There was an owl hooting outside my bathroom window this morning. The owl was so loud! Usually I hear crows cawing and it makes me happy because crows are my favorite birds, but this morning it was a noisy owl.

I looked up "owl" in my animal totem book, and the book said owls are messengers. When I was brushing my teeth, I came up a great idea to open my screenplay. The second draft opening of my screenplay has my baseball player dude guy getting into a tax in front of Pac Bell Park, and we see the taxi taking him from the high rise luxury of downtown San Francisco and the South of Market to the lower to middle class neighbourhood of the Outer Sunset. I wanted to show the difference between my baseball player dude's professional world and his family's world. Plus, I thought it would be so cool to have the opening credits rolling over scenic shots of San Francisco.

Originally, I had a voiceover as my opening scene. I love voiceovers in movies. So what if it's overdone and overplayed, it's a tried and true Hollywood storytelling device. American Beauty had a Kevin Spacey doing a voice over, and The Quiet American has Michael Caine doing a nice voiceover. A voiceover sets the mood and tone for the movie, gives you background information, and tells you right off what the main character is thinking.

My screenwriting teacher suggested that I take it out, saying that voiceovers were so overdone. Well, they're overdone because they work. Reluctantly I agreed, but only because I didn't want to fight with her on my opening scene.

I love how the movie "About Schmidt" opened. We see Jack Nicholson's character sitting in his empty highrise office, with all his stuff boxed up, and just waiting for the clock to get to 5 pm. It's a great metaphor for Nicholson's character thinking that life will begin again for him after retirement. The movie then goes on expose the lie of Nicholson's view.

This is my new idea for the opening for my movie. I’ll have the baseball player dude talk to the cab driver. Like maybe the cab driver recognizes him and says he was a famous local player. And then at the end of the conversation, the cab driver says something like the more things change, the more things stay the same” or something like the “the sunset never changes – it’s stuck in a time warp”.

The conversation with the cab driver will give the audience background on the player, and the last line once I figure it out, will set the tone for the movie. I think I like the cab driver guy saying "them frenchies think the more things change, the more they stay the same. Maybe they've got a point. The Sunset hasn't changed since you left it".

The rest of my movie will then explore whether the cab driver was right. Does your relationship with your parents change after you've left home and made a name for yourself? Or do you get stuck in a time warp once you enter your parents' house, and you replay over and over again the same fights you had with them as a child, only now you're an adult. And, if you take the question out wider can you escape your past, your roots, your socializations, can you forge a new life and identity for yourself once you leave home, or are you bound to end up like your parents no matter how hard you try. I mean, ending up like your parents is fine if they're great parents, but what if you had totally dysfunctional parents? Are you doomed to be as dysfunctional as your parents?

How Nathaniel Hawthorne huh? How biblical! The theme of the sins of the parents being passed down to the children from generation to generation. And will there be a "christ figure" in my screenplay, who will stop the cycle of sin and destruction, and lead the baseball player dude to redemption and a new life?

How Easter and Lenten of me. Well it is Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, the last call" before the expected reflection and abstinence of the Christian Lenten season.

It's interesting listening to the reasons why potential marriage partners on "Married by America" are being rejected the friends and family of the participants. I've heard some of these reasons before from boyfriends who broke up with me.

Some boyfriends have told me that I was too into my "career" and had too many outside interests like writing, and that they were afraid I would always be second in their life. They were right about this one, and I've had to really look at this one honestly.

Some boyfriends have said that I was too much into personal transformation and always changing, and that they were afraid that one day I would change so much that I would leave them. These guys were obviously too insecure to be with me. I'm very independent and into personal and spiritual growth, and some guys aren't into women with these traits.

A couple of guys said that they thought I might be smarter than they were, and they didn't know if they could be with someone who was smarter than they were. I never had guys say this to me, and although I was extremely flattered it freaked me out at the same time. I've decided that I could never be with someone who I didn't think was smarter than me. It would just be too strange and awful. I like guys who are very intelligent, and quick on the uptake. I dumped a guy once when he told me my conversations were too deep for him. It was hard to do, because frankly the man was playgirl gorgeous but talk about "dumb blonde". I just couldn't handle it, and when he got whiny that was it.

I'm bad. I'm watching "Married by America, but I can't help it. I'm finally doing my taxes, and I have the TV on as background. The show is so funny. They asked a group of the suitor guys about sexual appetite, and one guy just blurted out "that he's hungry, like he's at an all you can eat buffet". And the next guy afterwards said that he was "hungry too, and would do things like tear the wife's clothes off at the door." These guys are so funny! Cute as heck too.

I like the fact that they have roommates, friends, and or family choosing the person these people are supposed to marry. I mean, your friends and family should have your best interests at heart right?

I went to a screenplay reading by a friend from myscreenwriting class on Saturday. My friend worked really hard on his screenplay, and I know rewrote the thing 3 or 4 times and even went to two scene by scene intensive classes. But sadly, the new reworked screenplay from what I could tell wasn't that much different from the first draft I read.

I don't know. I'm freaked. I knew my friend had been really very hard on his screenplay, so I guess I expected to see a really improved verison. Instead it was more of the same. I know the written second draft of my screenplay is radically different from the first version, so I guess I expected the same thing to happen to my friend.

It must be such a bummer to have worked that hard, and still not have it your writing be any better. I think of how much work I've put into my screenplay. I write about 10 outlines before I even start writing, because it's so hard to get the plot just right. If I count the outlines I've written, which take 1-3 hours to write each, I'm on something like draft # 20. That's a heck of a lot of drafts.

I'm starting to freak out again about the strange concept called "talent". Do I have it? Does it matter? Everyone all my life who has read anything I've ever written said I have some talent, bad grammar but some talent. Like what does "some talent" mean? And when do you start admitting to yourself that you just don't have what it takes to make it, and that maybe writing is in the genes.

Like take weight. I'm never going to be model thin ever. I don't have the genes for that. I have the kind of genes where keeping my weight at a healthy level is always going to be a struggle.. I'm always going to have to be disciplined about what I eat and how much I exercise, but I have two sisters who don't watch what they eat and don't exercise and have never been above a size 4. Like what's up with that?

My poor screenwriting friend. I received an email from him this morning thanking everybody for attending the reading. He admitted he was disappointed, because he honestly thought he had a finished product. I can't believe he thought he had a finished product, and I have to wonder about the people in screenwriting group who may have told him he had a good product. Like what is up what the people in the screenwriting group? It makes me wonder if having other people read you work is even worth it.

Stephen King in his book "On Writing", that you should just have a few trusted friends read your work and that writing classes and workshops aren't really that useful. Is he right? I trust my long time writing group, but I don't know if I trust anyone else except my screenwriting and acting teacher to read my work.

Writing is such a mystery. You'd think it would be easy. but it's not. Talent is so subjective and fickle. I'm starting to wonder if it's really all worth it.