Mike King

schedules and structure

April 26, 2004 on 5:50 pm | In Life in General | Comments Off

The weekend was relaxing and gave me time to think. Get organized. I’ve finally decided to schedule my days. It’s strange, since you’d think having no schedule would be more relaxing. But it turns out that not having a schedule makes me feel like the minutes are being wasted. Having a schedule, even if I don’t stick to it religiously, actually helps me to ease stress. Who’d have thought? Not me. But the schedule seems to be working.

It’s already helpful in making me feel like things aren’t all out of control. It’s let me set aside time for correspondence, which I’m notoriously bad about. I’ve allotted time to work on the Star Wars fan film shots. And I’ve scheduled some daily formal writing time instead of the impromptu writing sessions I’d been attempting. My main writing projects right now are a fairy tale book for my daughter (with illustrations) and a novel that’s been kicking around in my head for a while.

The weekend was wonderfully relaxing. My wife and I went to see “Into the Woods” performed by the Pacifica Spindrift Players. Turns out Cinderella was played by a lady who attends the school where my wife works. Love the music — I’ve had the soundtrack for a while ever since seeing the Broadway performance on TV. Seeing the musical again got me inspired to do some fairy tale stories for my daughter. I’d been toying with the idea of writing a personalized children’s story for her for a while. So this gave me a little extra push and some ideas to play with.

Spent a lot of time talking with my brother about his screenplay. I’m not doing all the heavy lifting. But I’ve been able to contribute a lot of story and plot points, refine characterizations, and suggest little details here and there. It’s been a lot of fun. Tough at times though, like when we plot ourselves into a corner.

But overall, it’s stuff like this which really convinces me that I want to be involved creatively on projects, work on stories with people, and write my own stuff too.