Supplies demand

I'm drowning in office supplies.

The tide of writing paraphernalia has ebbed without flow consistently for about a year. This coincides, not uncoincidentally, with the advent of my writing ambitions.

In 2005 I toured with two cast members, who I often thought would make a fantastic animated duo. Thus, in a Sarasota hotel room at 4 AM Olly and Ody were born. It wasn't until my Christmas break in 2007 (If you're unemployed can you still call it a break?) that I sat down to actually start writing a first draft of a script based on these two characters.

Writing, as I'm sure do many passtimes/vocations, teaches you a great deal about yourself. It teaches you to brainstorm without limitations. It teaches you to trust your ideas while constantly striving for better ones. Writing can teach you about your voice and what's important to you.

These lessons are invaluable. But there is one lesson I've learned that will be the thorn in my creative side for the foreseeable future. And beyond that I'm sure but of course I can't see that far. That lesson is this:

NO AMOUNT OF OFFICE SUPPLIES CAN REPLACE DISCIPLINE, DILIGENCE AND DEDICATION.

My apartment looks like the supply closet at the Casa de Papel down the street. Stacks of unopened note cards. Cartons of pens. Rubber Bands. Tag Board. Each printable label earmarked for a storyboarding project that never got off the ground. A pile of unopened notebooks that once held the dreams of ideas coming too fast and furious to bother starting up my computer.

Why? Why am I living like the office pilferer? I've come to realize recently, perhaps even as recently as I'm typing this, that I've been using these trips to Staples as a crutch. Like a junkie to his dealer in need of escape, I've been traipsing across Manhattan whenever the need for creative productivity overwhelms me. Tomorrow I say. I'll get the supplies today and do the writing tomorrow.

It seems tomorrow comes so rarely.

A third draft of the film sits on my left, in desperate need of attention. On my right (and let's face it; on my left, behind me, in front of me, under the bed, in the closet and hidden in my underwear drawer) lie what holds me back. Post-its. White out. Scissors that make a scalloped edge. Is there no end to my self-destruction?!?!?

Tonight there is. I would love to give these errant office supplies the sendoff they deserve, but not knowing the bonfire laws in new york city nor the environmental effects of burning ink and plastic I think I will simply put them in the trash. Make that throw, heave and chuck them into the trash.

I would like to think I am one step closer to becoming the person I want to be. An hour of writing a day. That's my goal. I think I will save the tag board to make a calendar. Maybe I'll even save a red pen to make large X's through the days as I work toward my goal. Sure, it may be a little trite, a little '80's inspirational movie' but so be it.

And please, if you see in your neighborhood OfficeMax, do not hesitate to say: "Don't you think you've had enough? We're cutting you off Mr." Friends don't let friends put off writing.