I finally started reading "A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. I couldn't help myself, but I had to read the last chapter to see how it ended. It's a bad habit I have. I wish I didn't because now I'm disappointed. Oh well. I think I would have been disappointed whether I read the ending or not.

In the screenwriting class I took a couple of weeks ago, the Hollywood guy said that most characters in movies are very unaware. I remember sitting there and thinking that movies must be like Oprah books then, because the character in her book pick are dreadfully unaware. The characters in these books are so unaware of the consequences of their actions that all I want to do is slap them and make them get into therapy.

I mean, not that I'm not that self aware myself, but honestly the people in some of the Oprah books I've read aren't even the kind of people who would watch Oprah. What's up with that?

I'm specifically thinking of the book "House of Sand and Fog". The woman in that book was so silly to me. I was so unsympathetic to her character, that I really did not care what happened to her. I only finished the book because I wanted to find out what would happen to the persian people.

I got the same reaction from reading "White Oleander". After awhile I was like when is this character going to get it? When is she going to watch Oprah or go to the library and borrow a self help book and read it and learn?

I have a feeling "A Thousand Acres" is an Oprah book,and I'm going to end up hating the characters. I don't know this for a fact, but I've got a bad feeling about it. I just don't like characters who aren't very smart or who don't make an effort to get it together and fight against doing stupid things.

I don't know, maybe because I so relate to them and can't admit that to myself or I really can't relate to them and can't even find compassion in my heart to feel sympathy for their plight. I need characters to fight a little against their worst impulses, or at the very least, think about it a little and feel some kind of remorse. And then if they need to, give into their worst impulses, but at least go into the situation with their eyes open just a little, instead of tightly closed.

I want them to be like moths drawn to the flame, trying to fight the flame, but drawn to it nonetheless, only to get burned and die. But I think I want character to be like moths, because that's how I sometimes feel about my life. I'm that moth, and I get drawn to the flame, and I get burned, only I don't die. I get bruised as all heck, but I don't die. Not yet anyway. I just get up and keep on flying, because what else if there to do but keep going on.