I'm seeing Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme tonight. It should be fun, and I do love opera. I'm also having dinner at restaurant with a friend beforehand, but I'm going to be good and will try not to eat too many fattening foods.

I stepped on the scale earlier this week, and I think I will be on track to lose 2 pounds, so I've got to keep the momentum of my weight loss going.

I've had a headache all day. It's probably stress from my screenplay. I rewrote the version 3 of the outline, and incorporated many of the suggestions from the screenwriting group last night.

I just have to resign myself to the fact, that it's going to take more than a few rewrites to get my screenplay to the point that I really like it. I think this is now the 7th draft outline I've written for it. I wrote 3 draft outlines prior to the first original draft screenplay. And that first draft was really the fourth outline because the story changed as I was writing it.

So now I'm on third draft outline again, and the second draft of the screenplay will probably be the 8th outline. Rewriting is just wild, really wild, and so damned time consuming and hard, hard work. Big sigh!!! Gggrrrr!!!!

I apologize for whining about my writing so much. I'll figure it out. I'm a smart rat. I have amateur computer hack mentality. There isn't any system I can't figure out, so I'll apply my computer hack mentality to my screenplay.

I was reading the workbook from this seminar I took in May last night. That seminar had a whole section on the three blocks to enlightenment, which are.

1) boredom - comes from undirected attention
2) confusion - comes from not relating or not understanding (con - against, fusion - to be one)
3) paradox - comes from the conflict between two contraditory beliefs.

I'm definitely "confused" by the whole screenwriting process. The May seminar taught that the way out of confusion, was to pick one thing from the item that you're confused about, and focus on that. It's kind of like saying, you can understand the universe by looking at how one small thing relates to it. Or something like that. I don't have the workbook with me now, to get the right quote.

I need to pick one thing from screenplay, and understand the universe through it. My screenplay is about the parent/child relationship; this is the theme my screenplay is exploring. I think if I just focus on the parent/child relationship, I'll be able to find an ending that I'm happy with and is satisfying. I think I'm making my screenplay process too complicated. Storytelling is a simple process. I need to remember this. Nothing is more satisfying to me, than a simple story told very, very well. If I focus on what I really love about movies, I know I'll find the happy medium between what I want as an artist and what will satisfy a sophisticated movie going audience. Keeping in mind that I love Hollywood mainstream sappy happy movies and totally hate most anti-establishment independent films, I know I can find the happy medium between the two worlds. I've got to. This is the paradox I see of the screenwriting; to be mainstream and normal in what is basically an outlaw, radical and anti-establishment community.

I'm a writer, and I suppose by definition I'm anti-establishment. But in reality, I'm really not. I'm not the kind of writer who wants to break new ground, start a new genre, or push the envelope of creativity. That kind of writing is boring to me ultimately. I don't have the temperament to reinvent the wheel. I just want to tell a good story, and tell that story very, very well. Telling a story that is entertaining and interesting, that touches your heart is my ultimate goal. I just have to remember this truth about my writing, and let this truth guide my writing. All this other "stuff" I'm going through and I'm hearing is someone else's vision of movies, somebody else's truth, but it's not mine.

I attended a screenwriting group meeting tonight, and read my outline out loud for everyone. God, why oh why am I writing screenplays? They are so hard! They're so much harder to write than novels. I just don't think I think very visually or cinematically. I don't see action right away, or maybe I'm just being lazy and I think everyone is talky like me and just goes around and vomits their feelings all over the place. I don't know.

The structure is fine, the story is fine, it's my beginning and ending which suck! I think this is the reason I gave up writing in high school. I don't know how to end my stories. I'm an E(sometimes an I) NFJ on that Myers-Briggs test ! It's that J coming out. I like everything to end neatly. I like all my endings tied up. I don't like ambiguous endings. Ambiguous endings are disturbing, most of the time unless they're done really well.

I wish I was clever, I wish I was smarter, I wish I could figure out a way to end my stories in a good way, but I can't. I just have to wrap everything up in a neat package, tied with a pretty pink bow

I can't believe I'm making myself write a 110 screenplay, which is only going to be the second draft of the story, and then have it ready to send out for a contest on October 31. Aren't you supposed to send your final drafts to contests? Why am I sending out the second draft?

I'm nuts, completely nuts,l and my screenwriting teacher is nutty too for thinking I can do this. Damn!!! I"m freaking!!!! My acting teacher warned me that he thought my biggest weakness was my fear of failure. I was a bad actress because I couldn't let go on stage, that I was just too buttoned up, too damned WASPy like, that I couldn't just cry and show emotion on stage, that I was afraid of really letting go, that I thought too much, that I was terrified of failing. And you know, he was right. I FEAR FAILURE!!! Like doesn't everybody? Like DUH!!! What kind of deep thought is that? I fear failure.

I thought by writing I could get away from fear of failure, but here it is again. And when I wrote my 9/11 piece for SFGate and it made me cry to write and then read it, I thought I'd gotten over showing my emotions in my writing. But that damned failure thing is showing up again. What if I can't write a good ending? What if I write an ending that I hate, but everybody else likes. This is how it usually goes for me anyway. What I hate, everybody else likes. It's a pattern. It makes me feel crazy. It makes me feel like I don't know what the hell I'm doing writing?

When I listen to other people trying to come up with their stories, it amazes me, because stories come so easily for me. I'm also pretty darn good with structure too, it seems. It's the stupid other stuff like endings and actions in a film that drive me insane, and that's the part most people find easy. I'm so backwards about everything I do. I hate this, I totally hate this.

Can you tell I'm frustrated? My learning curve is so huge, it seems so unsurmountable to me right now.

I think I just need to sit down and pray about all of this. Maybe do something I did in my 20's when I was overly spiritual about everything, and just all my problems to God. Let him deal with this. He got me into this mess in the first place, so he'd better get me out. But then I'm afraid if I do this, what if it's been too long. What if I don't get an answer? Then what? Is this the part where you've fallen off the cliff and you're hitting everything along the way, so that by the time you hit bottom, you're so bruised from all the knocks, you're already dead? I feel like this right now. My faith is being tested, being tested big time, and I don't know how I'm going to come out on the other side.