No reaction.

It's been quiet lately. It's been slow, things have felt off-kilter. Perhaps the weather is partially to blame. New York's been stuck in an odd post-fall/pre-winter sort of mood. The leaves have fallen, but it hardly ever hits below freezing. Not that I haven't been productive, I've been doing things. But more than usual, I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen.  Like we're moving in slow-motion and I'm watching life pass by very slowly.

Starkly aware of how unaware I was until five minutes ago. Kinda feeling like a dick, feeling like I insulted a good friend and it took a few days before I realized that the confrontational discourse already took place. Well, of course that half of the mind would come to such an out there conclusion. The other half's trying to reassure, telling me that I'm being overwrought with excuses as to why there is no reaction yet. The explanation is always the simplest answer, right? They didn't get the e-mail, or haven't had the time. Reasonable explanations. Or it could be the ten other reactions that come to mind, that are being withheld either for lack of caring or caring too much. Or I have offended.

Much can be heard from listening to silence. Tangents are there to explore, to learn from. In silence, a deafening howl which much be endured in order to truly hear what is being said. Or I'm over-thinking this. What am I trying to say here? Thinking too highly of myself, presuming I can gather inspiration, perspective, enlightenment? By simply willing it into being using only my mind? Rather presumptuous, no? Of course, but that's what I do.

I had another realization a little while back.  I have lot of them, but this one seemed insightful enough to take note of. To waste brain cells typing about right now? I guess. Anyway, I think I finally realized that writing keeps me sane. Absolutely not to say that my writing's any good, mind you. Just that writing keeps me from absolutely losing it. The act of taking a pen to paper and concentrating so singularly on the ink being transferred to the surface of the plup, the mind focusing on constructing words and sentences in order to create any sort of narrative, be it fictional or autobiographical.

The day I realized that was a pretty shitty day. The lowest of points? Perhaps. Rescued by vomiting the rage and depression out onto a notebook. The simplest of acts on the surface, but one that makes us human more than any other. Despite not being very good at it, it probably defines me, in my own head at least. Maybe I've already said too much?

I never know what others think when I show them whatever I think is worth showing. Always afraid of what they see when peering into whatever small sliver of whatever I had running in there that happened to make it onto paper. That I'm wasting their time, or inadvertently insulting them with an unfiltered view through my eyes. I'm probably over-thinking this. But that's what I do. I worry and I write, even if it's not very good.

And it ends and it begins again

It is the future, once again. Those first few days of the year where you keep writing the wrong date on checks (people still use those?), where you still haven't broken your resolutions, and where you keep telling yourself that you're living in the future because it's past the year two thousand. Well, the future has become the present, as it always will. And we will always try to discard the past in chasing after that future, which will also become the past. Eventually. And it will end and it will begin again.

That Thing has finally ended, just uploaded the last episode the other night. And now I am truly done with it. At one point I did want to put up a blooper reel, had something half edited. However, the hard drive in which That Thing resided on died a few months ago. I had most of the important stuff backed up, but in order to finish that reel I'd have to recapture the twenty something hours of tapes again, and I just don't got it in me to expend that much time and effort on it anymore. Need to move on, discard the past and all that.

Twenty-eleven in general felt like a drag. I don't think I got much done. Concrete work on my own stuff at least. Wrote a few scripts, most of which died at the first draft. Did shoot some stuff at least, refueled my desire to make things again. So it begins again with a new script. This fifty page thing I finished a few days ago, that I'd like to make a twenty-something minute short out of. The real challenge is going to be to try and attempt to shoot it within the next month, which means there's a lot of work ahead that needs to get done.

I think I got the hardest part out of the way, the transcribing of the words from handwritten paper to a format that can spit out pdfs. Writing, I enjoy writing, most of the time. Sure, sometimes you get stuck and frustrated, but you put enough time and burn enough brain cells and the problem will be solved. And once it is, there's no better feeling than have your brain send those electronic impulses through the nerves to the hand, where a pen will turn ink into words. The sensation of those strokes must be what... each stride a marathon runner feels on the twentieth mile of a race. And when you cross that red tape? So nice.

 On the other hand, typing those words in again is about a mundane activity as I could think of. Utterly boring and near exhausting to do, but it must be done. It used to be that I'd revise while it's being done, but that just slows it down even more, best to churn through it and work it out later. But yeah, that's done. Now it is time to edit. Need to cut this script in half, and soon. Want to send a draft to friends eventually, then to actors and then? Production time. Edging ever closer to the edge of that cliff, near jumping off again. Haven't done it in years, hopefully I don't hit the ground too hard.