I've read way too much self-help crapola. It's making me think that everything I write has to have some sort of 'You Go Girl' message...kind of depressing.

I really don't think Shakespeare ever felt obligated to shape his writing around the self-empowerment of his audience. If Hamlet went to therapy and healed from the shame of his Oedipal longings, forgave his step-father, and created a mutual "containing" relationship with Ophelia, would we really give a shit?

Really, where would the canon of literature be if writers historically felt compelled to make sure all their works were uplifting, heartening, and directed towards the goal of "healing"? If Jay Gatsby faced the (obvious) neglect by his mother (why else would he find Daisy hot?) and Ernest Hemingway joined AA (and a few other 12-step programs) and Virginia Woolf watched The Secret and practiced the Law of Attraction, and Emily Dickenson took meds for her agoraphobia...what would we do for that hour in high school (YouTube Studies)?!

I'm kind of worried about pursuing a career as a book writer as I'm worried that nobody ('cept Oprah) reads anymore (according to a New Yorker article it's on the decline). What if reading is becoming some kind of twentieth century past time, like listening to the phonograph or telling fireside stories?

Just for today, I can have a writing depression.

Ever since I've begun writing "seriously," (anything other than blogging) life has become one gigantic search for a distraction. The following are my favorites time-wasting distractions:

1) Neflix (.75 hours a day) - The goal is to create a nurturing diversity of order in the infamous "queue." Ideally, my "Netflix" arrivals come in the following order 1) Blockbuster (Live Free or Die Hard, etc.), 2) Old Movie That Any Well Rounded Liberal Artsy Person Should Have Seen, But I For Some Reason Haven't (The Maltese Falcon, Ben Hur...the list is endless), Depressing Documentary About This Hypocritical Country (Sicko), Foreign Film That My American Ignorance Makes Me Resist Watching (The Lives of Others), and 70's/80's Movie That I Haven't Seen For At Least A Decade (9 to 5, Ordinary People, Kramer vs. Kramer...I relate so much to the latter two films that it's almost like watching a home movie).

2) Cleaning (.5 hours)- I think I've covered this territory. In short, I hate dirt.

3) Making coffee (1.5 hours)- Now that I have a grinder this daily ritual has become a full production. Add to that the fact that I have begun inviting my also unemployed (or between gigs) neighbor to get caffeinated with me, and we have a full hour and a half of time alloted to drinking coffee and talking politics (presidential and apartment), beauty products, and the state of the mail delivery (our mailwoman hates us).

4) Cooking (1 hour)- My mother gave me a crockpot for Christmas, and so I've really had no choice but to start using it. After finding a few recipes on the Internet, I put it to work making chicken soup while I went to yoga and spent the entire time fretting over the first ever crockpot cooking explosion (I have some control issues).

5) Social Networking (.5 hours) - This has come down quite a bit thanks to the fact that a whole slew of people migrated to Facebook which I can't for the life of me seem to be able to figure out. I only check MySpace to change my mood status from Jedi to Grateful to Virginal to Voluminous...etc.

6) Writing (????) - Somehow, between all of the above, some writing happens.

Just for today, I can be distracted.

What the hell was I jabbering about? Whatever, I meant to say, didn't come out right due to illness, Benadryl, and cabin fever. I tried to fix it, but again, I apologize for writing blogs that make no sense (not that I usually make sense, but at least I put effort into it). I, really, should not be allowed to blog while in the following conditions:

1) Intoxicated (figured that one out over the holidays)
2) Sick (the blood of a toad...WTF?)
3) Happy (usually, this is when blogging is least interesting to me, anyway...hate to break it, but happiness is death to creativity)

The best time to blog is at 3:00 pm (the hardest time of day according to some psychic lady I once met) while slightly-depressed, seriously annoyed, with a little caffeine and under the pressure to either be somewhere else or do something else for which there will be some "shame triggering" consequences.

Too much depression and blogging, like everything, seems pointless. Too much happiness and not only do I have not desire to blog, nothing funny to say, but my edit function dissolves and I'm end up writing impassioned not-researched-at-all opinions on things I know a scanty bit about because I overheard someone in line at the movie theater talk about it (I was an English major, so maybe I know something about England before 1800...). Apparently, if I'm sick I just sound like a lunatic.

Just for today, I can blog in the right condition.

The days are flying by (could have something to do with the fact that I wake up at 11:00).

I've been working really hard on my book proposal, and it's sucked out some of my blogging juice.

Reading "Into Thin Air," a book about psycho mountain climbers (not to judge or anything), has got me thinking about the western culture of accomplishment. Is it sheer ego that makes Man or Woman (why do I sound like I'm talking about cave men?) conquer nature, build skyscrapers or plaster their soul via a blog onto cyberspace? Or is there something endemic to human nature that propels us to challenge ourselves?

Not working a Real Job, writing everyday, living in a constant state of uncertainty (which, to be honest, seems to have been the case for my entire adult life) I feel as if I'm functioning at the high altitudes of Life. I'm climbing the proverbial mountain of Creative Aspirations (is this an annoying metaphor?), and while I can feel exhilarated by my efforts, I'm also disoriented, lonely, and a little scared. If my blood pressure isn't increasing, my finances surely aren't. It's a situation that tests the limits of my patience, faith, and determination.

Seriously, if I met the love of my life, I wouldn't give a shit. But relegated to the single life, all I can do is climb mountains. Besides, I'm beginning to wonder if what I want in a relationship only exists in John Hughes 80's movies..(very embarrassing).

(Giant sigh).

Just for today, I can climb mountains.

Last night, I had a drink with High Powered Married Couple. While HPMC Wife and I chatted about our high school friends, HPMC Husband read my blog on his blackberry. After reading my blog, HPMC Husband suggested that I incorporate more personal dirt (or "soft core porn," in his words) to make my blog more titillating and interesting (to him).

Little does he know that as it stands, my blog is the kiss of death for my personal life. What guy in his right mind wants to date a woman with the compulsive need to publish every amusing anecdote from any part of life, with or without the knowledge or consent of said participants (although, to my credit, everyone is anonymous).

I'm already working with an addiction to salsa dancing (who wants to date a woman who presses up to a variety of men several nights a week?), am 36, and the recent discovery that I don't actually like cooking (unless you consider making coffee to be cooking).

So whatever restraint that I manage to exhibit in my blog, all in the name of preserving whatever is left of my dignity, as well as some shred of hope for a relationship with a man who isn't a sadist or a masochist, must be supported!

Just for today, I can hear feedback on my blog.

I tried going to the Santa Monica public library to write because I needed to check out some books anyway and I thought it would be a nice change of pace from Coffee Shop Land. "What's wrong with embracing a public institution?!" I thought. "Do we all have to be snooty little coffee shop dwellers?"

However, the Homeless Lady asking for change put the first crimp in my idealized plans for the perfect Library Writing Day. The other problem with the library, I found, is that you don't have Journey and Aerosmith playing in the background...

So, I drove myself back to Coffee Shop Land with all the Screenwriters and Snooty Coffee Shop Dwellers at the twilight hour of emptiness (5:00 pm...coffee shop chill time). However, for some reason I've been flogged with the worst of the 80's (no, I don't think Journey and Aerosmith were the worst of the 80's...is that a problem?!), Pat Benatar's "Treat Me Right," and, yes, Starship's "We Built This City On Rock And Roll"...

...am I being punished for not giving the Homeless Lady my change?

Just for today, I can write to 80's music.

I'm back in Coffee Shop Land, listening to Journey and Kool and the Gang, as well as to Loud Screenwriter discussing his character's arc in the third act, and his recovery from a gambling addiction (not the characters', but his own personal addiction). The guy is sitting right behind me, but I'm sure if I were on the other side of the room, I'd still know all of this.

I had taken some space from this place because I was tired of coming home smelling like a grilled cheese sandwich, not to mention the assault of personal information volunteered in high volume by Loud Screenwriter People. [While I know I have no right to criticize the quirks of writers as they are my peeps, and I'm surely as weird as the most disheveled of them (though, I hide it much better), there's only so much I can tolerate before I get jugemental.] However, having sampled coffee shops throughout West Los Angeles I have found Coffee Shop Land home to the hardest working people and coffee drinkers in Los Angeles. In the end, it was the strong, if not loud, work ethic, that brought me back for inspiration as I trudge along this godforsaken lonely path (at least project managers get to talk to programmers).

Just for today, I can work around loud people.

I've been putting so much pressure on myself to finish this book proposal before I'm destitute and homeless, that my blog has kind of suffered. Not that it shines under normal conditions, but at least it's spell-checked.

When I told my friend that I was "going for broke" with my writing, I didn't realize how literally I was speaking. Why does life cost so much money? I can't even drive by a Target without dropping $50.

I'm starting to understand why writer's become alcoholics. Actually, I understand why any living person becomes an alcoholic, but writer's more so. There's only so much time anyone can spend examining their thoughts and words before some kind of internal combustion process starts to take place. Writing is definitely a neurotic activity and not something anyone should undertake without the distant hope of financial reward. At least math problems have one answer.

Just for today, I can examine my imploding brain.

I had to leave Coffee Shop Land. It was getting to the point where I was afraid to look up from my computer for fear that some Coffee Shop Weirdo would blaze his eyes into my face and say, "Whatcha writing?!"

"Because they see me all the time, they think I'm one of them," I told my friend.

I'm not saying that I'm not a social misfit, but I'm one with goals. If I'm going to be in the company of lost souls, I may as well go somewhere that doesn't leave me smelling like a grilled cheese sandwich. So I went to the public library, as I would prefer to be asked for money by a homeless woman wearing a blanket than conversation from Latte Heads.

Just for today, I'm a bitter ex-coffee shop dweller.

"Blogging is the death of books," said Editor Lady to me today.

(I won't get into the fact that she mentioned this to me after reading my book proposal).

While I understand what she meant, I say, rather, that blogging is the death of blogging. It seems to be the art form for the totally undisciplined and lazy...or maybe that's just me.

Even if I didn't blog, my ideas would still burst forth in a spastic-old-water-hose-with-holes-all-over kind of way, like the one in front of my building (I'm sure there's tons of sexual innuendo I could mine if I had more inclination..). Linear thinking is for people who don't read their Cosmo horoscopes or value the power of making a wish when the clock says 11:11 (you've got two chances a day).

My excuse was always that blogging was at least a form of "writing," but maybe that's starting to wear thin....God, I hope I write a book soon.

Just for today, I can continue writing my blog.

It's like sometime in August or September, I left my body and have been living on Planet Stress Case for the past three months. First, it was stress about not having a job and running out of money. Then, once I got a job, it became Holly Hunter stress (in Broadcast News). Job or no job, it's all boils down to me setting a timer for five minutes while I can cry like an eight-year-old.

However, somehow, over the past few weeks, I've been waking up to the fact that even though I'm living semi-large with via compulsive purchases that make sales people love me, on many levels, I'm living a life of not-so-quiet desperation (I whine a lot on my Facebook status).

It all comes down to loving and caring for the struggling stems and embers of my blog (and all the mixed metaphors that go with it).

Just for today, I recommit to my blog.

I've been humbled by my aimlessness. This was my non-productive day.

Wake up and feel confused and unclear about day. Drive to store to buy birthday gift. Stop by Gap to pick up perfume that you should have outgrown in 1998. Buy a belt you don't need for $4.99. Hate yourself for your Compulsive Unemployed Spending Habits while you drive to Non-Burnt Grilled Cheese Smelling Coffee Shop.

Curse LA while driving around Non-Burnt Grilled Cheese Sandwich Smelling Coffee Shop looking for parking. Fail to find parking space.

Curse LA while driving to Peete's. Park and walk inside Peete's and realize there's nowhere to sit.

Curse LA while driving to Coffee Bean. Find a parking space AND a place to sit and order iced cap. Leave after fifteen minutes when two weird guys sit a foot away and start yammering.

Go home to write. Look at feet and decide it's time to get a pedicure. Curse LA while driving five blocks to get pedicure. Curse feet for needing a pedicure every two weeks.

Come home with exfoliated french tipped feet. It's 6:30. Curse yourself for not getting it together.

Just for today, I can accept my non-productivity.

Went on a bike ride with my lovely friend today. After listening to me ramble on about my irritation with people who don't say "hi" to me she concurred that I have way too much time on my hands.

Today, I signed up to do some volunteer work.

Just for today, I can do something productive with my time.

Lately, I've been living this strange life, lately. Waking up at 10:00, wandering into a coffee shop, sitting there for three to four hours, and telling myself that I'm making progress.

The nice thing about the New Coffee Shop (the vibe of the old one changed) is that nobody looks too industrious. I mean, they look busy. But nobody looks like they're on their way to a Meeting. I can't go to Peete's because everyone is either writing Emile Hirsh's next project, or trying to pick each other up. At the New Coffee Shop it's all students and old men playing timed chess (love the old men playing chess).

Today, I ran into a Writer friend with whom I could discuss my woes. She gave me writing therapy for an hour.

"It's like being a labor," she said. "After women give birth they go into post-partum depression."

"Yeah, and then you've got placenta everywhere..." I added. "How do I know if I'm birthing a work of art, or am just pushing out a lot of amniotic fluid?"

Just for today, I can keep writing.

Writing is like giving birth. And while I've never birthed a child, I do know that following the infant comes a big pile of placenta (actually, I don't think it's a pile....but something not pretty). For me, having just finished my first draft, the placenta is an idea for a reality show.

I don't watch reality shows, but I do have ideas for them. Barring the possibility that I don't make millions on my reality show idea, or rent for that matter, in the next month, I am aware that it might be time to get a J.O.B.

I had an interview yesterday. Computer geeks, the smell of Panda Express take-out...I'm home again. I don't think I got the gig, but at least I know that so long as there's an Internet, I might be employable.

Just for today, it's time to make $.

I had this crazy idea about writing a book. Nobody talked me out of it, and so I got far enough along to send my manuscript, or a portion thereof, to book agents. I know from past experiences that rejection is part of life, even The Game of Life. (I always ended up with too many kids to fit in my car.) But rejection is especially a part of life focused on creative ventures.

But, nonetheless, when I began this highly disillusioning phase of the process, little did I know that I would have to subject myself to this kind of bullshit!

"Thanks for sending this my way. It’s a terrific concept. Well written and very funny. However, in the end, I just didn’t fall in love with it as much as I would have hoped."

Ouch. I've heard the same thing from guys I've dated. The old "You don't warrant enough love" excuse. However, unlike with romantic relationships in which I eventually discover that I just wasn't psycho enough to help them live out their fetish or fantasies (but crazy enough to try), the above rejection slices with a sushi blade straight through my heart. No, it's not that you couldn't put up with my cooking, obsessive compulsive cleaning habits, or my monthly crying sprees, you don't love my soul. Fucker.

Here's another gem:

"Thank you for sending your material. Considering your background and credentials, I really wanted to love this. It's a fun story, but I'm afraid I didn't connect with your writing voice..."

Just tell me you're not the right fit, not the right "match" for God's sakes (or any Match.com euphemisms for "I'm not into you"). In the real word if someone annoys you, you don't spell it out to them, you just say "I got plans."

Ok, here's one for the road.

"I just was not as captivated with your story as I thought I may have been from your query letter. I just felt for me it lacked a bit of depth. It’s something to think about."

Hmmmmm...what am I supposed to be thinking about? How not deep I am? How I spent two years writing something shallow and non-captivating?

A simple "No, thank you," would have sufficed from all three of the above. But if you're going to go further constructive feedback might be helpful. How about "more showing and less telling," as one agent suggested.

Just for today, I can live with rejection. (Because I have no choice).

My brain has been occupied by a new line of work and a recent emotional shit storm.

I predict clarity, a positive upturn, and a flurry of writing in the coming weeks. But for now, all I have are the ideas I had for blog entries over the past week.

1) The day last week when I ran into two people on separate occasions who are both friends with my close friend in New York. One was sitting next to me (actually, he was "posing" next to me) in yoga class. He claims we had once met and frightened me by knowing my name and vital statistics. Besides his friendship with our mutual friend, I also learned that he's about to move into a solar paneled house in the mountains, and seemed really bitter about the dating scene in LA (i.e., "single"). Boy, that would have been a great blog!

2) I have a friend who embraces political philosophy as her personal religion. She called my new line of work "Foucault-ian." Interesting idea. Not quite a blog entry.

3) People who stay stuck in the decade in which they felt the hottest. I'm still waiting for my decade.

4) A meditation on why people love to go to a beach front property on the 4th of July, drink lots of beer, and scream, "Woohoo!...Happy 4th of July!"

Just for today, I vow to start blogging regularly.

Giant sigh. Frozen waffles with honey. Disillusionment. (Beware: Self-pity blog approaching).

In the past three years, I went from young hopeful, aspiring writer, to bitter, jaded, I Don't Know What Anymore. Screenwriting and acting didn't do me in...I can live with a world that doesn't want to see "Angry Young Women," (my late twenties tribute to my relationship with my father) in celluloid (not to be confused with my cellulite, which the world also doesn't want to see). And I can live with the realization that I will never have a loud, emotional breakdown on stage because it feels creepy and weird and that that is a good reason not to pursue work in the thea-ta. However, of all the dysfunctional, People Who Need Therapy-ridden industries, it's the world of book publishing that turned the knife in my heart into a screwdriver, and sucked the young hope out of me with one of those dentist office suction machines. (More mixed metaphors...)

There's a reason I live in California. You can't argue with money, fame and Botox. They aren't personal, they don't judge or criticize, simply stand around to be admired. And you can't argue with computers and technology simply because most people don't know how ("You call that software?! I'll show you some code"). But no amount of Time Magazine covers will convince snooty book-reading people that your 700 page opus isn't merely a good way to make the step stool ladder a little higher. When you have a brain, and can articulate things, and a cultural education you can be caddy and cruel in a way that could never resonate when talking about Jennifer Aniston's personal life or Meg Ryan's plastic surgery.

I used to write movie reviews, but always felt that they merely reflected my own self-loathing. Now I blog, so it's all out in the open.

Another giant sigh!

Just for today, I am disillusioned.

I'm sort of having the opposite of writer's block. I don't know how to describe it. Writer's Diarrhea?...Breaking the Writer's Levees? They all sound bad. Writer's Unblock? Anyway, whatever it is I'm not messing with it. This stuff is sacred. If I could bottle it, I would be richer than Steve Jobs. However, clearly, the deluge is not pouring into my blog. My poor blog is the devoted wife who isn't getting any cuz daddy's busy with other thangs. Sorry, Blog!

Seriously, though, I have been trying to unclog the arteries for a long time now. Like any writer will tell you, you can't make The Muse appear by sheer will. For the sake of my own future, I'm going to list the things that I believe cure writer's block. This is for creative writing, but I think it works for any block around any creative work.

1) Someone once told me that if you want to get to the next place in your life embody you're worst fear about what other people think about you. "What if people think I'm a self-involved bitch?" And? "Am I a lazy, self-indulgent spoiled excuse for a grown up?" Yes, you are. So, go eat some chocolate Haagen-Dasz, fill out your unemployment check and sit down at the computer. You'll see the magic flow.

2) Slow down. There's nothing worse for writing than panic, traffic, caffeine induced stress. That was once my life. It produced a good income, lots of grey hairs, and a few blogs that almost got me fired.

3) Know that what you have to say is not of any real importance to the world. But neither is what anyone else has to say.

4) Remember that you're going to die. Sorry. I didn't invent death, but it is the ultimate deadline.

5) Eat avocados. Healthy fat.

Just for today, I have Writer's Diarrhea.

I have been feeling very anti-creative, lately. I just want to shop. Try on eye shadows at the MAC counter. Pretend I'm going to buy $100+ skin products. Browse through the sales rack at Anthropologie. Find hot guys hot. Work out like some obsessed body conscious skinny freak (without the skinny part). I want to be that lady. The one in the Lulullemon pants (yes, I'm judgmental about people who wear obsessed with overpriced yoga clothes), who goes to Pilates twice a week, gets a facial every month, and has never felt that pervasive emptiness for longer than a week or two. I believe those people exist (though maybe not). They take pleasure in organic, green, and beautiful places. They feel grief in the measure we were meant to feel it, and not like some creative freak who needs to spend her life savings writing plays, and books and going to therapy...

It's kind of nice to not feel sometimes. To stay skimming at the surface. To forget about my heart that gets broken, my passions that lead me nowhere, my curiosity about every character who walks into Peete's.....Who cares about writing? Understanding. Feeling...I just want some new clothes.

Just for today, I'm anti-creative.

I've been thinking a lot about writing and (the pointless) purpose of it. I've spent most of my adult life in front of a computer and, in my new line of work, I have hours, weeks, years ahead of me, all spent looking at a screen. Why would I possibly want to spend one more minute of my life staring at an empty blog post or a page, thinkgin I have to write another word? [I have heard of people writing with this tool called a "pen" on this flimsy material called "paper," but I'm not sure about that...] A person I'm related to once described creative writing as "self-masturbatory," but, if that's the case, what I want to know is, where's the orgasm?

But the truth is that while I'm a big coward when it comes to speaking my truth and weirdness (if you can ever articulate weirdness), I'm really happy to write about it. Especially the weirdness. When I look around, there are few brave souls willing to discuss or express all the #$@ issues, feelings, trauma of the human condition. I think the artist and writers inherent purpose and drive is to take all the caca doodie and put it out there in the form of something palatable (because who wants to eat caca?). And when said creative work out there, the community sort of oxygenates it and, gradually the wounds stop feeling like a cancer and more like a snake bite (I've never been bitten by a snake, but I imagine it hurts....I was going to say bee sting, or a spider sting, but those aren't really a big deal.] No when life bites, it's pretty bad. Pain, loss, hearbreak...it hurts like a mofo, it willl throw you out of commission, but the things is (and maybe this is a problem), it doesn't kill you. A snake could kill you, but how many people have been killed by a snake?

Boy, I don't know where this blog got off track.... The point is....

...Just for today, I'm still writing.

I recently organized a reading of my play. Two people fell asleep. I take full responsibility. My goal for the next reading is that only one person falls asleep.

Lofty dreams aside, I would rather stick needles in my eyes than keep re-writing. This always happens when I get too entrenched in a writing project...I eventually want to bail. Seriously, though, who am I kidding? When in life do I not want to bail? It's just easier to bail on something that garners no income and that the world could live without than say...I don't know...rent.

But what would F. Scott Fitzergald do? (Besides drink gin). What would Tennessee Williams do? (Besides drink gin) What would Shakespeare do? (Besides drink a pint of ale...no, seriously, though what the hell did Shakespeare drink?!.

What would fucking Madonna do? (Besides work out).

They would keep working.

Did Tennessee Williams ever say to himself, "Well, I know this Stanley Kowalski character and Blanche DuBois have some falling out...but I'm just so damn burned out of this story...how 'bout I have Stella just push Blanche in front of a speeding streetcar, and I call it a day?" Did F. Scott Fitzgerald ever say to himself, "Do I really need to make a statement on the loss of the American dream...would it kill anyone if Gatsby just cashed in his drug money, bought a yacht, and took off with Daisy to Mexico? " Did Shakespeare ever consider having Hamlet go to therapy get his shit together, kill his stepfather, and take his rightful place on the throne?

No....these writers stuck it out through the abyss because they wanted to unveil and expose the dark underpinnings of the collective unconscious. So what if they all drank themselves into a coma in the process? Who said that alcoholism doesn't yield anything positive?

Just for today, I'm inspired to continue writing.

Right before Thanksgiving I created a Facebook Fan page for my blog. Three weeks later, the number of people who "Like" it remains two (me and my mom).

I'm still not sure how this whole marketing thing works.

Just for today, I am grateful for my mom.

P.S. I did put the "Like" button on my page and am proud that 8 people (including myself) "Like" this blog.

Tonight, I signed up at the Open Mike of Yore (that means the past, I think). Located in a coffee shop that looks like the community room of a hippy Y-camp and feels like a homeless shelter (sorry, Unurban), but was the first home to those thoughts that bubble up and demand release (and later found them in my blog.) I didn't exactly hit a rhythm, but I got some laughs and survived. With the exception of one guy who didn't say anything for four minutes, the comics seemed to remain within the bounds of normal (in an emotionally unbalanced way) to slightly awkward.

However, back in the da-ey this open mike attracted a pretty scary lot. One guy, a large, heavy-set cab driver named Manuel frequently yelled and raged into the mike about the women in his life/cab/anything, but off-stage he seemed as deferential and vulnerable as a beaten down puppy. That's when I first realized that meaning of "stage pesona." The audiences usually consisted of about four comics, and someone trying to study. I often sweated bullets until they called my name and mumbled through a set with a subdued, low impact, performance style. Often my material veered towards self-deprecation, as that seemed to get the most response. Sometimes I hated myself for using self-hating material, and I've noticed that tendency with young female comics. But a joke is a joke, with or without social redemption, and, ultimately, I learned how to write one (I hope). However, today, I prefer a stand-up blog.

Just for today, I can attempt stand-up comedy.

I'm working with some very awesome people on my feature screenplay, "Stella's Search for Sanity," and having to share my creative "process" (random, disjointed ideas that I toss into a pot and call a "screenplay"). It's truly embarrassing to share the inside of my brain with another person. It's like going inside the possessed room in the movie "Poltergeist," the one with all the flying objects that occasionally came to the forefront. Am I saying that my brain is possessed? That would be more comforting.

Just for today, I can work with other people.

I have to write tonight. Park my ass in a chair. Do it. Write, Bitch!

I'm kidding. Not about having to write, but about this militaristic approach. It would send me to Facebook, Yogurtland, Nordstrom's (roughly, in that order) faster than I could type "procrastination."

I think it might work for dudes.

In "The War of Art," Steven Pressfield writes:

“The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.” (68)

I beg to differ.

Not that I don't find this attitude kind of hot in a Hemingway, alpha male, Daniel Craig kind of way. But dude's do things that don't occur to me...

Sure, you can approach the muse like a warrior. But a warrior is trained to kill. Why would you want to inflict violence on the Muse(s)? I prefer to give them space, let them appraoch me with ease and grace, like a butterfly. I don't want to scare them off, or make them think I'm trying to possess them, put them in a cage, make them sing for me. They know that can never happen. But first I have to chill out, get super cell-phone free, stop thinking about shoes, the user experience chaos of Facebook, that crack in my ceiling, and give them space, let them know I'm surrendering control.

Because without them (I think there's a posse) I will turn the creative dream into road kill.

Just for today, I respect the Muse(s).