A night in the head of Darlene

I mentioned in another post that I want to write more. Specifically I want to write every day. Here is some insight into that process for me.

Last Night:

6:45pm I found myself dying of boredom (one of the disadvantages of going to a morning church). I had just finished watching “Kathy Griffin: She’ll Cut a Bitch” on my Netflix (which was amazing) and I was staring down at an empty Sunday night and wondering if 6:45pm was too early to go to bed. It was then that I realized I could spend some time working on a screenplay I’ve been writing. I’m always saying I don’t have enough time and here I was with time. This was especially great because I’ve been feeling a wall with the story and I recently had a plot breakthrough.

One of my major struggles with writing is I keep everything in my head and never get it out so this was great. I have a hard time working at home so I started doing research on places nearby with free wifi. Coffee houses or restaurants. I didn’t really want to go to a coffee house because then if you need a refill you have to take your laptop and everything with you. The problem with restaurants is that you can’t plug your laptop in and mine has the battery life of about an hour right now so that was no good either.

7:00pm I realize I probably don’t want a place with free wifi because it will just distract me and I wouldn’t get anything done. So this opened up my options.

7:10pm As I think about it more I realize I don’t even need my laptop I can actually just write it down in a notebook analog style. The problem with this is that I don’t have any of the pens I like to write with so I decide to go to target. I also decide I need an idea book I can carry around with me. I have about 5 or 6 unused journals right now but I need a new one to start this new creativity wave. I decide to go to target and then start writing.

7:25pm I arrive at target and head straight to the stationary section. Well, straight through the women’s clothes section to the stationary section. I look around at their journals and I don’t see anything the right size or anything cute so I decide to go to Barnes & Noble and check there. I grab my pens and head toward the register.

7:35pm As I walk to the register I realize in order for an idea book to work I need to carry it around all the time which means using my purse more. My starting to look old and tore up purse. I obviously need a new purse so that I can carry around my idea book and begin writing more. So I head to the purse department and look around.

7:40pm As I peruse the purses I see the $1 sock section. I love $1 socks. And who doesn’t always need socks? So I grab 5 pairs and head back over to the purses where I see a purse for $30. That is more than I want to spend but its cute and it’s the only one I like. It’s really big though and it would have plenty of space for my idea book. Come to think of it I could probably fit my laptop in there too and I’ve been needing a new bag for that. So this will be a good investment. I buy the bag.

8:00pm I head over to Barnes & Noble and head straight to the journals. Well straight to the journals after I look around for a bit trying to find any calendars they have left. I really miss Paper calendars and I’ve wanted to buy one to put up at home. Then I can check things off and have a visual reminder of otherthings. It turns out they have no calendars left.

8:10pm God I love the journal section at Barnes & Noble. I love buying journals. I never fill them up but I do like owning them and looking at them. I start searching through the shelves trying to decide which journal represents my creativity and me. I’m drawn to a journal with owls on it and the pages are really cool and each one has this graphic-y drawing on it but it will be kind of hard to just write on and it won’t serve my purposes.

8:20pm I start to decide what exactly I want this journal to say about me.

Do I want a “green” recycled journal? They’re a little too big for me.

How about another cool graphic-y one? It’s too hard to write on the pages.

Do I want an ironic journal? (There are some great cheesy journals like the “I hope you Dance” Journal and one that says, “Eternity is forever and right now”) I really don’t want someone to think I really like the inspirational journal or the gaudy/ ugly “devotional journal” that is made out of rejected 70s wallpaper.

There are leather journals and journals with weird wood sticks and plain journals with nothing on them. There are too many options here and my journal must represent me completely.

8:45pm I decide to go with the first journal I found with the owls and hey it’s only $10.

8:50pm I decide I’m hungry so I need to get some food. I want Chinese food and the only place I like is Panda express so I head there. I hate going to mom and pop Chinese food places because whenever you go to bite into a piece of chicken you either bite into a huge chunk of fat or like a talon. I know major chains are more processed but that’s exactly what I like about them, the process of cutting off the fat and talons.

8:55pm I show up at Panda Express and get my food.

9:05pm Head home

9:20pm I show up at home and eat my dinner.

9:40pm Now that dinner is done I need to take all the contents from my old purse and transfer them to my new purse. I have a ton of crap and receipts in the old bag so I need to sort through what I need and what I don’t

9:50pm Now that that is done I realize I only have 10 minutes left before I need to be in bed so I head to the bathroom to get ready.

10:00pm 0 pages written


My Purse



My Pens



My Idea Book