Shorts to Novels; Passion and Drive in the Form of Art

During this 'Journey' of writing my first Novel, as is normal with anything and anyone I've found moments where my enthusiasm has somewhat lacked. Whether the reason is to do with fatigue, stress, or just pure darn laziness it's just something that happens and it's annoying. Very annoying. Because you're sat at your desk, looking at what you've written so far, one half of your brain sadistically whispering "look you've done well, just put it aside and write a different one for now... an easier one" and the other half failing to encourage "go on, look you've got half of the book left.... thats good, you know it is.... it might feel like a lot... but it's not... go on" it tries. For the first half hour I find myself battling between these two conflicts in these moods, someday's I'll give the latter half some sympathy and randomly find wonderful productivity and other days I'll get furiously competitive on a shameful procrastination game of Mario Kart. So what's the cure? For the anti-productivity bug? Well for me, and again this kind of thing varies with different people, but a lot of my enthusiasm comes from Art - and I use Art in an extremely broad sense. Anything that constitutes as a beautiful creation; from Music, Films, Books and literal pieces of Art really lift the spirit sometimes; if I run into a piece of Art that's truly fantastic it instantly makes a difference.

For example during one of my bad sessions of procrastination fueled by endless episodes of the fantastic Fresh Meat I found myself inspired multiple times. Fresh Meat, along with including Kimberly Nixon; an undeniable celebrity crush if ever there was one, is a great programme and has these incredible moments of poetic excellence, in its writing, it's choice of shots, it's use of music and its absolutely electric connections with the actors. But during one scene in the library where Oregon/Melissa (Charlotte Richie) falls in love with a student and librarian Dylan (Ronan Raftery) they recite a section from Anne Sexton's poem 'Admonitions to a Special Person' which I had never read before. It went "to love another is something like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms because your belief undoes disbelief" and that was enough to start me off again.... after finishing the episode (obviously). It made me want to write, to create something as equally beautiful as that, it reminded me why I want to be a writer, I want to be the person that creates something that really leaves a lasting impression on someone like Admonitions to a Special Person and Fresh Meat has to me. 

Cure for anti-productivity? Passion and drive in the form of art/what you love.

The Missing; Drama at its best

"Home is not just just a place, Tony. It's whatever there is in your life that stops you feeling alone."

These are the words spoken by Julien Baptiste half way through the series finalé of what could possibly be one of the greatest dramas to have graced our TV screens for a long time. I tend to stray away from watching TV as it seems to periodically get slightly worse, but programmes like Broadchurch, Last Tango in Halifax and The Missing keep the faith growing. Some may say that The Missing 'drags out a bit' but the length of time it takes to get to some form of solution simply reinforces the idea of reality... cases like those do not resolve themselves simply and quickly, so it would be wrong for The Missing to have finished after the first 2 episodes, for example. It was richly layered with multiple narratives, and sub-plots, all created with a sort of enforcement on dramatic equality; so that we not only focus all our attention on Tony and his struggles and the 'abduction' of his son but so we connect with the lives going on around it just as much. James Nesbitt has always been a favourite of mine when it comes to actors so I always knew he would be fantastic, but his acting surpassed even my original expectations, he was perfect for the role and exuded such a beautiful sense of a debilitated, and horrifically angry childless father. Just as much as Frances O' Connor who played Emily, whose character was actually quite refreshingly different to Nesbitts' in the way that she was quite a bit stronger, so it was only right to give her character the final resonating speech that tied all the narratives together. Of course, with dramas like this every single character lends itself to its success and truly every single character was enthralling, and perfectly performed. Sometimes too many characters with too many stories can become confusing but Harry and Jack Williams managed to develop everything and everyone in a way that along with the complimenting acting kept it entertaining. Praise must also be sung to the Williams' for the whole story and their ending. It's only natural with these sort of programmes that people watching will attempt to solve the case themselves, as they should, why not, right? So to bring the audience back down to earth, and keep them focused on the story and the reality of these cases, to have an ending that almost no-one could have predicted was absolutely genius. Yet the ending also left a little doubt in our minds, a little doubt as to the truth of the case, that, as is only right wont ever be fully found out. It's by no surprise that it's already been given a second series to focus on a different case.

If you watch anything; watch The Missing. Oh and Broadchurch when it comes back because that was incredible; 5th January y'all.