciate what a problem this is. I’ve got friends down here though and two jobs and a roof over my head, right now that’s all I ask for, oh yeah and I’d like an entertainment industry related job, or even an industry adjacent job…

Right now though I’m drinking tea and working on Christmas cards and feeling very lucky that I have as many people as I do to send cards to and a little sad that I’ve lost touch with some people. I’d blame the feeling on the holidays, but I think it’s more likely that it’s the move, or the move so close to the holidays.

I’m hoping to keep this up again, with two jobs and a social life it might be hard, but I’m going to do it. If only I had an iPhone…

Transformers!!! and Day 7

I’m going to Transformers tonight at a midnight showing. This was not my choice, Heather’s desperate to see Bumblebee. I’m okay with this, cause the Camaro is one HOT car! I’m fairly sure that I’m going to like this one. I liked the first one and I’m a big fan of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the writers, so I’m hopeful. I mean really, they did an amazing job with Star Trek. So regardless of the reviews, I’m very excited to see the movie tonight.

Here’s the problem though, when I see a movie at a midnight showing, I always like it. I liked the third Spiderman movie, it wasn’t until I saw it again later that I realized how flawed my liking it was. I had the same problem with the second Matrix movie. So I promise to try really hard to be objective about the movie, but as long as the Camaro’s in it, I’m happy.

Heather and I plan on being at the theatre at 9, so of course it’ll be more like 9:30, cause we’re not the most timely people ever, especially since I seem to have a lot to do. Class should be ending by 3:30, thanks Scales Afterwards I guess Ryan and I need to talk to Orrin, it’d be nice if we had some warning about this, since Ryan has a meeting at 4 and I’m going for sooshee with Heather. I’m sure we’ll talk to Orrin eventually if not today. Although really all we need to say is “look our project is 99% done”.

After sooshee, I’m going for a walk. It’s day 7, of my 21 days and I’m still determined. I have to say though, yesterday Kat and I didn’t get to go to the beach, we walked around downtown a little, but not enough to really count as being active, so when I got home, I did my Dirty Dancing DVD again. I’ve discovered that I’m not as coordinated at 10pm as I am earlier in the day. Then again, I was also running on like 4 hours of sleep, so not the best way to exercise, but I did and I feel much better. I think it’s becoming a habit already.

I forgot a final question for my last blog, so here’s one for today: Is there really such a thing as too much sugar and if so, how much is too much?

21 Days

So we learned in one of our classes that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. I’ve decided to take this as a personal challenge. I’ve done lots of things for 21 days in a row, but never really attempted to make or break a habit this way. This time I have a purpose – to be more active.

When I’ve got time I work out, take walks, whatever, but that’s when I have time and usually I don’t have enough of that to really get into a rhythm. So this time I’m doing 21 days, no excuses.

Yesterday was the first test of my determination. It looked like my laziness was going to win out. I barely managed to get out of bed, then I spent a large amount of the day in front of the TV, but grocery shopping won out in the end and I had to get moving. Here’s the thing though, me and Heather, not so good with the getting out of the apartment at any kind of earlier time. 

By the time we got back from shopping I still had to pack my lunch for the next day and only by sheer determination managed to get out of the apartment at 9:30 to go walking, but I’ve got a lot on my mind and it fueled me on (so did the doughnut and iced cap from tim’s). Day 5 turned out to be a success and now I’m even more determined to make it. The more days I do the more I don’t want it to be in vain.

Today is day 6 and with class from 9-9 it looks like it’s going to be difficult to pull off any kind of physical activity, but that’s why I’m taking a walk by the beach in between classes. Keep your fingers crossed that I actually do it and the laziness doesn’t win out.

Hating My Characters

Ever have one of those day where you show up to class only to realize that it is the biggest waste of your time ever? That’s my day today. Literally the whole point of today’s class was to show up and get attendance marks. So of course half the class isn’t here and I’m not sure why I didn’t sleep in. 

I used the vast amounts of free time to write the same scene as a short story and as a TV show teaser and can’t seem to move on from the same point. I’ve begun hating all of my characters and want to kill them all, which is really the problem. If their main purpose is to die and that scene is already written, then what’s the point in giving them complicated lives? If I don’t care about them, how am I supposed to make other people care about them?

I guess I have to go back to the beginning and start with a story arc and actually plan out the events of the last six months of their lives. But I just don’t have the desire to do it. I have to create lives for these fictional people in more detail than I think I’ve ever done before and I HATE them. I’ve never hated my characters this much before. I liked the characters in my feature more than I like these four. They’re annoying and obnoxious and just a huge pain in my ass.

I’ve said several time over the last few days that I have five people in my head and only one of them is me. I’d like to be alone in here again, it’s interesting enough without the extra voices. Unfortunately I’m stuck with them for the next two years.

The question: Is giving up on something important to save your sanity worth it if you can’t do anything important sane?

Thoughts

I took a walk this morning, it’s takes about an hour to do my normal walk from the time I leave my house to the time I get back. This particular walk goes around a golf course and is usually pretty and peaceful, or at least it would be if I wasn’t walking as fast as my little legs will carry me, gotta lose weight. I normally like walking and that’s not to say that I didn’t like this morning’s walk, it felt good to actually have the time to do it, but I like to walk to clear my mind and this morning it just wasn’t working.

I find that I’ve got a lot of things on my mind, nothing that I want to go into here, but all these things going on in my head really weigh me down. I feel like I’ve gained 10 pounds just from all the things I have to think about. What’s worse is that I don’t know what to think about when, which one is less stressful to focus on, is that the best to focus on, or should I worry about the one that has more impact on my life and how do I know which one is more impactful and it’s not just me that I have to worry about. I have other people to be concerned with, people who rely on me and trust me to make sure that everything goes the way it should. And what if I screw that up? 

Everything has gotten so confusing, so frustrating, so aggravating that I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I used to feel like I had a handle on things, I used to know what was going to happen. I had a clear idea of everything and it seems that in a very short period of time, all that I knew was thrown out the window and I have to relearn everything I already knew.

I’m apologizing now to everyone affected by the badness going on in my life. My moodiness, my crankiness, my seemingly bottomless pit of a stomach, the odd times that I don’t want to talk and anything else that seems uncharacteristic of me, or overly characteristic of me.

As I’ve been working on character bios for a large part of the day and am excited that I know what kind of car Jake drives, I find myself worried that I don’t know who Xander is. I gave him life as an unimportant character and now I have to make him live a full life. Just one more person who depends on me that I fear I will let down. Maybe I’ll take another walk…

Today’s question: Does the writer create the characters, or do the characters create the writer?