Snow can wait, I've forgot my mittens

I've done nothing today. Barely got my morning pages out, curled up on the desk chair and read some random slash fic and let the hours spill away, made some tea, ate some rice and green lentils, realized the sun had set and lit my electric candles, answered a couple of ads on Filmcafe, sent a couple of scripts to another production company, made more tea; I should go for a walk, or shower; no, I should write. But I don't like to write because I should, I only ever want to write because I have to, and not from some outward pressure of expectations or deadlines, but from inside, from a pressure of words that need to get out. You can't force it, you can't wait for it, so what do you do.

Oh, I also checked out some youtube links that Kajsa shared with me, feeling the need to educate me in must-knows of musical genius from the 60s, 70s and 80s, and now I've discovered Patti Smith. I've also listened to Exene Cervenka and Lydia Lunch, but Exene I already knew from before through Viggo Mortensen, and Lydia I discovered today, but on my own. I think I might like her the best. But it's Tori Amos who's stuck in my head, the fragile notes of "Winter" playing on repeat, reminding me I should be writing up the fifth draft of my feature screenplay, but as always, I'm procrastinating, because I'm resistant, because I'm self-sabotage-ing, because I'm scared. I need to do yoga. But my room is too small.

In the head of Charlie Kaufman

Back from Gothenburg. The pitch was a nightmare, but I had a really great time hanging out with a few people from my class, and it went great sharing a room with Kajsa at the hostel as well, and today I went to what the festival called a "Masterclass" with Charlie Kaufman, and that was awesome. He's a really awesome guy.

Getting ready for Gothenburg

So I'm (soon) off to Gothenburg. I just talked to Kajsa, she's driving down and offered me a ride, and I'll also be rooming with her at the hostel, so we'll want to kill each other by the end of this weekend probably... no, I think it'll be fine. I love talking to Kajsa. On the first class get-together, I ended up having two separate conversations with her that were both hours-long and deep. And that doesn't happen too often, especially that soon after having met. But she's full of interesting thoughts and ideas, and she believes in a bunch of things I used to believe in, like spirits and ghosts, so it's also a bit nostalgic to be listening to her theories. I'm definitely agnostic now, since I do love to hear about different believes and discuss them with an open mind, but I'm leaning towards atheist more than spiritual now, and before it was the other way round.

Which created resistance in me as I started reading the introduction to The Artist's Way because it's all about how inspiration is a spiritual thing and to be creative is to be closer to God, and of course, my mind came to an abrupt halt, red lights blinking and everything, but then the introduction went on to say that if the reader was thinking these things or didn't believe in God or in anything, then that's fine, just don't let it stop you from doing the exercises because that's just your resistance talking, and when the reader came across the word "God" they shouldn't get hung up on semantics but replace the word with whatever rings more true, like flow, or creativeness, or inspiration, or positive energy, or whatever... and damn it, I'm both resistant and semantic, and I know it, so of course, I had to keep reading...

I don't own a copy of the book, I've only read the two different introductions and the beginning of the first chapter, since my teacher copied those pages and mailed out, but since I've already started on my morning pages, I think I should definitely get my hand on a copy. I checked out Amazon UK and found some fairly cheap used ones.

And to come full circle, I'll tell you that Kajsa just told me that see took that course about eleven years ago and it literally changed her life. So I guess we'll be talking a lot about that during the five hour drive to Gothenburg.

Commuting and plotting

Up at six o'clock for my first morning of doing morning pages (as recommended by The Artist's Way), feelings resistant the entire time, but I got through them, although I did cheat a little in that I washed up, brushed my teeth and made coffee before I started (I think you're supposed to basically roll right out of bed and start writing immediately. Also I think you're meant to write by hand, but I'm running low on note books, so I typed the pages on my laptop instead...)

I went into town to my sister-in-law's office in Old Town, to check out the rooms since I'll be cleaning there once a week starting next weekend when I'm not in Gothenburg for the film festival, for a little bit of extra cash. Then I had to rush back to the tube and travel all the way to Kungens Kurva for work at eleven -- same shift as yesterday, but I wasn't booked for it, but then when I was getting ready to leave last night, the guy came running up to me, on the phone with my contact person in the staffing company who does all my bookings, and wanted to know if I could work today as well, and I agree to do it, determined I'd make it work, and I did... only, when I got there and got to work, my contact calls me up on my mobile and tells me that she's double booked me, and that another girl is on her way, and she was technically booked before me, and would I mind going all the way through town to the other side of it and work in Järfälla today instead... and I did mind somewhat, but I agreed to do it anyway, besides, she said I'd get paid for the time I'm travelling as well, and I love commuting since I get all my ideas when I do... so I get my stuff together and leave again, and as I'm waiting for the bus, she calls me up again, and says the Järfälla people worked it out and wouldn't be needing me to come in... so then I went home.

I had a couple of great new ideas on my way home, though. So I'm not complaining at all. Also, I should be preparing for the pitch this weekend and pack for tomorrow anyway, and this way I have all day to do that... of course, knowing myself, I'll do neither, just post-pone it for tomorrow morning...

Off to a bad start

Just got an email from the director of the short film that I've been auditioning for, and I didn't get the part. I got call back twice, so I believe that they really liked me and after my last call back I actually took the train with the director and we ended up chatting and had tons in common and got on really well, so I don't doubt that we'll work together in the future in some capacity... but I'm still disappointed, of course. I thought the script she's written is really awesome, really funny and honest and original, and I think she's going to make an awesome film out of it and I really wanted to be part of it.

And now I have to go to Kungens Kurva and work all day at this store selling bits of wood and screws and other things I'm completely unfamiliar with, dealing with customers that are mostly rude and in a hurry... and I really need the money, which is something I've been telling myself since this morning when I went to bed, kept telling myself as I was trying to go to sleep and reminded myself thoroughly as the alarm went off a few hours later and told me to drag my arse to the shower. So I did. And I made myself a cup of coffee. And I had just enough time to sit down at my computer for a while before getting ready to leave, so I'm not stressed or anything, and it's not like last time I worked in that place when I had to start at a quarter to six, which meant I had to get up at three to catch the last night bus in order to get there, which meant I never went to bed... this time I'm on at eleven, and now is a perfectly reasonable to be up, and I'm not even that tired to be honest... I just really don't want to go work there, and I really have to. And that is a combination that makes me really not want to even more.

Plan updated.

Just talked to both Ana Maria and Cesar via Skype, at the same time, although Ana did most of the talking and Cesar sort of hung back, but then again, it's only fair since I've talked to him twice recently and I haven't talked to Ana in over a year.

She's got her heart set on a trip to Europe in September. So my plan now has three steps instead of two... make film(s) in Stockholm, save up for trip in September and save up for bartender course and move to London.

Still no reply from the producer. Which makes sense since it's midnight on a Saturday and she's probably not checking her email right now. I keep forgetting, just because I'm part-time insomniac and compulsively check my email every ten minutes, doesn't mean anyone else does...

Plans and dreams

So Anja is really excited about London now. Met up for coffee (although, surprisingly, I had tea for once.) and conversation again, inspiring and hopeful as always, and she'd mulled over my ideas about moving to London since the last time I saw her and it's grown on her, now she's really set on it. I love when that happens.

Sometimes, I get an idea in my head and I go overboard with my enthusiasm and it can sort of scare people off of the whole thing.

Like one night in Ana Maria's place in Kitsilano, when she still lived with Luis, and I was still together with Brett and we were both there, hanging out... Brett and I were on the balcony smoking, but we were allowed to leave the door open because it was summer and we were in the middle of a conversation. And Ana Maria and Luis, well one of them, I don't remember who thought of it first, but they started telling us about this place where you could skydive and it was fairly cheap, and they threw it out there "we should do that sometime, all four of us" -- and I've always wanted to skydive, and I was sold, sold, on the idea, I got excited and all hyper-y, and started planning it out, wanting to go that same weekend, and wanted to know if they were able to get away then or did they have work -- I didn't get why they were laughing at me at the time, but thinking back, I realize they must've thought I was acting like a big kid. I was dead serious about going, I would have gone that second if that was option. But the others were just talking. And we never ended up going, and I just hate when that happens, people get my hopes up on something when they never real have any intention of seeing it through... I guess that's some kind of collective form of daydreaming that normal people do for pastime, but I just find it really confusing and frustrating.

Anyway. London is definitely on the agenda.

Now I just have to convince Cesar to save up money to come visit us once we're actually settled down over there, and then I can bring him over to Sweden with me, and he can meet my family since they won't shut about wanting to meet him (well my dad and my little brother does, my mum's already met him.) and then I'll whisk him away to the town hall and marry him or something, so that I can keep him close to me forever and ever and ever (no Fatal Attraction vibes intended.)

In the much nearer future, I've just sent off an email with a script for a short film to an independent producer with whom I've worked twice, one the zombie film and the Roxette music video, who also happens to be a lovely, gorgeous lady, and I'm hoping she'll like the script and want to help me get it done.

Now I'm going to work in the 2nd act of my feature screenplay for a while before talking to Ana Maria and Cesar on Skype. The time difference is a real pain, but if there is a will, there's a way !

Hell yeah.

So the key to not go crazy and depress the hell out of myself, apparently, is... get out of the house and/or talk to a close friend, i.e. get out of my own head.

And today I've been really good, because I've done both. First, I talked to my sunshine, Cesar, via Skype -- twice! -- and when he had to leave for work, I left the house and went into town to have coffee with my closest (if not only) friend in Stockholm, Anja, at this queer-friendly, cozy coffee shop called Copacabana by the water at Hornstull that is my new favourite place in all of Stockholm (Cesar you would love it there!)

And sitting there chatting away with Anja, and before that when I was catching up with Cesar, it's like the weights in my chest and on my back are lifted and a curtain is drawn aside and I can see clearly, and everything feels possible, as opposed to when I'm pacing and brooding in my room or tossing and turning in me bed and nothing seems possible.

So I'm going finish my current work-in-progress scripts, I'm going to seriously start planning pre-production on one of the shorter ones, and I'm going to look into moving to London next. I'm thinking of doing my next internship period for this course at some production company or with some film-maker there and start making some connections, then I'm thinking of looking into some bartender courses over there and as soon as I've made some shorts, I'll relocate and somehow, I don't know exactly how yet, but somehow I'm going to convince Cesar to move there too (Anja's already on board; anyone else want to join in.. do it!) and we're going to have an awesome film collective for a while and really build up a good resume (after that, the states or Canada or film school in Edinburgh or something completely different, we'll see!) so that's the plan. I'm excited. Tell me what you think !

So tumblr... I'm over it.

Yeah. I have a livejournal for the geeky, fangirly, procrastinating side of things. And I know that I could just as easily use tumblr to write my usual type of blog entries, but it's just not the same. I log on there and I'm showered with .gif pictures and OMGs and it's all twittery surface, it's actually worse than twitter, because at twitter you're supposed to express yourself in less than whatever number of characters it is, 140 or something, but at tumblr, if you can skip the characters all together and just put a picture up there, preferably not even your own, but some strangers picture that's been passed on through a line of hundreds of other tumblr blogs, then that's optimal. Well, I started missing my old blog, so here I am.

I don't actually have time to write much right now, I'm heading out as I'm typing this, one arm tangled into a jacket sleeve and one eye on the clock, but I just wanted to put it out there; this blog will be up and running again, for those who care, so I'll talk to you again soon!