Writing Sabbatical: Day Three

Holy cow and a jumped up Jesus and beans I am having a real live Learning Experience folks. That is to say, my enthusiasm for getting things done has blinded me to something I already should have known and now I'm just clearing the mist from my eyes.

Basically, without the day job to force my mind off the noir treatment I have allowed it to rattle around in my head almost every minute of every day since Friday. I have pages of notes (satisfying) and nine tenths of the story plotted out (very satisfying) but keep finding myself staring holes in my notebook when trying to figure out that last tenth (agonizing). I set myself a deadline for "Some Time Tuesday", feeling it was realistic given the amount of time I had. Setting myself deadlines I know I can meet is something I felt I had a decent handle on. But what I didn't consider is the danger of burnout (frightening - okay I'll stop this) since I haven't had this much time to work non-stop on something since my last semester at Carleton.

So I've popped off what I have to my Mandy.com collaborator and decided to try a few things to rejuvenate.

• Talk through what I have so far with my friend who's coming over for dinner.
• Catch a film noir movie at the Bloor tonight.
• Wake up tomorrow and work on the web show or at least not the treatment for the first half of the day.
  

In the remaining time of this sabbatical I think I'm going to make a point never to spend a full day on something if my deadlines allow. Burn out is burn out, regardless of the precise route you take there.

Addendum: Oh man this kind of thing is scary if you think about it for even a nano-second.