Time and Money

Time and Money. Why do they go together like horse and carriage, salt and pepper, tick and tock?

I'm not saying the dreaded 'time is money' - hate that sentiment and have done everything possible in life to avoid that mantra having anything to do with me. No, it's not so much that, but rather there could always be more of both. I'm not saying that there is not enough. If I've a roof over my head and food in my belly, that's abundance really. And time - beyond the unknown and the inevitable I'm not conscious of 'marking' my time.

But oh, would a bit more of both be useful from time to time. See, that word again, dropped in from the sub-conscious. All I want to do at the moment is sit at my desk undisturbed and just throw myself into the screenplay. Dive in, loose myself, immerse in the story.

With the return of the sun has come that alive feeling of committing to a bundle of projects and feeling right now that I'm always on the run and never standing still. I'm not complaining, part of me loves it, another part longs for stillness. I know that the ideas form an merge out there even if I'm not sat here, so the busy feeling is all good. But I need some stillness too.

The biggest irony of it all is that 'time' and 'money' and the lack of those two things being a barrier to writing, are the very same things that I need to be writing about in the script right now. Need to move on and create a sense of action and drama and they are the first points of call. I'm back at a new start with the whole script right now. it feels like being a peeled snail, and I've got to put the time in to grow a new shell, move a little further on.

There is also a curious magic going on with the whole process. It seems eerily like the things I plot seem to take some form of reality. Like time and money. Then I found Flo's house.

I found Flo's house today.

I don't want to go into too much detail until other details and fundamentals filter into tomorrow. But, what happened was a bizarre combination of special, scary and bloody exciting.

I was inside Flo's house talking to the her that was not there. The whole experience was a cross between a waking dream and a surreal drug induced experience. I'm not being deliberately enigmatic (though it does sound as though I am). I'm simply trying to find some sense in what has been a beautifully strange day.

So here I go again, full circle. Running on empty with both time and money is creating the third thing that comes from the space in between them both. Magic. Just the pure magic of adventures. Time - the lack of it is creating more magic.Money - wishing for it and forgetting to live and laugh and breathe and dance, means missing the magic of time.

Oh I've tangled my self up in words again. Something to do with Flo's house. More to do with needing some sleep...

Art

Sometimes you find things that are just too beautiful not to share, like this...



And on a totally different note, this has an equal beauty all of its own...

Buzby

In the past two days I've 'lost' the use of two mobile phones. One through an 'accident' that I really don't want to go into. The other was the 'replacement' that despite paying for insurance, I had to pay £20 for. The second one got very wet in a boat and its loss is actually quite funny.

So, as I sit here unable to contact anyone, it's got me thinking about that strange and mythical time (not so very long ago) when no one had mobile phones at all..

Somehow, the world functioned. Everyone got to where they were meant to be going, made arrangements, knew what was going on...All without the need for a mobile phone.

OK, so I'm one of the many who stored all my numbers on my mobile. I'm sitting here looking at a little address book that is giving me a positively smug and self satisfied grin, because despite all best intentions, I never did sit down and copy all the nos into it. There's another rather tatty pink faux fur book in my desk that reads almost like a four year diary when I go through it. It came from that far away premobile time when I did write [yes, with a pen] all my numbers down. I've wondered about just randomly phoning people that I haven't seen for 10 or so years, just because I have their number...But, they'll probably all be out of date.

So what about serendipity? In pre-mobile days, were there more chance encounters? Or is that another urban myth that those of us with an 'idyllic' 70s childhood, complete with Buzby adverts*, harp on about? [Along with white dog poo, Texan bars, and longer days in summer...] I'm almost tempted to give it a go, not replace the phone and see what happens.

But then I remember, that there are numbers for people on there who won't know that I lost my phone and will just think I'm being rude. And, I get the panic that if anything happens to Oz whilst he's at school and I'm out, then no one can contact me (how did that one work pre-mobile?). Even worse, someone might see Johnny Depp in town and they won't be able to let me know.

Talking of which, looks like I might be avoiding work, again. At least there'll be no distraction from my mobile phone though...

[*instead of the 'modern' family with silly lighting ones]

Lots of cake

Been far too long away from this world. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, presentation, exhaustion - pretty much in that order. Followed by sunshine and a certain smugness about living in Cornwall that I won't even to pretend to apologise for. It's another glorious day out there but I've got to get back on track...

Been a funny old time, not least because my powers of indecision hit an all time high. Yesterday was A's birthday, we had a big chocolate cake with candles and everything on the beach. The following conversation kind of sums up the recent weeks.

ME: Did you have some cake?

L: Yes.

ME: Was it nice?

L: Yes.

ME: Did you eat it?

L: Erm, yes.

ME: So you did have your cake and eat it?

L: I'm going to slap you if you don't shut up.

ME: Fair enough.

Random as it is, the concept of 'having cake and eating it' has always confused me. I know what it's supposed to mean about trying to 'have it all' but in a very literal sense my conversation with L kind of shows that most of us have our cake and eat it all the time. BUT we don't realise we're doing it because it's one of those things that you are not 'meant' to either own up to or to do. So anyway, I tried it and both scuppered myself and found peace all at the same time. Two MA projects was never going to work, well perhaps it might have done. Had the chance to work with an amazing supervisor on an investigative journalism story and decided for many pragmatic reasons to take the oppportunity and 'go for it'.

I thought I could tap away at the screenplay one day a week. The end result being that I would have my cake and eat it. Nice plan. Too nice - it was never going to work because Miss Heart over Head here had organised something so sensible that I couldn't find any kind of focus. The screenplay 'won' me back and in the process of doing so I cocked up my presentation and am in supervisor 'limbo'. But, it's all OK because it's shown me beyond any shadow of doubt that writing is, first and foremost, about passion. I need to just throw myself into the screenplay and nothing but the screenplay for the next few months. Funny thing is, with all the 'cake' and eating it business, I still feel like I have it and am eating it, because the prospect of just one project feels like a breeze after trying to tackle two 'biggies' simultaneously.

Ah where would I be without this blog, to just whittle away on with the beautiful illusion that I'm actually getting on with some work, is such a simple pleasure. I've missed it. Mission on.

I'm going to get the scene by scene done by early next week. But, just as importantly I need to get a bike with a basket, and cycle around playing 'Fly Me To The Moon' to fully 'get' into character. So work will involve index cards, pins and cycling.

See, looks like a very tasty cake to me.