Well then. There are 17 more days left in 2014. Let's get a sprawling update in, shall we?
I mean, this blog has been neglected. This blog has been really, really neglected.
Only in the past week, as I catch up on a short script and as classes have ended for me, have I been able to intersperse some blog writing. Why no blog posts?
I've been busy. Whether that's positive or not, I'm not sure. I'd like to think so. For me, being productive has become a natural mode of being. I have to be productive to relatively adhere to my ambitions.
It's been hard, though. I am exhausted in every nook and cranny of my body, of my being.
So what's been going on?
I'll tell you what's been going on. I've been trying to live up to my Phase 2 plans, as I've outlined at the beginning of the year and it has taken every blood cell out of me.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
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Let's list what I've done that I consider to be representative of my Phase 2 plans:
1) I completed a short film as director and co-producer named Awake.
2) I revised and now have a spec feature script. Whether I do anything with it I don't know. Frankly, one's first spec script isn't probably going to be great. We'll see.
3) I revised and revised and...revised a little more my pilot spec script, which I submitted to the Austin Film Festival.
4) I have completed 21 hours of graduate level courses in my Master's of Library & Information Science.
5) I have traveled to San Francisco and Washington D.C. plus Savannah, GA and several trekking adventures in the mountains.
I completed all of these tasks while working jobs (I've had two this year) that required 40-44 hours a week.
Holy shit.
Completing these tasks meant certain other plans weren't able to happen. Completing this tasks meant that my energy was drained, that during the week I wasn't able to take in a lot of artistic or creative material other than poetry and on the weekends, movies. Completing these tasks meant that sometimes I wasn't able to fully realize and relish in my social life.
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I am restless.
That's not a Levi's ad statement. That's not something I have hanging on my Pinterest board or Tumblr in cursive.
That word, "restless," or associated words like "restlessness," have emerged in my lexicon only this year. I began using the word with more frequency after watching the first episode of Ken Burns' The Roosevelts. Theodore Roosevelt was described as a restless, as interviewees remarked on how in every picture where he sat, his first was balled up on his leg, ready to "get action" as he would say.
I'm not Teddy Roosevelt. I am unable to read two books in one day. I am not negotiating peace treaties between Japan and Russia. But I am restless. I am the kind of person who taps on his leg, who balls fists on a leg.
This means sleep deprivation. This means taking on tasks that are difficult to maintain. This summer I wanted to see a friend's show in Flowery Branch. Unfortunately I found out that night I had a major assignment due...the next day. I could tell my friend that I won't be able to attend. Did I? No. I stayed up all night getting the majority of the assignment done. That was 12:30AM. I woke up at 5AM to get ready for work at 7AM where I have to drive 45 minutes (so I leave at 6AM for traffic). After work let out at 3:30 PM I went to the library, finished and turned in the assignment, drove from Commerce, GA to Flowery Branch.
I'm not patting myself on the back.
I speak of restlessness in a very neutral way. Unfortunately my restlessness is discussed here as part of how I look forward in growth and how I want to grow.
I am a Leslie Knope kind of person. Throughout my work I would work on nuts and bolts kind of stuff, creating itineraries for my trips and weighing other travel options through pros and cons lists. Like Leslie Knope, and with being restlessness, I have found that I am a steamroller. I have a tendency to be competitive, to spew my facts when unnecessary, to jump on conversations.
An example of this would be something trivial such as proving I'm right on something. "When was the Mall opened? 2004" a friend might ask. "No it was 1999" I might respond. "No, I think you're wrong." I could just say "Whatever," but instead I get on my smart phone and look up the opening date just to prove that individual wrong.
Who wants to hang out with that? Who wants to hang out with someone who always has be right?
This is something I am reckoning with, working to be more self-aware of. I have to learn to put a check on my nervous and restless energy, elements of myself that are certainly not endearing such as my anxiety, paranoia, etc. I have to find a way to get my balance back.
It's been difficult to retrieve that balance. I still write everyday but often it's for assignments or for homework. I have to utilize my discipline to find moments to relax, to unwind in some capacity. Everyday can't be a race. I can't always be wound up ready to go.
I'll be working on that.
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Traveling has been discussed in my many blogs, but ultimately my travel plans didn't fit within my initial ambition. That doesn't make them any less meaningful.
The most substantial trips were to San Francisco and Washington D.C. which I have elaborated on. I also went to Asheville for a couple of weekends, to Savannah, and I underwent several mountain treks in Western North Carolina and North Georgia like Whiteside Mountain and Blood Mountain.
I talk about travel through this post to reflect on how my travels held common themes. In large respect, San Francisco and D.C. represented my fulfillment of younger dreams and aspirations. In most respects, these trips were detoxes. They were ways to handle issues going on or to reaffirm existential crises, whether it was to reaffirm a love of Georgia (Savannah), a love of film (San Francisco and seeing Linklater's Boyhood), or a better understanding of patriotism (D.C.). After being rejected by someone I was falling for, I detoxed in Asheville and hiked Chimney Rock and Whiteside Mountain. After a crisis with my friendships and with just a mind crunch at work, I trekked Blood Mountain.
This is what travel is about. It's about broadening perspective and seeing what you're made of.
I'd like to not require this many detoxes, however.
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There is a positive feeling at having so much taken care of, however. I am most proud of my short film Awake. I've made films, I've worked on films, but this was a new level. This was putting every atom of my being into an artistic project. I wrote and co-produced the film. I provided outlets for my friends and their wonderful talents. I created something that I think is at the very least interested.
This will not be the only time this happens.
Now this short has me jazzed about films. I went to two film festivals this year, the San Francisco Film Festival and the Asheville Film Festival. Both were important. I've talked about how important Richard Linklater has become and how the SFFF confirmed that. The Asheville Film Festival was also important because I got to see the short films that are accepted. Were they spectacular? No, but they were accomplished because someone set them up and made them. Watching them I realized I'll be able to make shorts and that Awake is unique, valid, and can play at a film festival.
Unfortunately I believe I will fall short of my usual goal of 30 films per year. I have worked a lot, accomplished a lot, so it's inevitable. The kind of films I love, I lament, are losing steam and are being marketed to VOD instead of reasonable runs in theaters. Yet, I am content in my film year. I am writing more scripts, writing new loglines, coming up with new ideas, meeting and networking with Film Athens and others. This part of me is starting to emerge.
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I have accomplished a lot in my Library & Information Sciences degree as well. I have completed 21 hours. I have roughly two semesters left. I have learned so much about metadata schemas, standards. I can talk MODS and MARC now.
Talking about my degree, as you can imagine with my use of acronyms, is a bit difficult. In essence what I'm doing is like the stage managing of library & information sciences. I am responsible for making sure the behind the scenes stuff run smoothly. I implement information into metadata fields that individuals can access in records. Currently I have a job where our customers (libraries) order books and I retrieve catalog records that match them. The term for this: Technical Services.
This was something I worked on in my entry level library job, but now I'm headlong into it. I can find fascination and zen in the mechanics of an operation, but there is trepidation. The courses aren't too bad online. I was concerned about the format but it works well in certain degrees, it just requires more effort to interact with students but I am successful in some respects. What I miss is people though.
All library & information science fields are service positions, but I most certainly miss actually working with people, actually engaging in face to face interactions with students or patrons. When I worked at my former company, an ISP, I interacted with several customers but it was over the phone, impersonal and so forth. At the library I worked before and most certainly at the school I had the reward and stimulation of working with people, particularly children.
I left education, a field I probably could get a job out of if I completed a MAT, because I wanted the technology stimulus that I received in library & information sciences. Yet, now in this current position, one that will aid my career, I miss the human stimulus I received in education. I miss hearing "Mr. Ben."
I talked with my professor and explained that I need to get some reference experience in and some courses, which she agreed. Next semester I intend to take a class on Children's Materials because I realized that my favorite thing to do in both fields was to read to children. I didn't choose school library media as my track, but I think I'm going to start utilizing the resources that my school offers in that regard.
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Poetry...I got a lot done in this arena, reasonably. I haven't published a lot, but that's because I've been working on a collection.
I wrote a poem about my great-grandmother's life in the mill culture that I sent to Fred Chappell, who I saw read at the Thomas Wolfe House in Asheville. His reception was positive, as were many others. Consequently I set myself to write a collection of poems that dealt with the downfall of working class culture and mill culture where I grew up. For instance, I talk about Toccoa and what happened after the casket and furniture plants left and I have a poem about what welding is. Initially I wanted to call the series What Mills Are to allude to Philip Levine's great collection What Work Is but I wasn't going to just talk about mills. It was about working class culture in North Georgia. I bounced around with names until I found one: When That Great Ship Went Down, which comes from a folk song about the Titanic.
That has been my focus in writing poetry. I have been revising the poems, splicing them, etc. The progress made with poetry hasn't matched my progress in film and screenwriting, but I have made progress is seeing more poets read. I mention Fred Chappell, and I saw some poets at the Athens Cine. I was starstruck after seeing Jericho Brown and Kevin Young read because through an acquaintance I met former poet laureate Natasha Trethewey.
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These Life Update blog posts are often sprawling, so if you manage to finish I thank you. Understand that my blog is about my growth. I finally renamed my blog Look Homeward, Martin after Thomas Wolfe's book. I am Eugene Gant in a way. I've written about this but it's important for all of us to reach some level of self-awareness, to own up to our issues, our faults, and our responsibilities to create a better life for ourselves. Writing this stuff down, talking about this stuff, gives life to them. It places them out in the open to reckon with.
I use this Life Updates to reflect, because reflection is important. Reflection is human. I want to give myself the life I dream about. Though I didn't step in certain doors this year, though I didn't fully accomplish everything, I maintained a productivity that ultimately led me close to happiness, to life fulfillment. I made a film, I'm close on my grad school, my job is related to my career, and I can see better things.
I won't get too sentimental.
What's next on the plate for next year?
That'll be discussed later.
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