I'm trying to decide what I want to do tonight. I was out yesterday with a friend at the Asian Art Museum. They had a member's preview for their new Korean art exhibit, and we saw a woman performing Korean dance.

I kind of just want to stay home and vegetate, write, and watch one of my rented movies, either Asoka or The Four Feathers, but it would be nice to get out.

A guy in my modern art history class is having art opening tonight somewhere in the Mission. I think he does sculpture because it's an installaion. Our professor said if we liked his art, we could write a paper about him. I don't know him, but I am interested in seeing his art.

Some other girl in from my art history class was even featured in Pink Section of The SF Chronicle a few weeks ago. They had a picture of her and her paintings, and she's even showing some of her work at the new Danielle Steele Gallery.

She had an open house at her artist's studio last weekend, and I had planned on attending but it just didn't work out.

I also have a hankering to see "Kill Bill", Quentin Tarantino's new flick. The New Yorker ran a profile on him this week, and I do love his films. Plus it's a homage to Hong Kong martial arts action movies, which I totally love.

It would nice to stay home tonight and relax, because I'll be out all day Saturday, with a party to attend at night, and I'll be out all day Sunday as well.

And somewhere between now and Sunday, I've got to fit in 4.5 hours of writing. No wonder I don't get any writing done, I'm always out!

I think I've got a new plan for my writing. Hopefully this one will stick, be consistent and become a long time habit.

My goal is to write an hour to an hour and a half a day, with at total weekly goal of 8 hours. I like the 8 hours, because then writing will become like a part time job for me which is how I want to think about it.

I will try to write every day, but I'm not going to freak out if I don't. It will probably work better for me if I don't skip a day, but if I do I will be able to make up the time before the week is up.

For this week, I wrote for 1.5 hours on Monday and Tuesday, and then 2 hours today. That's five hours, so I have three more hours to go.

I also decided to try this new way of writing and editing. First an outline and some character work and interviews. Then I'll write the first draft by hand, then I'll type up my notes into the computer and that will be a second draft. I'll read the second draft and make any structural changes, and new outline if needed. After that I'll retype the second draft from the beginning, which will become the third draft. I will read and line edit the third draft, and the final draft will be typing up my corrections.

This is a variation on "the radical rewrite" technique I learned in screenwriting class. With radical rewrite, you write the first draft and then write a completely new second draft over, without looking at the first draft.

I think this variation is better because you can still look at your first draft, but you're not tied to it and you're not writing without it.

I still haven't decided if I'll do the second draft by hand or on the computer. It would probably be easier to do it on the computer, but I would start with a new document and not just try to rework the old one.

I've been trying to rework "Spooning with my Mother" using the original document, and I don't like it. I think it's better to start fresh with a new document, and not worry too much about what I originally wrote. If I want to use a particular line from the first draft, I can retype it from the printed copy.

By retyping sentences over, I will have the opportunity to see if the sentence makes sense, os necessary and is worth keeping. Starting with a fresh docment enables me to be more ruthless about throwing out what works and what doesn't work. At least, I'm hoping that this is the result of my new writing process.

I wonder if Arnold Schwarznegger will have a "Galaxy Quest" moment when he gets to the governor's office in Sacramento.

Galaxy Quest was such a great movie. Remember when the actors had to actually become the people they portrayed in the television show?

Will Arnie soon realize that he's not just an actor playing a governor, he is the governor of the 5th largest economy in the world and he's got to balance the budget without raising taxes and figure out out how to dig California out of its $38 billion deficit hole.

So I turned down the Deacon nomination for church. I came to the conclusion that my opinions are just too different from many of the members on the Deacon Board, and I didn't want to be stressed out having to either defend my opinions or keeping silent about them.

It's only going to get worse in the next three years as well. My church is going through the same thing as the Anglican/Episcopalian church, although we are not quite up to their level yet.

I know I will not support any actions that will split my church from the greater national body. My church did it once for slavery and split the denomination in two, but slavery was a different issue than the ones the mainstream protestant churches are facing right now.

I think I am going to catch a ton of flak for what I did, because I felt the need to explain myself to the person who called for the nomination. I think I will test the old adage of "honesty is the best policy".

I feel fatalistic about this whole issue right now. If I have to leave my church I will. Our sister church has been trying to recruit me for years, and they have a huge membership. It's terrible to think like this, but I don't care.

I hate that my church is becoming like the rest of the country, partisan, intolerant and politically correct. They never used to be that way. My church used to welcome everyone, and tried to stay on the middle ground on issues. But like the rest of the country and I think the world, lines are being drawn in the sand which makes it hell for anyone who likes the middle path.

My life is stressful enough without having the added burden of an ideological political fight happening in my church, and me being in the middle of it.