365 Photo Project - Day 146

Taken: May 26, 2010, 2 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, Ca

I've had several straight days where I've slept very well. I can't explain it. I've actually had a lot on my mind lately, more than usual which is saying a lot. I'm facing another TV staffing season and so far, not much is happening that makes me think a job is in my near future.  It's not over yet, though and I've got some meetings in LA coming up, but so far, it's been truly a bummer.

I'm also involved in a personal legal situation that's taxing my patience and my wallet. I'd rather have not pursued this course of action, but I felt I was left with no choice. It feels good to take action, though, and while I hope this will turn out in our favor (and believe objectively that it should) I didn't take this action without a lot of forethought. Sometimes you have stand up for yourself even if it's painful to do that.

My work has been generally going well and I'm beginning to see a true end to this novel I'm writing. I don't think I can go another fall and winter with it on my conscience so I'm feeling the pressure.  It's no wonder I was having trouble sleeping for so long but the last few days, I've gotten a lot of good Z's.

It's amazing what a little rest does to a person's general disposition and how easily I forget how important it is until I have a good stretch of sleepfull nights. Sometimes I think I should be more like my pugs. They sleep, they eat, they play, rinse and repeat. Work is good for the soul I know. I'm not kidding. It's good for you but if you take it too seriously, if you mistake the goal for the journey, you end up missing really important stuff -- like, um, life.

The best kind of "can't sleep" is the one that comes from anticipation. The good kind of anticipation, the "I can't wait for tomorrow because something big is going to happen" kind. The word "big" here has no particular meaning -- it should mean something different to each of us. I love nights like that because even if you don't get as much sleep as you want, when you finally do fall into dreamland, it's with a smile on your face and a beat and a half in your heart.

When I was a kid, I used to get into bed and concentrate really hard on the next day. The idea was to pick out something cool about tomorrow, something worth getting up for, something to anticipate. It was an exercise that helped me deal with some awkward and painful growing pains. And I used it many years into adulthood until somewhere along the way, I just stopped. I don't even remember when or why. I've been trying to start up again. In many ways it's like riding a bicycle, even to the point where it feels like you're exercising whole new muscles you haven't used in awhile.

But the feeling of anticipation and the wonderful lightness it brings with it hasn't changed. I remember it like it was yesterday and it still makes me smile.

365 Photo Project - Day 87

Taken: March 28, 2010, approx. 7 p.m.

Location: Healdsburg, Ca

Another shot taken during the "magic hour," this one out in our "backyard".  It's two straight days of my nightly separation from my iPhone. So far, so good. I find I'm sleeping more, dreaming more and dreaming more about writing. Now the thing is to figure out how to translate my (very) weird dreams into something I can use on paper.

It's also been more than two weeks since my tumble down my front stairs. Almost all the scars are gone (the ones you can see anyway) and today I spent an hour carting boxes of books from my storage locker to my office. Despite having to navigate up a big flight of stairs with each box (there were seven -- though a friend helped carry one),  my knee seems to have stood up fine. I took a short walk in the late afternoon and tomorrow, I plan on getting on my bike again. Baby steps, I remind myself.

If you're like me, that's hard. I'm one of those people who think it can all be done yesterday. I have somehow romanced myself into thinking that I have much more time in the day than I actually have. This is one reason why I have been known to be late for appointments. Some part of me just can't tell time very well. But when I was younger, I wrote like that all the time. I could write spec scripts in days -- four days is my record -- and they were good.  My hands couldn't keep up with my brain, the writing flowed like water -- all the time. I was unstoppable.

Who knows what happened? Am I older and wiser or just older and slower? Whatever. My Mom told me recently that I didn't lose my talent, I just lost my way. I'm thinking to myself I never thought that. But maybe I did. Maybe this whole self-discovery thing is about understanding myself better?

Whoa.

I have been getting better at planning, about saying yes and more importantly, saying no more often. I'm trying to be more reasonable about time constraints but even now as I plan out the next week of work, I realize I am behind schedule on a couple of things I hoped to finish. I don't love this about myself but I also won't begrudge it either. I believe creative things take time -- it's just a matter of making sure you put the work in. Still, in my experience I've noticed the hardest thing for writers isn't the doing, it's knowing when you're done. Being a good editor of yourself means understanding when you have rewrites left and when it's time to just walk away.

I'm getting close to that point on my latest novel, which is now in it's fourth draft, I think (I've lost count). I'm knee deep in it though and enjoying writing it for the first time in forever. But I can feel the footsteps. I know The End is near. And a part of me cannot wait to get there but still ... well, if you're a writer you know.

If not, well, lucky you.

I shot this with my K100D and edited very lightly in Photoshop.