Day 1: Wednesday, 19 August 09 - Taking up the gauntlet

I have a friend that I’ve never met before. She’s a filmmaker polyglot living in New York with her dog. She likes music and reading and traveling the world. She looks sad in her photos, or fiercely introspective, except for that one where she is lit up and sitting in a director’s chair. She loved the movie ‘Julia and Julia’ and is busy writing a novel and screenplays and what not.

I’ve collected other friends like this on Facebook. People with whom I’ve networked because of a shared interest in something in particular or because we both know someone and it just seems to make sense that we should stay in touch. It is one of the things I love about Facebook - meeting people. From people I learn, I am inspired, I am entertained, and I am amused. And occasionally, I am challenged.

My New York friend with the dog up and decided today that she is going to do 365 days of writing (something she loves) and wrote ‘Join me’, which I took to be a challenge. In fact, it was an invitation, but that’s not really important. She wrote in her first blog entry, “So here I vow to write at least 500 words EVERY DAY for the next 365 days. That means I should be able to complete at least three new feature scripts. Not bad! Don't you love goals? I love goals!”

I know the question was rhetorical, but I must reply with an enthusiastic ‘Yes! Yes! I too love goals!’ Many times in the past I’ve sat at my desk and carefully figured out that if I could write x number of words each day I could finish x number of scripts each year. And I’m with her when she writes, “After all if I can practice Yoga every day than I can write every day.” Replace ‘Yoga’ with whatever and the logic stands. In my case, ‘Yoga’ might become ‘walking the dogs’ or ‘drinking my coffee’ or ‘making odd faces at myself in the mirror’. So I’d like to set the same goal for myself and blog each day at 500 words.

500 words should be easy. I Twitter or Facebook WELL in excess of 500 words each day. And my goal has always been to journal each day. I spent hundreds of dollars flying to Los Angeles last fall to attend the Creative Screenwriting conference so that I can be (hold on to your hat) a writer. So this is great inspiration and I’m going to go for it... Thanks to my big city friend on the east coast.

Today has been an interesting day. I started out in a bit of a funk, mostly due to feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of tasks I need to carry out to get my martial arts business off the ground, the work involved with my photography and the writing I need to do for my next short film (which I plan to shoot in Alaska this winter) and for my first feature attempt (which I will shoot in the Spring - God willing). I am also juggling a number of other items and it’s weighing on me. I’d also posted a quote from a former minister of health in the United Kingdom that generated a huge comment thread and the response, while fascinating, also wore on me. I wrote that the poem best expressing my mood today was Whitman’s ‘When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer’.

But a road run, some writing and reading, work on my future gym and good conversation helped turn things around. I also watched a documentary film by Antony Thomas called ‘Inside the Koran’. It’s a fairly comprehensive look at the Koran and at Islam in general - and it was fascinating. I recommend it. It helped me put much of what is happening in the world in context for me and it gave me a deeper appreciation for faith.

And now I close out the day by writing - thanks to some inspiration from the big apple - as it should be.

الله أَكْبَر