So maybe this is what you do when you're a wannabe writer. It's a Saturday night, and you're in bed polishing your half finished stage play that you wrote years ago but could just never seem to finish, and you're saying to yourself, this dialogue is really, really bad.

The Zatoichi movie over so I can go back to writing my blog. I started on Chapter 12 today and I wrote about 1,300 words. Then I went to library and I borrowed two more John Grisham books and another Michael Crichton book, that I think was made into a movie I saw.

I'm going have to figure out what to tell my friend about her screenplay. I really need to read more screenplays, so I can tell what's good and what's not good. Her characters are so stereotypical and there's no, how do you "oomph" to her story. It's not that her story isn't good, it is, the story is just a little trite and it's really not that original although she does have a good angle. It's not a Hollywood movie, but more of a movie like you'd see on the Lifetime channel.

Still I envy her because I know she worked hard on her screenplay, and I'm jealous that she completed another one. And you know I would love to write a movie for the Lifetime channel. I'm going to try to more tonight.

I just found out my screenwriting software can be used to write stage plays. I didn't know this, and I have a play that's been sitting around that needs finishing. I just thought of a new way to write it as I walking back home today too. There's so much to write and there's never enough time.

I got kind of depressed on Wednesday, well more than a little depressed, and depression definitely sucks away my creative energy. But even though I woke up depressed again this morning, I made myself get up and out of the house to write. And once I was sitting at Starfbombs drinking my venti latte, I was fine.

I guess I need to stop calling the place Starfbombs since I write there a lot. I even took my new laptop with me and was typing away. I'm definitely loving my new laptop, and I'm glad I'm using it alot.

I went to Starfbombs to read a friend's screenplay and write. My friend told me it was a Bridget Jones type screenplay, but it really wasn't. The writer of Bridget Jones wrote Bridget tongue in cheek, and it was always a take off on "Pride and Prejudice". Bridget was always supposed to end up with Mr. Darcy, despite her quirkiness and her fat. My friend got the fatness and quirkiness of Bridget right, but the story ended up being more of a stereotypical feminist rant about leaving a marriage where you're not treated right and claiming your singlehood, which Bridget Jones was never about. The character resembles more the "Nurse Betty" or Geena Davis' character and marriage in "Thelma and Louise".

I don't know, I just couldn't relate to the woman. But then again I have a hard time relating to female characters who don't have fun in the sack, because thank god bad and depressing sex has never been something I've experienced in a long term relationship. But that's just me I think. Sex has always been fun for me and if it wasn't, I wouldn't be in the relationship in the first place. But I know my attitude towards sex is a little different than the average girl's.

I'm trying to watch "Zatoichi 8", and it's hard to write to wach a movie that's subutitled and write at the same time. So more later.

I learned this new kind of therapy technique over the weekend, and it's bringing up all kind of stuff. You know, one would think that if you've been in and out of therapy since you were 21 years of age (and yes I've been in therapy that long) you would have solved alot of the big emotional issues in your life. Apparently this is not the case.

I have stuff coming up now about my parents that I had no idea was in my subconscious programming and this stuff is huge!!! This stuff has been lodged in my brain since I was six years old. You would think after having spent thousand and thousands of dollars on therapy and growth and development courses that this stuff would have come up. I mean, it's like so major and it explains patterns that I've noticed in my life since 1998. I hate that it's taken what, seven plus years for me to figure it out. That is like so slow!

I just made one connection last night, and then everything else fell in place. I'm like what else is in that black hole of my subconscious that is ruling my life. I feel like I'm in the matrix and I've created this messed up world, and I want to start over and recreate everything. But first, I have to keep digging through my subconsious programming. I'm afraid to know what else has been there.

Here's a new technique that I received in a newsletter today about money. Get a money bill in a large denomination and hold it and see what comes up in your mind about having it and whatever else you have going on about money. Or, hold your paycheck and see what issues you have about your career. Or, write a huge, huge check to yourself and see what comes up about money and worthiness.

The mind is a wild thing, and it's amazing what kind of interesting ideas are knocking around in there, that support and don't support you.

So I made the mistake of reading a John Grisham book "The Summons" that someone had given to me, and now I'm hooked on reading all of his stuff. Grisham's books are great bus-reads. You can go through a book in 2-3 days, and they are fast reads and very entertaining. I read the "The Firm" a long time ago but wasn't that intrigued by Grisham, but I guess I'm hooked now. That same friend also gave me Grisham's book "The Testament", so I'm plowing my way through it.

It's got some sad but hilarious sections on how people think about money. I know you're not supposed to say this as as writer, but I would love to write books like Grisham. I know as a writer you're supposed to want to write the next great american novel and not the next great beach/bus read, but what if you can't? What if my level of writing is on the level of the next great beach/bus read? I don't care, I'm not fussy ... I just want my stories published, and hopefully lots and lots of people will want to read my stuff. I would love to be the kind of writer that makes the reader unable to put novel down until they get to the end. That would be cool!

Up very early again trying to write. Wow, I'm finished with chapter 11 of my Texas novel. Three more chapters and I'll be done. Chapter 12 is a full chapter and chapters 13 and 14 are more lke epilogoues for each character.

Maybe there is something to this getting up at 5 am every morning thing. I'm awake and I can write. I'm tired and it's a little difficult, but that's because I'm not using to getting up at this hour. I'm amazed though how my brain is still quite functional at this early hour.

So it's after 5:30 am and I'm and in bed typing on my laptop and trying to write. I hate this! But the words are coming, which is nice. One thing that I noticed that I thought was impossible. My wireless network is working even though my main computer is powered off. I thought my main computer had to be on for me to pick up any internet connection. I guess not. Wow, this is new. I guess this means I can surf the net without me having to turn on my main computer. This is good.

I'm in bed and writing on my laptop. On Monday I finished typing up the handwritten pieces for Texas novel. I didn't write on Tuesday or Wednesday and didn't get up early to write either. It's still dark at 5 am and I just couldn't deal with it. I'm so lazy about getting out of bed. It has to stop though. Although I like writing after work, it's just too easy to skip it and do other things. I have to try writing in the morning again. Then I'll get it done and I won't have to worry about trying to fit it in with the rest of my day. I'm just so not a morning person, but I guess I'm going to have try and become one.

All the writing books says that you should write in the morning before you're critical mind has a chance to activate and nag you about how horrible you write. I think I owe it to my writing career to become a morning writer.

Before the money seminar last night, I did get an idea for a comedy screenplay about a woman who is a money seminar junkie. I got the idea from Ed Norton and Helena Bohnam-Carter in the movie "Fight Club", who were support group junkies. That was funny how they kept running into each other.

My character is a money-seminar junkie who is still in sad financial shape after many years, but who luckily gets an idea to start a business and it becomes a success. The plot follows her from klutzy financial ditz to Wall Street loved CEO, to her falling in love with a loser gigolo and then about to lose her company until her best friend, another money seminar junkie, comes to her resuce. And as in any good Hollywood romantic comedy, she falls in love with the guy best friend and gets back her company.

That's writing isn't it? I haven't had an idea for a screenplay that I've liked in a long time. It thihk this would be a fun one to write, once I get around to it.

Tonight I wrote 781 words for my Texas novel. It's not much, but it took to an hour to get it out even with me typing. Even if I just wrote 500-700 words a day, I would be done with novel sooner than the rate I'm writing it now.

I have the urge to get back to my baseball screenplay and to keep writing my timelines novel, but I'd like to fnish the Texas novel first because I'm so close to the end. It will be the first novel I've ever finished, and I think this accomplishment will be so amazing for me.

One thing in the money seminar that I got was that completion was very important. I have so many half finished stories. I need to just sit down and finish them even thoug they suck just to finish them. I think the energy of those completions will do wonder for my writing self-esteem. I still have two unfinished novels that I want to complete as well. There's just so many things to write and complete, but I'm having the hardest time finding the motivation to just sit down and write. I don't have blocks to writing, I have blocks to siting down and starting. How do you solve that problem easily?

I went to a seminar on money last night given by the Learning Annex, which I only attended because I received an email coupon to go to the seminar for only $20 when it would have normally cost $60. The seminar was actually quite good, and at one point the speaker asked the audience if any of us had made money in the last five years in California. No one raised their hand, and he said if we didn’t buy real estate we were fools because real estate has just skyrocketed in California over the last five years. He said we didn’t have to buy in the hyper-inflated real estate world of the San Francisco Bay Area, but could have bought property elsewhere in California and we still would have made money.

I’ve been thinking about his question since then because of course like everyone else in the room last night, I felt totally stupid when he said that. But you know, the more I think about it the more I feel like I did make money in the last five years and that I’m in a much better financial position than I was in 2000.

First of all, I don’t own a house but I have a positive networth. I didn’t for a long time because I am a serious shopaholic and didn’t care too much about money thinking I was always going to earn it. It wasn’t until I saw the size of my credit card debts that I realized that I was in serious, serious trouble. Well, all that’s changed now. I will be pretty much debt free by the end of year. I will have paid off all my credit cards and my car as well.

The following incidents have helped me achieved positive networth.

1. I’ve always contributed to my company’s 401(k). Sometimes not very much, but I’ve always tried to have money taken out of my check and put into some kind of retirement savings. I did end up taking money out of my 401(k) at some point to pay off some of my debts, which was a big mistake because of the taxes I had to pay, but since then I’ve managed to build the amount back up to what it was before.

2. I moved my money out of the stock market and into money market funds before the market crash in 2001. I probably moved my money out a little too quickly and missed out on some of the market’s bigger gains, but at least my 401(k) didn’t turn into a 101(k).

3. Before the stock market crash, I had some good stock tips and doubled the amount in my 401(k). So I did make money in the stock market boom, which I managed to keep.

4. I was never unemployed during the economic downturn that hit the SF Bay Area after the stock market crash. I was lucky, very lucky and blessed.

5. I forced myself to curb my freespending ways, still a horrifying daily, daily struggle, and made my instead save money. I have money taken out of my check which goes straight into savings. This method really, really works. If it doesn’t hit my checking account it’s like it’s not there.

6. I earn more money now than I ever have in my whole life. My salary increased by 23% since 2000, but this is also my third job since then. The moving around for more money thing really does work.

And it’s not like I didn’t spend any money either. I moved to an apartment that doubled my rent in 2002, and I bought a new car in 2000.

And now I’m like, okay, maybe I’m not financially where I want to be but I’ve made darn good progress in these last five years when I had pretty much negative networth at the start of the millenium.

Yes, I’m still around. I just haven’t felt like writing. I’m having fun with my new laptop. I finished typing up all my handwritten pages of my Texas novel using my new laptop, and that’s been fun. I went to CompUSA yesterday to try to find a laptop sleeve for it, and ended up buying a Mac laptop sleeve because it was the only one I liked. I think I remember seeing laptop sleeves at the SFMOMA store, so I’ll have to make a trip over to there to see if I can find a better sleeve. I just want to find something to cover the laptop when I’m carrying it in my backpack or another bag so it doesn’t get scratched.

What else? I got an A on my Greek Drama midterm. We have to do a 8-10 page paper and I received approval to compare Eugene O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra” to Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Supposedly O’Neill based this play on Aeschylus’ trilogy and my paper will compare and contrast the two plays. I haven’t read this play since junior high and don’t remember any of it, and I’m looking forward to rediscovering it. I fell in love with Eugene O’Neill’s play “Long Days Journey into Night” when I had to do a book report on a play, and ended up reading most of his works. But like I said it’s been awhile. I wonder if I’ll still love O’Neill as much now that I’m older.

I’ve been reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” this week, and having only ever seen most of the movies, it’s been fascinating to read the book. The book consists of letters from the captain of the boat in the North Pole to his sister. The sea captain picks up Frankenstein and ends up telling the man his life story. The captain then faithfully writes to his sister all that he’s been told, and Frankenstein even edits the letters to make sure the captain has his story right.

I think Kenneth Branagh’s portrayal of Frankenstein comes the closest to the person written about in the book, but his movie plot version altered the book’s plot in a big way although much of the important plot points were kept in place. No other Frankenstein movie comes to mind except for Gene Wilder’s version. The creature in Mary Shelley’s version is much more menacing and more evil in that 19th century romantic sort of way.

I wonder if the Dracula movies were based on any novels. I’ll have to investigate because that genre of horror movies is a particular favourite of mine.

I typed up 8.5 pages last night, and 2.5 pages this afternoon. I might type up more later when I watch the new NBC series "Revelations". It was on Bravo at 6 pm, and I watched and was very intrigued. It's an interesting series to say the least.

I'm going to try to get up at 5 am to write on the weekdays. I'm not a morning person, but everyone says that writing in the morning is the best. I'm going to have to change my sleeping habits and go to bed between 10-11 pm. What an early time to go to bed. I've been going to between midnight and 12:30 am for years. I need my 6.5 hours of sleep to function, so if I want to get up at 5 am I have to be in bed earlier. Wow! Talk about a change in lifestyle. What a frickin' drag!

I can write at night after work, but it's too easy to have that time gobbled up by other things. I have to think how this is going to affect my workouts. I haven't been going to the gym at all, and I feel guilty because I do pay a monthly fee for it. It's better to go to the guy after 7 pm during the week when it's not crowded. 5 pm to 7pm is the gym's crowded time.

I guess I could still go to a coffee shop and write more or read or something. I haven't decided if I should continue to write by hand or write by computer. If I write by hand, I could spend the time after work typing up what I've written. Or there's always editing. I could be editing after work instead of writing, since editing is a different skill set than writing.

I'm not going to start taking my laptop to work with me just yet. Maybe someday, but not now.

I'm typing up this message in my living room, and typing up pages from the Texas novel on my new laptop and listening to some super storm movie on the SciFi channel. It's kind of cool to be transcribing my handwritten chapters while listening to the tv at the same time. It's so relaxing to sit in my chair and type into my laptop and half listen to a movie on tv. This is so much better than sitting at my desk.

I think I might go to the coffee shop later. I want to finish typing up all my handwritten pages before I start writing again. The next movie is about earthquake aftershocks in New York. I hate earthquake aftershocks. For two years after the big earthquake here, everytime the ground shook I thought it was an earthquake aftershock. I remember being at a friend's tennis court in New York (how rich are you when you have a tennis court as part of your backyard) and feeling the ground shake and thinking it was an aftershock. When I mentioned it to my friend, she laughed and said it was probably just a heavy truck driving by.

I was walking through Golden Gate Park and walking along Stow Lake, when I saw all these people with telescopes and cameras watching these two birds in the tree. There was a woman with a table selling cards, and when I stopped to check it out I found out that we were all watching a blue heron couple mating in the trees.

I heard someone say, "I think she was on top of him." The woman at the table explained that the blue heron couple had produced 71 babies and have been mating in Golden Gate Park for years. It was so cool to watch that I bought a card of the blue heron couple as a souveneir.

It was so beautiful and sunny day in the park, even though it was a little chilly at 60 degreees. I love living next to Golden Gate Park. It's like having this amazing nature preserve as my backyard.

What I will probably end up doing is disabling my wireless network until I want to surf the net from my laptop. Then I'll just reconnect it. It's kind of a pain, but I don't plan to surf the net from laptop very often. At least I hope I don't end up doing that. Now if I can just figure out how to connect my printers wirelessly I'll be happy.

I did end up buying a memory stick, and plan to transport files back and forth between my laptop and my pc that way. I'll have to see how tht works.

So I'm posting from my new laptop, which I just connected wirelessly to my other computer. I wasn't going to do that, but I didn't want to spend another $50 for a phoneline adapter. My wireless network is secure and I don't think anyone else can get in it. I can see other people's wireless networks, and some people do leave them open.

I'll probably end up buying a phoneline adapter because I'm not all that comfortable with connecting wirelessly to my other pc, but at least I did it. YEAH ME!

So I just contacted Dell and I can return my system and reorder a new system with my company discount, but I have to pay to ship the laptop back. And with all the shipping costs involved, I'll end up saving only $40 and I don't know about you, but saving $40 is so not worth the hassle of shipping the system back and reordering and waiting again.

Unless Dell gives even a bigger discount in the next 21 days, then I'll probably end up keeping the laptop I bought.

I'm bummed at myself. I didn't know my company had a program with Dell so employees could buy computers. So I tortured myself and priced the system I just bought, and if I had used the company discount I would have saved myself about $85.

I wonder if I can call Dell and let them know I didn't know about the company discount.

I’ve never been much of a shoe person. I’ve always bought shoes on sale and wouldn’t spend more than $50. After one or two years, my shoes would either fall apart of I’d get bored of them and throw them out. The only time I was really into the quality and cost of my shoes was when I was running marathons. If you’re going to be running continuously for 26.2 miles, choice of footwear becomes a major, major issue.

But who cared about work shoes. I used to wear sneakers to work, and only wore my work shoes in my carpeted office and out to lunch on the street sometimes. Then I had that problem with my heels and had to start wearing very, very comfortable well built shoes that I seemed to only find from European manufacturers. And since wearing sneakers to work is like so last millenium, I wear my comfy, comfy european shoes all day along.

Well, my foot problem is gone now thanks in great part to $2,000 worth of acupuncture treatments but after a couple of years of wearing incredibly comfy shoes, it’s hard to go back to shoes that don’t feel comfortable to walk in all day.

But I now seem to be in a different shoe phase. I am now the proud owner of three pairs of shoes that cost each $300 to $400 retail, which I bought from Ebay. The comfort level is still there, but my shoes are now more stylish not to mention they just plain look more expensive than other shoes. And I only know this because I’ve starting looking at other people’s shoes and trying to guess how much they cost retail.

There is a world of difference between very expensive shoes and cheap shoes, and you can tell just by looking at the shoes. It’s such a weird thing to be aware of, but I am, and I don’t think I’m the only one who notices such things.

So I finally broke down and bought myself a laptop. I just purchased on Dell 700M, and bought myself a new printer/fax/scanner/copier as well. My poor printer although still working, it's an ancient HP Deskjet 722C, is on its last legs. Plus when I had printer/fax/scanner/copier for my work at home job, I really really got used to it. I liked being able to make copies and fax stuff.

I hope I'm doing the right thing. I hope it doesn't just become a toy that I will eventually get tired of playing with. I think I got a good deal though considering I bought a multi-function printer, a port replicator so I don't have to mess with plugging and unplugging wires, 60 gig rather than 40 gig, and a 128 MB memory stick and extra battery that I hope to God I will use.

I just wish it didn't have to cost so much money. That's the part I really, really hate, and wonder if it's worth it to buy new instead of used on Ebay or refurbished at the Dell Outlet.

I think I might be allergic to chocolate and if I am, I will be so bummed. I so love chocolate, but lately when I eat chocolate my mouth itches. I don't know if it's just my other allergies or if I'm truly allergy to chocolate.

I know when I'm stressed I crave chocolate like you wouldn't believe, like it's an addiction. Addictions to food are sometimes a sign of an allergy. Damn, I'll just be like my sister. She's allergic to fish and eats it anyway, and has a constant rash. I used to just lecture her about it, and now I'll be in the same boat if I find out I'm allergic to chocolate. I'll eat it anyway and have my mouth constantly itching, not mention be bloated like a whale for the rest of my life.

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

I am saddened by the Pope's death. He was a good man and tried to do much for the Catholic Church. Although I disagreed with many of his views, I admired his tenacity for life and how much he kept holding on despite his failing health in the last several years.