Blog - "The Annoyance Of Being Idle"

Greetings from the mad world of my internal monologue.

Since my entry on New Year's Day, I have intentionally been having what I have been told are 'days off'. Now, being a writer, I find myself relaxing by writing, so I habitually never stop working. I usually have one day off a year, and that's my birthday on July the seventh. This year, people have managed to convince me to spend the time between new years day and my two year anniversary on January the ninth doing nothing.

I'd just like to know if you have any idea how incredibly dull and boring it is to do nothing for days? Days! I haven't written a thing for over a week. That doesn't just feel strange, it feels downright wrong. It's like I've been genetically strangled and held for ransom by that part of me that actually seems to enjoy sleep and video games.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with sleep and video games. A Wii turned up in our household recently, much to my surprise, and I've been setting up the internet for the people I live with and going through all of the virtual console games that I want. It's a surprising amount, and is a stark reminder of how large a gamer that I used to be, but since becoming a writer I have found it something of a colossal waste of time. My thumbs are about as efficient as they could possibly be at this point, and sleep is all about recharging, right? I have this annoying habit of sleeping either four hours, and thus getting nothing out of it, or sleeping for thirteen hours, which is just enough to make the rest of the day useless. Over the last week, those two things are the two things that I've had to do. I miss writing.

So now, having exhausted the possibilities of FIFA and been utterly infuriated by good old Majora's Mask, and slept for more time than I've been awake, I've reached the point where I don't really want to do that anymore. I don't want to sleep, but I am aware that I'm eventually going to have to. I just want to write. Maybe this did do me some good. I'm back.

By Sunday I have two interviews to type up, hopefully one for each Monday to follow tomorrow, and I'm also writing up an in-depth review of a recent orchestral Tim Minchin show, which should turn up soon enough. I'm also re-writing a piece of Disbelief at this point in time, since I've decided to change one of the character relationships for the finale. It's kind of shaping up to be a fairly empty month, so I've also started planning out Theory In Practice. We should be good to go with that for when February rolls around.

I wouldn't want to not submit. I'd end up a lot less well enough, and likely struggling with the bills if that happened. You don't earn much freelance, after all.

Still, living the dream. I'm always grateful for that.