Screen Free Week – Day 1

On Monday, April 18th, I received a one day assignment which was nice (money in my pocket!) Working definitely filled my time and was a less likely way for me to partake in visual media consumption.

At work, I read the news online, read the Metro New York paper, read a screenplay while providing coverage (I’m a script reader now, no pay, but more on that later), and read a chapter from the book club selection of the month – Alias Grace. A very productive day at work for me, apart from the fact that all I did was answer phones (oh how easy reception work is).

When I arrived home, I quickly made dinner and read one of the many magazine subscriptions I have (Spin, which I realize that 1-I don’t know what the hell is going on in music and 2-I’m more of a movie person anyway) while eating.

I looked over and edited my screenplay coverage and sent it off. Which brings me to – being a script reader!

Last month, I applied to anything writing related because I wanted to be involved in something creative that I enjoyed liiike…reading and writing about movies! I applied to be an script reading intern but the position was filled. Instead, I was contacted by the president of the company to become a script reader for them which means reading scripts sent via email sending them script coverage. It’s easier for me because I can the reading from home or wherever I have an internet connection. It’s not that much of a hassle and scripts are so easy to read.

After that, I did a little dance to some body shakin’ tunes and settled for the rest of the night with Alias Grace and a Beatles biography book I received for my birthday. I totally have Beatle fever with every chapter I read.

Quite the evening – very quiet but fun nonetheless.

I did find it difficult looking at my TV – lonely, abandoned, cold waiting for me to watch movies to review for my blog or for general entertainment. After I work as a receptionist for the day, I spend all day in front of a computer reading so when I come home, I want to veg and watch something! It was hard to do but all week I’ll be busy being social, so it shouldn’t be so hard.

‘Til tomorrow!

National Day of Unplugging 2011

This weekend, I participated in National Day of Unplugging created by the Sabbath Manifesto last year. This “unplugging” took place sundown on March 4th and ended sundown on March 5th; essentially, it was for non-Jews to practice Sabbath in their own way.

Because I read an article about the unplugging at 1 am on March 5th, I vowed to plug back in 1 am on March 6th. As soon as I read the article, I shared the link on Facebook, tweeted it then I turned off my computer.

Online researching

I spent three hours (or more) researching the international publishers for The Secret. What was particularly frustrating was that each website link to the other country was in a different language. How am I supposed to understand what means “publisher” in Danish, French, Korean, or Japanese? And the Japanese and Korean websites have characters that someone not familiar with the language can even guess!

Oh the fun things about being an intern. I do enjoy my internship because I get to read queries, reject authors, and be utilized. I want more to do because I do more; that’s all.

Distraction free writing tools

If you are like me, when you open a screen to write for an allotted amount of time, you find that you’ve pissed the time away surfing the web for something and nothing at the same time. And guess what? Then you do something else because your scheduled time has expired. At least, that’s what it feels like for me.

Below are great tools to help you keep on track whether online or off.

Freedom. This software can lock your internet for up to eight hours so you can get some work done. My memoir writing instructor first mentioned Freedom and I never used it until I found the software online. Apparently, the software was only available for Macs and now Windows users (like myself) have access to this. I have not used the software yet but writer friends have accomplished a lot using it. Oh and it’s free.

Write Or Die. This is a website (and can also be downloaded for a small fee for your computer) that provides you with options to choose how long you want to write and how many words you intend on producing. You write in a blank space once you plug in your numbers (30 minutes for 1,000 words) and you type away. I mostly utilized Write Or Die during the National Novel Writing Month for fulfilling daily word counts. It works! How does this help, you ask? When you stop typing, you either hear extremely irritating music (bad violin playing or Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”) or if you choose the Kamikaze Mode, your work starts erasing because you are not writing. When you are complete, you hear a trumpet and you have an option to save your work after you are done. There was something soothing and empowering about being focused on putting words on the screen until you were finished; I had tunnel vision with every session and I produced a great amount of material on Write or Die. Check it out.

For the distracted writers like myself that constantly find themselves resisting writing when there’s always something online to research, either of these options work. Mostly Freedom though.

Happy distraction free writing!