I saw The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams at ACT on Thursday. What's so weird is that there was a loud bunch of older women in the section that I normally sit it in. That middle section of first balcony must be cursed. My section was quiet and it makes such a difference to my mood to have it be quiet and reflective and not like some Saturday at the local village market square. Is that snobby? Why do people have to be so noisy all the time. These women were older and white but god, they were so ghetto! I'm like hello, this isn't your stupid church social, it's the theatre and people want to read the program and be quiet before the play starts. You know these people are not from San Francisco but from some hick yahoo town up north like Napa, Sonoma or Santa Rosa.

I swear to god, it's true when they say that between LA and SF, it's Texas or some version of Tucky as in Kentucky. I've got to remember to change the rest of my season's tickets, so I don't have to sit with the church brigade for every play. There were three russian women sitting next to me and they were talking, but at least they were quiet and I couldn't understand a word they were saying. God, I am such a snob. ACT must be getting desperate to get people to buy their tickets since they're now selling to white ghetto church groups.

I've never seen The Glass Menagerie and I really enjoyed it. I think it's one of William's best plays. When you watch any of his plays, you see first had how many times he's been ripped off by other playwrights and in movies too. He had an opening scene where the character talks to audience and introduces the play. It's like voice overs in the beginning of movies. I've got a voice over in my screenplay. Thank you Tennessee Williams.

The actors playing the parts were very good, especially the mother and the daughter. Actually, I thought there were all quite good. I love how you see the bad parts and good parts of people in his plays. The characters are never all bad. They have their faults but as an audience you see that they're motivated by good intentions.

In acting class, I was taught that all characters want something and that something is usually love. A character will try anything they can to get that love, no matter how ridiculous it is. Tennessee Williams really shows you this in his play. I wonder if I will be ever be able to write great characters like he can. You can't hate the characters, you can try, but he makes it difficult, because they're so damned human.

And universal too. The mother character reminded me of my whiny mother. But aren't all mothers whiny? I also related to the shy freaked out sister character. I think I could have been her if circustances had turned out differently. Whose to say that I'm not her now, all freaked and shy?

I wrote 13 more pages of my screenplay and went from scene 12 to scene 17. I'm supposed to write 21 pages a week so I have 8 more pages to write. I'm seriously tempted to edit, but Julie said to just keep going and edit later. I dare not tell her I write directly by computer. She's a big believer in writing by hand. Most people freak out when I tell them I free write on computer. There is something to be said to writing by hand and I know that. I don't censor myself as much when I write by hand and the words come out faster.

But screenwriting is so format driven that it's easier for me write on my computer than it would be to write by hand and then transcribe and type in later. I went to Borders on Union Square before the play on Thursday to work on the outline of my screenplay. I've changed my outline so many tiimes that I needed to redo my the stickies for my movie. I bought some coffee and sat down and noticed there was a girl in front of me with a beat sheet with her stickies. She was writing her screenplay in Final Draft on a Mac, I think.

It was so strange to see someone else working on a screenplay too and at a place like Borders. I think I might go there and write at night. The cafe is not crowded and if you're lucky, like I was that night, you can sit by one of the windows and look out on Union Square. It's very cool.

That woman's beat sheet and stickies looked so neat. My beat sheet is so messy and full of stickies with my chicken scratch hand writing. Screenwriting is worse or just as worse as acting. Everyone wants to do it. Everyone except me.

Honestly, I think I like writing stories better. I like the visualness of screenwriting. I like how a picture tells a thousand words but because it's visual, you have to assume that your audience knows exactly what you're trying to do. If you've ever read a bunch of movie reviews for the same movie, you know that everyone interprets scenes very differently. As a screenwriter, you have to acceptt that. Not that the same thing doesn't happen in written stories either, but in movies there's more room for ambiguity. I don't know if I like that.

I'm probably the only person in my screenplay class who doesn't want to be a screenplay writer and would rather be a short story writer or a novelist. But then again, I was the only person in my acting class who didn't want to be actor. It's my karma.

But I'm committed to finishing and editing this screenplay and sending it off to be registered. I'm sure it will just wallow away in the script files, but at least I can say I wrote one and I registered it. And that's what important to me right now.

My children's book Missy Dreams of Duck, keeps replaying in my head. I came up with more scenes for the story too. Maybe this means it's ready to be written down. This is going to be a cool story. A young girl is unhappy and wants to run away from home. She wakes up and finds out she's become a duck. How cool is that. Ducks are my favorite creatures. It will be a riot to create a duck world or rather a child's dreams of a duck world, because in the end, my character wakes up and find out it was all a dream. There's a alot of freedom in creating a dreamy duck world. My duckies will talk like humans and behave like humans. In fact, duck society will closely mimic human society with a few exceptions of course for duck species behavior.

You can be so much more imaginative when you write children's and fantasy books. I won't have to agonize about writing character that are so human, you relate. Maybe Tennessee Williams did that easily, but I can't and I don't know if I'll ever be able to. I mean, Tennessee Willaims was a genius. How am I going to write characters as well as he did. I think it's impossible really. Sometimes, I don't know why I even try.

His characters were so multidimensional. They were so human with faults and failings and good qualities all mixed into very messed up people. You alternately despise and relate to all his characters. He had such a gift. And me, what do I have. Just voices in my head that tell me stories, just stories lines that play in my head like movies sometimes. How will I every measure up to him and his portrayal of humanity?