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.
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