Is that a vortex I see, or is the universe just pleased to see me?

There is definitely some vacuum-like action going on in the world around me. The kill-me-now workplace has sucked me in and is refusing to spit me back out, much to my disapproval. Will I stand for it? Hell, no! I will endeavour to spit, scratch and kick my way out (if it comes to that). However, I would much rather a more civil approach like bowing out and moving on to better pastures in a non-confrontational/low-drama kind of fashion. At present, I’ve been spending a lot of my free time job searching but I contacted a temping agency to see about my options for switching sectors and gaining experience through temping. They seemed really positive and requested my CV, so we shall see how it goes.  Watch this space…

In terms of self-improvement, still watching those Marie Forleo videos. Only wish I had a spare £1,500 for B-school! The good thing is that a lot of the advice for getting started thinking like a modern, creative entrepreneur is totally free. I guess it’s worth looking at for next year’s intake if I’m any closer to honing in on what I want to develop, business-wise. For anyone wanting to learn more about Marie Forleo and her advice on marketing with a heart, her videos are here. I know I talk about her a lot in these blogs at the moment but I’m only just beginning to focus on an interest in business development and I really love her life-coach approach to money, business and personal development as well as the sources she draws upon. “Yay” for strong, female role models!

I’ve also been mulling over this whole website shenanigans. What benefits are there to having your own domain name? Is it possible to add things like tracking codes and coloured text if you don’t have your own domain (like a free wordpress package, for example)?

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time reaching out and trying to build a network of fellow creatives for me to draw upon, which I think is working quite well. I love reading the posts I’ve been coming across, as well as finding lots of invaluable advice on how to approach creative projects (and even life!). I particularly love shanjeniah‘s idea of a ‘Play Jar‘! I can’t wait to start making one of my own – though it may be a Play Box or a Play Tub – but still with the same intention of enjoying life through creativity and exploration of the world around me. In fact, I’ve found lots of thought-provoking insights peppered throughout her posts, but that’s for you to discover.

Guess what I watched yesterday? ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild‘! Oh my. What a beautiful film! Yes, I did indeed cry. I also made notes – it ran to about 89 minutes (89 pages) as well as my own guess on what I feel matches up to the beat sheet according to the story arc I observed. I quite enjoy this ‘excuse’ to watch a movie. I’ve not watched a film at home in about 6 months prior to starting this exercise of analysing films! The last film I watched for fun was at the cinema and it was called ‘Nebraska‘ but that was about a month ago, I think. What I loved most about ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ was actually the closing statement: That we’re “little pieces of a big universe”. It doesn’t really matter where you’re from, what your culture is, what experiences you’ve had… I think anyone can identify with that.

In terms of writing, I’ve been making notes on ideas but there’s been no ‘serious’ writing yet, though I know I’ll get to it. Just trying to get caught up on my studies so I don’t fall behind. I have started sketching out the bare bones of a new project though, entirely different to my normal stuff and something I’m aware will probably take a couple of years to flesh out (mostly because I’m the guinea pig). It essentially falls within the genre of a self-improvement though I’m not so sure if that’s where it’ll stay. It’s a long way from now though, and it may end up essentially a guidebook to the workshops I’d like to develop but, for the purposes of these blog updates, I shall refer to it as a novel. I know it’s going to flit between friendships, life and business (work-life balance?) but no idea what the end result will be yet. I may just refer to it as Down To Business (DTB) so I can separate it from other projects.

So, whilst I haven’t yet achieved what I hoped to this week, I still have a few days yet to pull it back. I’ve managed to rid myself of one post-it’s worth of tasks and activities on sustainability (FutureLearn), with just two post-it’s remaining for that. Once I’m caught up there, I can then move onto outlining my next assignment for my English degree, bang out some pages on the LITD script (currently at 16/100) then there’s time to play on research/exploration of the new project and/or other interests. Such as reading or learning something new.

I hope everyone’s having a great week filled with adventure!

BLOGHOP.

Regards,

Callie.

Hollywood and Haagen-Dazs: A ROW80 check-in.

I think I’m at that point now where I’ve gone through that many self-help books, inspirational quotes, life coach blogs and youtube videos that all those bits of advice are starting to meld together. The main piece of advice that seems to run through all that is:

Think about the kind of person you want to be in the future and be that person now.

This covers so many areas for me. It covers fitness, diet, lifestyle, friendships, work ethic, creativity… and so on.

I see myself being a healthy and active person in my future, so I have to ensure my attitude now changes to meet the expectations of my future self. It’s certainly not easy and it won’t change over night, but making small adjustments that become ‘good’ habits for the long haul is in my best interests. That means I need to tackle that little voice that seems to think eating tubs of ice cream when I feel a bit crap is a good plan. Damn Hollywood!

The biggest one for me is a combination of ‘work ethic’ and ‘creativity’. How can I aspire to be a writer if I don’t write? My work ethic is great when I’m working for someone else or submitting work to someone else’s deadlines (such as my assignments), but making excuses to avoid creating, or making writing a lower priority than lots of other things, ultimately only hurts me and my future self.

I set up a basic beat sheet earlier for a new project I’ve been mulling over but hadn’t put it in writing until then, then I went for a walk to reflect on it. I realised that, it’s all well and good having all these ideas and noting them down, but if I don’t actually create something with it, it’s pointless. I’m just wasting trees! Whilst I was out I was thinking about where the idea for this piece came from and how I’d go about writing it, what deadline I wanted to set, why I was writing it… and so on. It resulted in an imagined interview from a local journalist wanting to ask me about the script that was in production since she was super excited to find out the piece was written by someone in the same town:

Extract from imagined interview:

Interviewer: It’s a really interesting plot, Callie. Can I ask why you wrote it? Some people say you wrote it about yourself…

Callie: (laughs) Yes, I’ve heard that too. It isn’t about me at all, but I did write it for me. I know that sounds a little strange… I wanted to write something that resonated with me – – I think we are subjected to so many stories where everything is perfect: the people are perfect, the settings are perfect, the lifestyles are perfect… all that’s needed is to get those perfect things to all work in sync and you get yourself a Hollywood romance. At least, that’s how it looked for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched and enjoyed the occasional chick-flick, but once the film’s over and I return to reality, I feel crap. My life isn’t like that and it’s unlikely it ever will be. I wanted to write a film that gave someone like me hope. That I didn’t have to fall into bed with someone I barely new and just hope it all came together, I didn’t have to revamp myself and pretend to be someone I’m not to be noticed, or to resort to whatever other desperate measures to ‘get the guy’.

I don’t believe in fate or soul mates, but I do believe in love, lust, passion… I believe that love isn’t about compromising on who you are and what you value, it’s about making a meaningful connection. And that’s really what I wanted to explore with ‘Lost in the Dark’.

My goals were basically to go easy on myself and not give myself a hard time if I didn’t create anything, but the plan was to start moving forwards and develop better habits that would ensure I did create more. There definitely seems to be a mindset shift as a result.

Generally, I’m feeling really positive and upbeat, aside from today when I finally accepted I wasn’t getting a callback from the job I had an interview for. I may not be ticking off all the items on the to-do list either, but I’m getting better at getting my arse in gear for chunks of time.

*I submitted my English assignment on 03 February, so that gives me a little breather before I have to get back to it.

*I’ve finally chucked the crap out of my room and it’s looking clutter free (though I haven’t dismantled the bookcase yet).

*I ordered books I’ve wanted for a while (which are related to writing, money and business) with loyalty points I’d accumulated on a website (woo – ‘free’ books!).

And, as discussed further up in the blog, the script I’ll be developing is ‘Lost in the Dark’ and I’ll be starting the write-up this evening. I have done 6 pages tonight (took me about an hour, and part of that was getting used to the formatting). 19 more to do this week to stay on target. My aim is to have approximately 100 pages written by 10 March (at the latest) which works out at roughly 25 pages per week to have completed before that date. I’ll have to review this on the Sunday ROW80 check-in as to whether I’m feeling it’s achievable around work and study.

I was watching some clips from the ‘Be your own boss’ TV series featuring Richard Reeds and he basically said that if you want something badly enough, you have to be prepared to put the extra work in. I know it’s not new advice, but it was a very effective reminder of what mindset I need to adopt to be the person I want to be. I can’t wait around for a job change as there’ll just be another ‘something’ that gets in the way.

I’m going to finish with a question for you: why did you/are you writing your current piece?

Visit other ROW80 bloggers here!