I Am Slowly Going Crazy....

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Crazy going slowly am I.

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Do you remember that song from The Elephant Show, with Sharon, Lois and Bram (who I used to think's name was Bran, and so I never liked him, because there's nothing appealing about bran to a 5 year old)?

Anyhow, even if you don't know the song, it totally describes the way I'm feeling lately... or at least for the last two days.

Each morning I wake up with this insane sense of false hope. I smile to myself, thinking that we are one day closer to the finish line for this damn draft... which I suppose we are... but then again, each day never ends quite as celebratory as I hope it to. Instead we're always 20 or 30 pages behind what I was anticipating.

It's funny (well, not really...) how you can read something you wrote and felt good about only a few days earlier, and then suddenly realize what a total piece of shit it is. (Kinda the way I'm feeling now as I proof this blog post and find that half my sentences make absolutely no sense. Forgive me, for clearly I've lost my mind... or at least my ability to communicate.)

Le sigh.

Jim hit the nail on the head when he said that we're currently working under the pressure of time (with our 'real' deadline looming - today was our self-imposed deadline and there's just no friggin' way...), the pressure of length (to cut off at least another 4 pages), and the pressure of making it the best that it can possibly be (since this is supposed to be our 'casting' script). Even just one of those pressures is enough to make a person stressed out.... but all three? Jesus H. Christ!

And where oh where prey tell, do the hours in the day go?

First, I'm having coffee n' cereal with Regis and Kelly, and the next thing I know it's 10:30 at night and we are still. not. done. It's like there's some sort of strange time warp black hole thing occurs the moment we put the blanket across our legs and the mini ironing board across our laps. 

Just to explain, we use the mini ironing board so we have an even surface to share the laptop on during this final working-together-polishing-phase. We are quite a sight to behold, I'm sure... sitting in lingerie and/or pajamas beneath a blanket and ironing board, with our cats trying to snuggle in as close as they possibly can. I wanted to take a picture today, but Jim wouldn't let me. I wonder why? Ha.

Anyhow, I know I shouldn't be complaining about this incredibly rare opportunity we've been blessed with. But I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that at least twice today when confronted with difficult scenes that took hours to resolve, for a super split nano-second, an exhausted little voice somewhere in the back of my mind whispered, "Just give up." 

Ha. Of course, that's absolutely not an option. And obviously the voice evaporated as quickly as it materialized. We just have to come to terms with the fact that this struggle is all a part of "The Dip". To quote Jim, who is always quoting "The Dip" (by Seth Godin), "The dip creates scarcity and scarcity creates value." 

The book also goes on to say, "Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most." Of course, it also says, "Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new." 

Given how far we've come and how quickly, I think I know which group we have the potential to belong to... but that still doesn't stop the very occasional voice from quietly taunting my poor tired brain. 

Then again, the fact that I'm even hearing these voices in the first place just goes to show that...

I am slowly going crazy.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Switch!

Crazy going slowly am I.

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Switch!