Reminders

Here's the thing about vacation. I spend two months working on my script like gangbusters, getting up late and staying up late and lounging around all day on my couch with my laptop in my lap and Cheaters on the TV. I go to the bathroom whenever I want (something you non-teachers probably take for granted) and eat whenever I want and pop out to the store whenever I need something.

But the most important thing is, I'm writing almost every day. I get so used to it and start treating it like it's my real job so that when the vacation ends and I have to go back to work I get all pissed off. I don't hate my job; most days I kind of like it, but it's not a professional writing job. When I'm on vacation I work as if I'm a professional writer and it's glorious.

I finished adding in a couple of little scenes on the script so I have everything set now. And yes, it's only 77 pages still. But the next phase is to print the pages out and go through them to fix all the changes. By that I mean, all the times I'd get to a scene and say to myself, damn he forgot to grab that gun earlier. And then I say, no he didn't! And bam, a gun pops into his hand out of nowhere. So now I have to go back and put that gun into his hand.

So since that's the next phase and I have the whole basic story on the page ready for my first read through to see what areas are incomplete, I'm ready for my reward. I worked through the summer so I haven't been to the beach in four months. So I said to myself, Self, you can't go to the beach until you finish this draft.

Today was my reward. Today was beach day. I've been planning for today to be Beach Day for a week now - just me and a towel and a book and the shore. I knew if I could get everything on the page by Thursday I could go to the beach and I made it.

Then last night a coworker called and asked if I could sub today. I need the money so here I am sitting at a desk watching kids pretend to work when I was supposed to be at the beach.

Obviously since I'm on vacation I can just move Beach Day to another day, but it's the principal of the thing. This is another reminder of how my day job, although a pleasant substitute, is still just a substitute for what I want to do.

It just reminds me to work harder. No slacking off. I've got to get this show on the road so I can go to permanently sitting on my couch all day watching Cheaters and peeing whenever I want.

EDITED: While I was at work I was talked into coming in Tuesday for a meeting to discuss the journalism program. Tuesday had been my revised Beach Day. Then I was talked into subbing Thursday, which was my third choice for Beach Day. Then I leave on Saturday to go to Puerto Rico. So I guess I'll be there for Beach Week.

On second thought, that's not so bad.