Beat the chicken so it will lay eggs faster

Now we all know that doesn't work. Logic prevails, but only so far. As the players involved change, expectations and need destroy logic. The higher up the food chain the more logic fails.

I see and hear them. Fumbling over descriptive words stripped to a minimalist state. Seeking that one word or phrase that explodes a world of images in the reader's mind. Laboring over structure and characterization. Hours. Days. Months. Sometimes years.

Now a call from the agent. They can't represent a writers who isn't producing. They can't keep them on the register if they're not bringing in money. These agents are suffering the consequences and don't like it. Pressure from above. They call the screenwriter and deliver veiled threats.

Let's all remember that fear stifles creativity. Fear stifles desire. Fear stifles the art end of anything. And now the writer is afraid that they won't make the grade. That they will lose their insurance through the WGA. That they will be dropped from the agency, confirmed when the lonely drum roll and flute dirge arrive as the background music to the rewrite notes.

Frustration and fear. The agent calls. They read the notes too. The freak out builds. Emotions escalate. There is no way you can write when you are fighting for your life.

Do I want to be a part of all this? If I want to see my work produced, I'll write for theater. Or sneak in the back door and write a book first and sell it to the people who want to find a screenwriter to flog. No wonder screenwriters are considered odd. Knowing what they willingly put up with qualifies them as dangerous social misfits.

My Curious Beta Life

My entire existence if Beta based. Here, try this and hey if it doesn't work out, thanks for playing. Say, how's that Beta liver working for ya? If I wait for everything to be out of Beta I'm the last on the continent to participate. Some people go to church but I subscribe to my faith in Beta. Beta builds faith. How can one be hopeless in a Beta-based world? I am hopeful every day when I awaken that everything I use that has the annoying "Beta Testing Version" discreetly imprinted below the title will work. You know that argument we just had? That was a Beta test. No we didn't get back together so I'm simply stating the program crashed and we will have to try again tomorrow so sit down. All this makes me want to have a kid and name him Congif.

Seat Saver In My Own Life

What is this, the Academy Awards? We drive west Los Angeles Sunday mid-morning looking for a breakfast place that doesn't have a wait and doesn't have nation-wide signage over the door, although scarily enough, those places seem to have the longest waits.

There was a line outside our usual place (location to remain anonymous) so we buzzed the neighborhoods checking out those lined up in other places. Too many kids is the most popular issue and return and write my name on the list at "our place."

Wait. Wait. Wait. Chilly. Wet. Kid alert! Finally a four-top becomes available and the waiter informs us we are welcome to sit, but if a larger party arrives prior to our food being served we would have to move. He says this with a sincere expression.

"We aren't table fillers until a better party comes along!" How unrelaxing is that? Eyeing every new party that arrives, wondering if this is the time we move. Is this the time we stand and let the grown-ups, the real movie stars, those with more power and prestige look at us with their opinionated eyes as we scatter, grabbing our belongings and shuffle off to Buffalo?

The waiter immediately moves on to the next party of two and they agree to take the table. We eye them like the prideless losers they are.

Two places at the counter open up but that's like trying to have a relaxing breakfast in the middle of a loud, busy kitchen run by strangers.

Finally a two-top. We sit and my friend can only obsess about why two lesbians were allowed to sit at an open four-top and we weren't. Why they received special dispensation. "Because they agreed to move!" That's not a difficult one, and his self-flagellation skids to a halt.

But just to show the waiter that we can't be manipulated, my friend declares he'd like to sit at the two-top next to us. He says it's because it is closer to the heater. I don't even see a heater and pick up my purse and move like the dutiful dining companion.

Living in LA (or at least I'm not wearing a Burkka)

To not acknolwedge how lucky we are to live in America is to prove our ignorance of the world. Okay, what's it like living in the paradise of southern California? The sun is out, the sky is blue and the first thing you notice is that LA is like walking into the Emerald City in the land of Oz. If NYC is black & white and Texas more sepia tones, LA blows your mind with the colorful flowers, green grasses and blue skies on idyllic days.

Then one day in January, February or March it rains and keeps raining. Rivers of water drain from the mountainsides carrying with them the dirt which closes all the roads. In some instances leaving no recourse but to take the long, two-hour way into town or stay at a hotel close to work. Then the Santa Anna winds blow in from the desert and some idiot tosses a cigarette or sparks from a vehicle ignite a field and now fires destroy homes and lives.

Okay, you'd bettter enjoy the sun while you can because "the big one" is on its way. Like insurgents, we don't know when or exactly where, but we have a pretty good idea it's a given. And LA. The airports, Longbeach Harbor, the unprotected shorelines. Too much area to watch. I know they are trying. I pray for them.

But I also believe one day in some way paradise will end. Okay, I'm walking and talking and driving and laughing and no one shoots at me because of my religeous beliefs or my heritage. No one drops bombs in my neighborhood or snipes at me from a rooftop. And because that is not happening I refuse to take on survivor guilt. The inequity of life is a good arguement for reincarnation. The arbitrariness just too painful.

Button Your Lip

You found me

Technorati Profile

Passive Income Streams and Other Myths

Do they exist? According to several email newsletters you can get rich through real estate and the stock market while you sleep. I am also drawn to the promise of "Write a Book in 28 Days." I subscribe to and read through many of these emails. Hoping. Praying something will strike me. Reach out and grab me. Force me to act upon it.

I start with real estate. Just a little rental where I can break even. Where I can use half my 401K for a down payment (and then pay myself back with interest with my after tax dollars ;-) Okay, I'm willing. I can't retire on what my 401K will be anyway. And what if the market drops or sucks or changes dramatically. Maybe now is the time to plop down that 50%.

So what does that get me in Los Angeles? Well, if I want a commute time to my day job of less than 2 hours I'd better look elsewhere. A 1/1 condo (that's without dirt, folks) for under $450,000 is impossible. As opposed to another market, let's say Texas, where that kind of money will buy more bedrooms and baths and land scenarios than are even offered in Los Angeles. But I don't live in Texas. And my first attempt at passive income screeches to a halt.

How clip-art opened the door to anti-depressants

Row upon row of inane images. Grotesque colors and shapes begging me to choose them. "Use me," they shout from their neat formations. That they don't play hard to get makes me hate them. Scooped up by wanna-be creatives and inserted into yet more clip-art templates.

I loath lack of creativity as much as I loath lack of talent. These thoughts feed my own sense of self loathing. One can't be master of everything. But to see clip-art on a website is a knife through my heart. For a venue as far reaching as the Internet, I want local color. I want what is in your heart and soul. What expresses you.

Clip-art stifles. Clip-art constricts the lines of that box around our brain from ever parting. Clip-art fills me with dread. Anyone that uses clip-art isn't someone I want to know. Isn't someone I find interesting. Because someone who takes from the masses to project their own sensibilities is just playing scrabble with the same known words, forming and reforming some tired old thing. Am I bitter? No, hungry. For something new.

Why Moises Seems So Happy

I see him. Sidewalks. Grocery stores. Big Lots. Target. A squat, happy nebula spinning around a solid core based on an attitude of gratitude and a sense of family. He doesn't care how fat he is. He loves the idea of sitting down to a great home-cooked meal. Extra cheese please. He doesn't fret his corpulent body into anorexia. Holding his kid's hand they cross the street, albeit one of the ugliest intersections in town at Rose and Lincoln. I see their happy laughing faces.

My therapist says there are people out there that get up and go to work at a normal 9-5 job. Then they actually come home, play with the kids and eat dinner. Only to cap off the night with a rousing two hours of television. And they are happy. I envy them. Their sense of community and history and shared struggles. Their laughter and joy. Their gleaming perfect white teeth.

Except for the teeth it's the life I had growing up. The green house with neat white trim. Wild fields to play in until dinner then back outside in the summers and in front of the television and fireplace in the winters. Back when it was impossible to visualize the end of summer vacations when school let out, and an all-nighter meant unable to sleep Christmas Eve knowing a fat, jolly man in a red suite would soon tip-toe into my bedroom, filling my stocking full of amazing little gifts that would keep me busy until mom and dad could get up.