It's my day off, and I intentionally deprived myself of a few hours of sleep last night in order to have more time to enjoy today. Well, it's 4pm and I haven't really done anything yet. I read a short story, meditated, and watched a bunch of videos on Youtube--this is not what I call productive.
Sometime last month I realized I wasn't writing anything good, and that the problem I had with my writing was my lacks of creativity. This prompted me to take a break from writing for a while so that I didn't keep having reasons to feel like a failure, and also to expand my knowledge of the world and enhance my creativity. I've been watching a lot of films and operas, and watching less TV. I've also been reading more non-fiction. The very act of doing something different alone should help me out with my writing.
Actually it was in September that I realized I needed to watch more films. Sometime in college I got really into TV shows, and ever since then I had been watching more and more. While it's fun to watch these shows, the fast-paced storytelling had massively shrunken my attention span, making it hard for me to sit still and watch a film, even a 90-minute one. I decided to force myself to watch at least four movies a month, and succeeded. The following month I watched five. And this month--it's only the 11th--and I have already watched four. I try to vary my choices based on genres and time periods, but mostly I gravitate toward films from the 60s, just because I like the style of filmmaking and acting of the time. I enjoy films a whole lot now. In fact, I don't even want to go through a whole day without watching one. And while watching a lot of TV makes me not want to read, watching films doesn't have the same effect.
I'm already aching to get back to doing some writing, but I'm gonna hold out a little longer. There is still a lot to learn.
