I made a rather radical decision; while I always said that this would be it for the TH script I have now decided to completely rewrite it. I came to that decision in bed last night, why there? It’s a place where you focus on  your thoughts, especially when  you can’t sleep at the time. I was running the feedback on my script through my mind again, thinking about what they wanted me to do.

Not that I have it all figured out but on some of the major points they had I think I came up with ideas. I always felt that there were some issues with it; I don’t think anyone would be honestly, unless you’re extremely conceited. With the ideas I’ve had I think the script can become better, if I didn’t believe it would become better I wouldn’t be rewriting it. I don’t have a timeline for that though, I will see how quickly it goes.

I’m writing this while I’m at work, this week I actually got a decent amount of shifts. For the next two weeks however not that many yet but I still won’t have a lot of free time. How that works? Lets just say that my mother expects too much from me instead of asking me to do it by now. For some reason she also thinks that I have enough money which isn’t quite accurate. Guess I need to have a talk with her about that. I still haven’t found that job which really makes me excited enough to apply. I also have to say that with the positive feedback I got on  the script I probably more reserved than ever in trying to find a long term job.

So here we are on the last day of the month of February and actually things are looking up a little now. Not in the job department seeing I’m still at the same lousy job. I however finally received some feedback from the Script Savvy competition and it’s actually good feedback, who would have thought. Not that it’s all good, there are some things that I knew that might be a problem which actually were. Even though I did some of those things on purpose actually because for my story I felt they would work better. Right now I’m doing some minor tweaking again based on that feedback and sending it somewhere else.

Scriptapalooza in that case, not because I believe I can win but I at least got some confidence now that it at least will make it through the first round. Also producers read those scripts so who knows (not that I’m getting my hopes up on that, it can never hurt to dream). I also finally feel that there is some progress on the Destiny project, not that there is any dialogue written yet but I’m slowly building to a storyline that I think will work.  It will be a very different project and cannot be compared in any way with the one I’m entering into competitions right now. Still a project which will take a while.

Now it’s time to wait and see if TH places anywhere.

So the job hunt is unsuccessful so far, haven’t applied anywhere yet for the simple reason that I haven’t seen anything decent yet. In a way I’m also scared of commitment I guess, seeing a lot of those jobs require just that, some training is understandable but I somehow don’t want something that I pick now to be the rest of my life. At least the number of hours on the current job are picking up, though this week only three days it seems that four days is the standard right now including some weekend days. So maybe I’ll even manage to break even this month, we’ll see.

As for the script work, I haven’t heard back from Script Savvy yet, will have to see when that happens. While I’m sort of scared of the result I also want to hear it.

Yes, I changed the way I name the blog postings. Why? Because no one reads them anyway and this is just easier. So here we are on a Tuesday afternoon doing what? Well, I just wrote a blog for the starletinc.com website which I will post later. I decided I’ve become a bit too whiny in my blogs lately so I changed it a bit. It’s actually about someone’s career again instead of whining about blogs and people around the internet. Chances are that it’s a subject other people are more interested in anyway. I still want more visitors so I actually made a separate Twitter account for it, a lot of other sites do it so why shouldn’t I, seems to be a good way of getting things out there, we’ll see how that goes.

Another thing I’m doing at the moment (well going to do in a minute) is to look at job listings. I really need a more steady job with a decent monthly income and also a job with not as much drama as mine. Well, not that much drama, more people that act like it’s all dramatic. Only so many whiny customers I can handle and I think I’m close to having reached my maximum. I’m also more motivated now because two other people found a different job, the thing with those people is that they are the most useless people in our department. So if the most useless department can find other jobs why wouldn’t I? Not that I’m saying I’m the perfect employee but I do know that I’m a lot better than those two are. I’m still not sure what kind of job I’m looking for, as long as it doesn’t involve answering too many phones and it’s not that far away from me I’m fine with it. I wonder how big a distance I have traveled by train over the last three years that I’ve worked there. Three years yes, far too long.

As for the script writing, not that much went on with that since the last time I wrote about it. I however think that I found a bit more motivation to work on it, I’m going to try something later today and we’ll see how it goes. Trying as in building a story structure, not actual writing yet.

So today I officially started paying off my student loans. It’s so incredibly depressing to know that I built up all that debt without having anything to show for it, stomach turning really. I know that for the most part it’s my own fault but if anything that makes me feel even worse. I could have lowered the monthly amount to be paid but as I mentioned before I decided not to. Though I have to say, this thing hit me a bit harder than I expected. Seeing those amounts of money on paper is just depressing. The time I wasted while I was in college, failing to see that I was on a dead end at an early stage, continuing something which was pretty much hopeless from the start.

It’s not that I didn’t learn anything in that time, in fact I learned a lot,  just nothing to show for it. It however also has resulted in me not knowing what I want to do, so I mean besides these side projects like the script writing, as I know the chances of having a true future in that are slim. In the job department the job listings don’t fill me with confidence either, it’s not that there are no jobs at all but do I just take any job? I mean if it’s a horrible job it might only make more miserable. Then again, in my current job I’m also miserable, I don’t make that much money, the customers are in a lot of cases beyond rude and complete assholes. The co-workers are nice (not all though) but that doesn’t really compensate.

I was also thinking about other ways of making money but I’ve been down that road. I tried running a website I believe in but all it resulted in was a failed website which a couple of visitors liked but the large crowd never found. There are just too many sites out there to truly compete, especially when you’re in a limited subject and try to keep a high moral standard. Plenty of sites with the same subject but in my eyes they’re run by assholes. Sure, I’d like a site with a lot of hits but I’m not going to give up my moral values just to achieve that. Or maybe my moral values are just too high at times. Or maybe that one great idea still escapes my mind.

With my dieting plan I also have a bit of an issue now. The one thing you should not do is to have food on your mind all the time but guess what, I’m sort of failing at that right now. Not that it makes me do things I don’t want to do right now it just shouldn’t be there. I’m actually mostly preoccupied what other healthy things I could eat. Things like that can wait until it’s time to cook my dinner really, not during the rest of the day. I don’t know if’s the dieting but I really hate that I wake up every morning due to nature calling, I really didn’t have to get up at 5.45 am this morning but nature made me.

So yes there are far too many things on my mind right now and it’s  not a place I want to be in, not at all. Especially since in the big picture they are so minor, that’s why they are called personal issues though. I need an escape, now I just need to find it or it has to fine me.

So after a month of overspending I decided to keep a precise look at income and expenses. So I’m going to pretty much do a month by month balance of how much money I have. Seeing I have to start paying off student loans I don’t think that will hurt. It will hopefully also open my eyes a bit more that I really need to find another job.

Besides that I also started a more drastic diet plan. Already been twice to the gym this week and I’ve been making myself a sort of healthy shakes based on soy milk and fruit. So no ready made stuff seeing that is only expensive. Those only serve to replace some meals though, I obviously won’t be giving up solid food seeing you sort of need that. I just need to lose weight for various reasons, health not actually being the main reason, it’s also a thing about appearance. When you go looking for a job I don’t think it helps when you’re fat honestly. People still have misconceptions about that so best to remove a factor that might stop you from getting hired. Better fitting clothes is also a good reason, could come up with a ton of them.

So I set up my dual monitor set up and for the first time in buying an LCD screen I have a dead pixel, which is annoying but I guess I’ve been lucky so far. The position is pretty much in the middle though but I guess i can live with it. I have to say that two screens of 24″ is huge and takes some getting used to. I however do like it and it will make working on things easier in certain ways.

In the screenwriting department I haven’t really done a lot, almost nothing actually. That’s actually why I also want to lose weight, it’s a self confidence issue, the first time I lost a lot of weight (and thankfully I only gained about tend pounds of that back, on seventy pounds that isn’t too bad I’d say) it gave me more confidence for a while. So I’m hoping that it will do the same this time and give me more motivation to write. I did enter my current script into another competition though, I should have done that a while ago but I’ve been putting that off for no good reason. This time it’s a competition with feedback so I’m actually a bit scared about that. Same competition as with my original Nucleus script actually and they actually sort of liked things about that. Even though I can see how much it failed in the technical department.

Instead of running away from criticism I should be embracing it and using it to make it better. I actually did change minor things in the script based on feedback from two people and some comments I read in Script Magazine. So it’s not the same script that was entered in the Big Break competition last year. The story obviously is identical but in the details it’s different and it has one added scene. So we’ll see what comes from it, though a crushing review won’t be helping my confidence levels, I know that much.

Here we are on a Monday in January doing….. almost nothing. If I was hoping for the new year to bring me inspiration I was fooling myself, if anything there is only less inspiration. The last couple of days have been beyond uninspired. While I did write a blog for one of my websites I don’t think it’s anything special, just some rambling really. Didn’t even proofread it, simply put it online.

At least I managed to drag my sorry ass to the gym this morning, been a couple of weeks again. Though not really by choice, somehow couldn’t go at the times I wanted to. Mainly due to work though, was actually quite busy last week but this week it’s back to only one shift. Not that I mind that this week, haven’t been sleeping well either so I’m rather tired right now. Naps during the day don’t work for me so I’m not doing that.

The odd thing is that when I’m in some of those down moods I tend to buy things. For some reason that means this time that I ordered two 24″ full HD computer monitors. Why? I have this nagging feeling that if I don’t do it now I won’t get them at all and it’s something I really want. Also to help writing, which these things could do as I tend to have quite a lot of things turned on. I can also tilt the screen 90 degrees so I can actually fit full screen pages in a rather high resolution on my computer. Or two pages side by side. They aren’t here yet so I’ll have to see what I do.

As for the script writing, started a bit of a project for practice, take an existing story and turn that into a script. It really is nothing but practice in this case seeing it’s not something that could ever be used in real life. Though I haven’t worked on that in the last couple of days either while I probably should. Maybe tomorrow, today I’m just not up to it.

It sucks so much that me being not that satisfied with myself is blocking creativity. I try to get it out but in most cases I just fail. Things that used to entertain me like certain TV shows are starting to fail at doing so, really don’t know what is up with that. I hope I get out of this mood very soon. Haven’t touched my notebooks in weeks……,

So here we are on a Saturday afternoon in the new year. So has anything changed since last year? Of course not, it has only been two days since last year. I’ve actually tried a bit of a brain storming session yesterday but the page remained blank, my mind has just been blank the last couple of days, honestly don’t know what it is. Just a general mood I guess, a general feeling of nothing going my way and just a feeling of being stuck in life. When you feel stuck in life it’s a bit hard to imagine things that aren’t in your life. One thing I will do next week is enter my script into another competition, two weeks ago I made a tiny tweak to it based on some criticism from a co-worker. Maybe it’s just a little edge which makes it a bit better.

I wonder if my posters will arrive on Monday, looking at the tracking I’m not that hopeful, they’ve been stuck in the same place since new year’s eve. Which in itself isn’t that surprising but I somewhat hoped that they’d move a bit further than that on the day. Well who knows, they might still arrive on Monday, we will have to wait and see. Once they arrive I will continue my create a more inspirational environment a bit, really need to finish that. I keep putting it off while I should be finishing it. I’m really not that far off, just need to make some finishing touches and some more reorganizing. Though it’s quite shocking how much cleaning and reorganizing a place as small as mine can take. Still need to pick up some poster frames though, looks better than just hanging them on the wall with sticky tape.

Next week is also when I start paying back student loans, I chose not to have the amount lowered which is risky when your income isn’t as high but I can always have it lowered at a later stage. I still intend of finding a better paying job so in a way it’s a way of motivating myself of doing that. The thing about my current job which is getting to me more and more is that it’s a lot of being standby. Today they again called if I could work tomorrow which I can’t but still, they keep calling. They really need to share the list I have of my availability. Will save them a lot of calls and work, so that they simply don’t have to call me.

Of course I need the money but I can’t drop all plans I have for the next day just like that, you need to keep living your life as well. I have four shifts next week anyway, all day shifts which sucks but it is better than nothing. Maximal amount of work for a minimal pay, you get paid more on weekends while work is quiet then and easier. So more pay for less work. Wouldn’t that be a great system, the easier the job the better the pay. Then again, if that happened society would probably collapse.

Next week I will hopefully be able to start my diet regime a bit better again, I really have been lacking these two weeks. The dumb thing is that eating is also a way of getting your mind of things. Not that I have been eating that much, it just doesn’t help in a weight loss regime. I really need to keep it tight when I want to lose weight. I hope to lose 10kg before the summer which in itself doesn’t seem that much for a six month plan, for me however it is a lot. I lose weight slowly, I also hope that I will find more time to go to the gym. Next week the only opening I see is on Thursday but you have to take what you can get. Tomorrow there will also be some exercise though, so it’s not like I’m not doing anything. Especially not seeing I bike everywhere I need to go.

Maybe I should document again what I actually eat, that way you’re confronted more with what you take in. The main problem right probably is that at work I drink nothing but water, when I get home I’m sick of drinking water so I’d rather drink something else. Seeing I don’t drink things like tea you have to go to milk or juice. Not drinking a lot of light sodas either seeing they aren’t that healthy either in different ways. Might be a good idea to do a more mapped out plan, though I would map it out myself. I don’t believe in following plans by other people, in the end you have to figure out for yourself what you can and can’t do. Maybe I should write a weight loss book, basically telling people to do to lose weight without actually having to tell them how to do it. Now that would be an easy way to make money.

So here we are on new year’s eve and what have we achieved in the past year? Pretty much nothing. I finished my script which was supposed to be done last year and after that I didn’t actually start a new one. Still busy with all the conceptual work.

I see this year a bit as a lost year though, of course no one could have predicted the situation with my mother but those are facts of life. I’m just hoping next year will be better, though my expectations aren’t that high honestly. I need a new way of thinking about life I guess, new year’s to a lot of people is a new start. I always see it as a day where I can reflect on the past year and see what I didn’t do, so what I could have done.

Plans for the new year…… Same as there are now really, try and lose more weight, find a new job, finish another script. Note that these are plans, not resolutions. I don’t really do resolutions even though they are very similar to plans. I don’t really need the new year to make plans like that, I plan them anyway. Though I did put script work to a lower activity until the next year just to get my mind around to it a bit more.

Another step in project make my place a more inspirational environment, I finally ordered some posters for my walls. Only two for now but it’s a start. Sort of stupid that to this day my walls are still plain white with nothing on them. So a couple of posters just color up the place a bit. Still need to do more organizing as well though, still not sure what to do with certain things though. All in due time I guess. They are custom posters, basically took pictures from the internet and I’m having those printed. Works better than just having a limited choice of posters in a store. Though I still have to wait and see the quality of the printing service, it’s also a bit of an experiment.

I hope they don’t arrive today though, seeing I’m at my mother’s place for a couple of days and not at home. On Monday they asked me to work today but I decided to decline. Sure I only have one paid day this week in that case but I guess I’m taking a miniature break. I’ll be here until Sunday or Monday so it just gives me a couple of days to relax a bit. Next week I have four shifts so it will be busy enough then, that while to begin with they only gave me one shift. They need more people than they thought at first, sort of stuck them with a bit of a problem though. Not that I care, I’m still going to try and find a new job. My problem just is that I don’t want to just take anything. Though a dream job is a bit much to ask for in the current economic climate.

Perfect solution for now would actually be to win the lottery, just sucks that the odds of that are so small (and yes, I do play in the lottery every week). Not that money buys you happiness, in my situation right now it just takes a lot of worries.

Well, lets just hope that 2010 will be better than 2009.

Just had to say that I have nothing to say.