Year 2, Day 159: Shakespeare Institute -- Distracted.

I think this month I'm using this blog to jump start the desire to write.  This will not be the last time I must do this, as I believe the desire to write hits us all at the most inconvenient times (in the shower; whilst out jogging; or otherwise occupied wherein having a computer or any writing utensil is completely impractical).  I realized this as I was sitting in the Thursday Seminar this week not being able to keep my mind off of designing a completely impractical set for a production that does not exist... or another one for a show that does exist, and yet remains completely impractical due to the fact that it would cost more money than we've ever spent to build it.  It seems that I have the attention span of Nuthatch (one of those small little birds that move really fast, and whenever you try and think of the definition of the word 'flit', you think of them.)

So, I've got to get started again writing what I know will be interesting to me but will suck up the rest of my day.  Each and every time I start writing, before I know it, I've spent seven hours sitting and writing and doing some decent work.  Have I gotten all of what I was aiming for done?  Sometimes.  Do I feel as if there must have been a better way to spend my day?  I shouldn't.  I mean this is why I am in this country.  So, why don't I just sit down and write every single day?  Because I've seen what that does to PhD students.  I've seen them lose their minds, not leave the house for weeks at a time, and then stress out every time they step away from the computer screens to use the toilet (because they should be working.)  I think I need to find a way to moderate work.  A clock of some sort giving a beep to remind me I've been at my desk for an hour, two hours, six hours and it is time to step away for a minute or so.

A moderation of my work needs to happen, and I need to stop paying attention to everything else in order to achieve that moderation.  I can become scatterbrained, I need to focus... but not focus so much that life passes by my window and I can never stop to take a look.  Now, where to begin?

ROSENCRANTZ: We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me 
it is a prison. 
ROSENCRANTZ: Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too 
narrow for your mind.
HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams. (Act II, Sc. II)

Year 2, Day 159 -- Words Written: 2,798 -- Words that need 'Correction': 2,794