Write the night away, and dream the day away…

It’s that time of year again. When the days are getting longer, sunnier, and warmer, and all I want to do is roam, free as a bird, and take in the atmosphere of an approaching summer.

Then there are the exams. And essays. Those big bullies. They force me to remain inside, locked up in my room, or behind big glass windows in the library, laughing at me as I longingly look out on the sun-bathed city and harbour.

This year, another bully has joined the others. A bigger and badder bully than the rest. His name is Rugby World Cup. And he teases me with the prospect of drinking and partying all night long, and having a lazy as day the next day.

But my brain, bullied and beaten, recoils from its dark corner, and tells me that no matter how tempting it is to give in to the bullies’ taunts and bad influence, I must focus on my assignments first and foremost. And so I try to do that.

On the first day I wrote 1,100 words on a 2,500-2,800 word film essay. On the second day I added another 1,000 words. On the third day I decided to try a different approach and started all over again; 660 words on the third day. On the fourth day the New Zealand national rugby team, the All Blacks, were playing Australia in the world cup semi-final. Words written: 0. Beers consumed: roughly 7.

I can’t know the meaning of self-discipline unless I cave in once or twice, right?

On the fifth day, I woke up at 11am and then spent almost 4 hours reading Harry Potter. Word count so far: 281. On assignment: Zero.

Time to turn the day upside down and live out my fantasies while I’m awake and spend the dark hours writing without interruption…

Not amused

Really, I’m considering going back to Facebook. Not because I miss it or feel like I need to catch up with everyone. No, I need to find a way to temporarily stem this flow of creativity.

At the moment I come up with at least one original concept for a film every single day, each completely different from the other and with a complete story outline. Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely thrilled to know that I can be this creative, but it has revealed itself to me at such a bad time! I’m desperately trying to read a couple of hundred pages of philosophy every day, and I CAN’T GET THE STORIES OUT OF MY HEAD. It’s infuriating. If only I could keep it all bottled up somehow for another 4 days, and then release it, I would be stuck by the computer writing steadily for a couple of months.

At the moment I’m reading “Imagination and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature” by Emily Brady, and I’ve just read 5 lines in a paragraph on the third page about 60 times while in my mind I’ve been developing the latest story that appeared out of nowhere. It became so distracting that I had to pull out a notebook and quickly write something down, because it was the only outlet I could think of. Two words: Bad idea. Now I really can’t stop thinking about it, even after I filled two pages in the notebook in the equal number of minutes.

I’m desperately trying to focus on reading about how and why we should (or should we?) aesthetically appreciate nature – and I do find it interesting, really – but my mind is like an explotion of ideas at the moment, and no matter how hard I try to rein it in, it’s not working. Knuckling my forehead doesn’t help. Music doesn’t help. Writing notes doesn’t help. Telling my brain to focus certainly doesn’t help. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?

I do apologise for this seemingly desperate and slightly (OK, more than slightly) hysterical post, but I’m at a complete loss as to what to do. I cannot stress enough how important it is for me to study for this exam, and I’m quickly running out of time.

At least I know now that as long as I stay off Facebook, I’ll have no trouble making a living as a writer of some kind. The stories are coming at me at such an overwhelming rate it feels like I’m drowning in a world that isn’t even mine. I need a quiet place where it’s just me and something to write on/with, and I’ll produce anything you like. MY GOD, my head is about to explode.

Help.