Working Hard AND Hardly Working!

I mentioned feelings of productivity in my previous post and I meant to return to that idea a little but things got away from me (as often happens when I begin telling a story) and I didn't. That's what follow up posts are for, right?

In January I was working full time to get a show up and running here at school. It was a J-Term class but essentially I was doing for free what I'd like to do for a living in the future, albeit in a much more comfortable setting. One day an idea struck me, and I mentioned it to my boss for the month: How would he feel about hiring me to do maintenance and work on some projects over the summer? He liked the idea but couldn’t officially give me an answer until a few months later (midway through April, I believe) and the deal was done.

So here I am, living on campus and working twenty hours a week in the theatre. It’s a lot of menial work, but it pays pretty well and my only coworker is a wonderful girl I got to know pretty well at the end of the school year. We’re currently working on cataloguing all of our large props, which involves clearing shelves, taking a picture of every item, and getting everything back on the shelves tidier than we found it. It involves a lot of climbing and there is more dust than I’ve seen in my life on some of the shelves, but all in all, it’s pretty low stress.

However, the twenty hour work week means that I have a three day weekend as well as afternoons and evenings to do whatever I want. I’m not taking a summer class (yet) so I have no homework. I mentioned quite awhile ago that I’m working on writing a play. I’ve continued to work very hard on it and it is currently about twenty pages long and (I think) nearly finished. I’ve shared it with three or four people and gotten some positive feedback and some great critiques. My challenge now is making some of the choppy sections flow a little better and generally cleaning things up.

I’ve also been reading. A friend mentioned that she was reading a great novel, so I decided to look into it. I’m about two hundred pages into Alexander Theroux’s seven hundred page book Darconville’s Cat. Theroux has a pretentious writing style, often referencing obscure stories in both Greek and Roman mythology, as well as other classic literature, but occasionally he comes through with something absolutely beautiful. I’ve enjoyed the book so far and I’m excited to finish it as it’s been a very long time since I finished reading a book out of sheer love of reading.

I’ve also been reading many short plays in preparation for the directing classes I’ll be taking this coming school year. The final project of the second semester of the class is to present a half-hour one act play. My roommate was scrambling to find a show he’d like to direct when the assignment was given this past spring, and I know the majority of the class was worried that they hadn’t read enough plays to have anything to choose from. So I bought a little notebook in which I’ve kept notes on the plays that I read, including the title, playwright, number of characters (and the genders thereof) and what I thought of each play. I’ve surprised even myself with how well I’ve kept up on these notes and I’ve read at least one play a day since I got back to campus.

As an aside to that, if anyone reading has any suggestions of short plays I should look into, please let me know. Keep in mind, however, that I have no budget and a limited amount of time in which to actually work on the show. Simple is wonderful.

On top of all of the reading and writing I’ve been doing, my summer roommate, Scotty, and I cleaned our room in a big way. It was an absolute disaster zone and we now have actual floor space. I also spent two hours this afternoon scrubbing the disgusting bathroom attached to our room, which means that I won’t feel dirty again the instant I step out of the shower.

Now, noble reader, is probably where you’re thinking to yourself, Sure, he’s been productive all week, but summer has just begun! I know, I know, but I have a million other ideas for the rest of the summer. I plan to continue tweaking and cleaning up my play (challenge the first: give it a name). I also want to write sonnets. I have notes and a few lines written for a few of them, and I have an overall theme (which I don’t want to reveal just yet). I hope that by the end of the summer I’ll have become a writer that one could describe as “prolific.”

I’ve also got a list of books to read. It’s short at the moment, only because there are so many that I’d like to read that I’ve forgotten what they all are. Here’s the list at the moment:

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
• Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

Again, please add to this list for me. I’m missing many titles and I have a lot of time on my hands.

Well. Now that I’ve turned in one of the longest entries I’ve ever written, I’m going to get ready for an evening of (probably drunken) revelry.