I guess I'm in the mood to rant about my writing habits. I told someone in screenwriting class that I write my journal on my computer. This person looked me straight in the eyes and told me I couldn't do that. And I'm like, why the hell not. I've been doing it for months.

I have a job where I'm usually waiting for things to finish like programs, queries or analyses and started writing out my thoughts into a Word document. Now I just do it all the time because it's fun and it's therapeutic for me to just write about the random thoughts in my brain and the petty details of my life.

Then there's this blog, which is like another journal for me and to which I post sometimes the same entries from my Word journal or just totally new entries. And it seems everyone is blogging or posting to an online journal so I know I'm not the only one.

I know there are some writers who have to do their writing manually by hand using pen and paper. Most published writers use their manual or electric typewriters. My pc is just like a typewriter for me. I've been writing on the computer since I was 18 so I'm just used to just freewriting on to the screen. I've heard people say that you edit yourself, but I really don't. Word does annoy me because it tells me most of the sentences are too long or fragments, but other than that I appreciate the instant spell check.

Is this a generational thing? People who aren't used to typing on computer will naturally feel that handwriting is the best and for people like me, who have been around computers most of their life don't see the difference between writing by hand or writing on the computer other than the fact that when you write into a document, you can actually read what you wrote. I took a typing class in highschool, which I totally hated because I made too many mistakes and never typed fast enough, but that class has come in handy for writing on a computer since I don't really have look at keyboard when I type.

I think I just shocked that person in screenwriting class, like it was politically incorrect to journal to a Word document or to the Net, but I love it. And I think other people do too.

A writing rant about selling out.

I don’t want to write the great American novel and now I don’t even think I want to write something that’s good enough to win any prize. I love the Anne Rice and Stephen King books but they’ve never won elite prizes for writing like Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel or a National Book Award. And those writers are my favorites because they tell good stories. They may not have the most poetic writing in the world, but god can they tell a good story. And that’s what I want to do; tell a good story and entertain my reader if only for just a few hours.

Maybe it’s a product of my lower class upbringing, but I have no pretensions like Jonathan Franzen. I’m a reverse snob. I don’t want my books in snotty bookstores where regular people are afraid to go in because the snotty book people treat you badly because of your writing taste. The best thing about a company like Amazon.com is you can indulge your own peculiar tastes in book and because it’s all anonymous without judgments, it’s the most democratic of all book shopping experiences.

I know all my friends, especially CF will hate my writing. CF never even liked my Art is Scary story even though JW loved it and everybody who saw me perform it loved it. She’s not very generous that way, which is sad. I am happy for her when she’s successful but she has never celebrated my success or told me any of my stories were any good. JW loved my stories and for his insight I will always be grateful.

CF is so quick to judge that Jane Campion sold out on the ending of the movie "The Piano, but I think that’s a judgment. I know I’ve said people have sold out but the more I look at being at artist, the more I think that art is a collaborative process and that one has to compromise to get one’s art in the world. And I’m starting to think that it’s not selling out and to say sell out is a elementary understanding of the business. I just know right, I’ll be accused of selling out. But you know, whatever. Those people who don’t want to sell out can spend the rest of their life resenting other people’s success and not having the time and energy to create their art.

I need to be commercially successful to buy my free time. And what is so wrong with masses and masses of people want to read my work? It just means that more people can relate to my work, which would so cool because that would mean you were in touch with how normal people think. I don’t think I’m normal so to write something that lots of other people like, normal people, would be so fun and great for me.

There’s nothing wrong with people’s attitude about selling out. I just think society has brainwashed everyone into thinking there’s something wrong with appealing to massive amounts of people. It’s society’s way of keeping the artist from creating and producing art; to denigrate successful artists. Art like theatre needs an audience to live, art produced to appeal for one or a few is not art but some self indulgent piece of art that only a few people will like. And that’s fine. But art that captures the imagination of a lot of people I’m beginning to think, is like tapping into the universality that exits in all of us. This tapping of the universal mind is what I think true art is about because it’s the most real, the most widely read and watched, because everyone that sees or reads it can relate.

In honor of Waylon Jennings who died today who wrote one of my fave country song "Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys".

From the NY Times today. Worst Country Song Titles of All Time Until the next Time.

All I Want From You (Is Away)
All My Exes Live in Texas
Beauty's in the Eye of the Beerholder
Bubba Shot the Jukebox
Did I Shave My Legs for This?
Don't Put Me in the Ex-Files
Don't Squeeze My Sharmon
Get Your Biscuits in the Oven,and Your Buns in the Bed
Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart
He Can't Talk Without His Hands
Heaven's Just a Sin Away
Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)
How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?
How Come Your Dog Don't Bite Nobody but Me?
I Bought the Shoes That Just Walked Out on Me
I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling
I Got Tears in My Ears From Lying on My Bed Crying on My Pillow Over You
I Got You on My Conscience but at Least You're Off My Back
I Guess I Had Your Leavin' Coming
I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You
I Left Something Turned On at Home
I May Be Used, but Baby I Ain't Used Up
I Wanted You to Leave Until You Left Me
I Would Have Wrote You a Letter, but I Couldn't Spell Yuck!
I'd Rather Be Picked Up Here Than Put Down at Home
I'd Rather Pass Another Kidney Stone Than Another Night With You
If Fingerprints Showed Up on Skin, Wonder Whose I'd Find on You
If I Ain't Got It, You Don't Need It
If the Jukebox Took Teardrops
If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me
If Whiskey Were a Woman, I'd Be Married for Sure
If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl
If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?
I'll Give You Something to Drink About
I'll Marry You Tomorrow, but Let's Honeymoon Tonight
I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home
I'm Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail
I'm the Only Hell Mama Ever Raised
It Only Takes One Bar (to Make a Prison)
I've Been Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart
I've Been Roped and Throwed by Jesus in the Holy Ghost Corral
Lay Something on My Bed Besides a Blanket
Let's Do Something Cheap and Superficial
Make Me Late for Work Today
My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus
My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him
Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill
Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer
Redneck Martians Stole My Baby
Remember to Remind Me I'm Leavin'
Savin' the Honey for the Honeymoon
She Feels Like a New Man Tonight
She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy
She's Actin' Single . . . I'm Drinkin' Doubles
Shut Up and Talk to Me
Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone
The Chick's Too Young to Fry
The Man That Came Between Us (Was Me)
The Pint of No Return
There's a Tear in My Beer
Velcro Arms, Teflon Heart
Venom Wearin' Denim
Walk Out Backwards Slowly So I'll Think You're Walking in
We Never Killed Each Other (but Didn't We Try)?
Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?
Who's Gonna Take the Garbage Out When I'm Dead and Gone?
Why Did You Leave the One You Left Me For?
You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too
Your Alibi Called Today
Your Coffee's on the Table but Your Sugar's Out the Door
Your Negligee Has Turned to Flannel Nightgowns
You're a Hard Dog to Keep Under the Porch
You're Going to Ruin My Bad Reputation
You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

I think I'm in this weird kind of school girl crush with some guy from my screenwriting class whom I've never spoken too. It's wild because it's so stupid. Maybe it's my hormones on turbodrive but that man is haunting my fantasies and my dreams. I'm letting myself get up caught up in it because I think it will make for a funny story one day, but a part of me is upset that it's happening at all.

You would think that at some point in your life that you get to a certain age where you don't do unexplainable things like having a gigundous crush on someone you've never spoken too, but maybe you never outgrow your ability to do silly things. I don't know. I think if that guy knew, he'd probably be shocked because I'm damned sure it's some grand delusion of mine.

Where it will all lead is a mystery but like everything else, I"m sure there's some rhyme or reason for all of this happening and that everything will work out. It usually does and it always has worked out. But this has got to the most bizarre event that's ever happened to me and I'm curious to know how it will all wrap up. Till then, I guess I'm going to enjoy the ride.

So the Brian saga continues. I had a dream about him on Sunday morning. I was in some sort of jam or trouble, I'm not sure which. But right when things were getting really bad, along comes Brian to my rescue. Only Brian now looks like this guy from my screenwriting class, who I only met last week. It was weird. He didn't look like Brian, but in the dream I knew he was Brian. Anyway Brian starts kissing me in this dream and it was so deliciously real. Next thing I know, he wisks me away and we're somewhere else and I'm waking up in a cold sweat.

How weird. How very weird. I was do disturbed on Sunday, I couldn't even workout. Why would I dream about Brian and then have Brain look like a guy I hardly know from a class I joined just last week. I hate having dreams about people who are no longer in my life and I especially detest dreams where I need rescuing by some man. As if I need to be rescued by a man from anything.

So anyway, I go to my screenwriting class and that guy is there. Only now becauss of the Sunday morning dream, two things happen. One, I'm like so freaked about this guy that I'm afraid to talk to him and two, I found myself becoming physically attracted to this guy like 150%. I swear to god if I started to talking to him, I'd probably jump him. I'm at the wonderful point in a crazy messed up physical attraction where you know that if you just took a whiff of the person, you'd have a mini orgasm. It's bad, it's really bad, to be physically attracted to someone you hardly know in a class, who probably doesn't give a shit about you. It's like being a school girl all over again, except this time you're at the age where if you had gone down a certain path, you'd be a mother of a girl who would be experiecing these feelings.

God, that man in beautiful and I don't even know his name. I kept looking at him covertly, wandering what me smelled like, wondering what his skin would feel like under my tongue, trying to subtley strip the guy and fantasizing what he'd look like naked. It's bad, bad, really bad. I mean, the guy probably thinks I'm like the biggest freak in the world for staring at him like that. He seems like such a nice guy, but I'll never find out now because I'm too freaked out to speak to him. I can't have a conversation with a guy, whose clothes I want to tear off so I can let my tongue do my talking for me. It's bad, really bad to feel this way because it's so out of control, so hopeless and so silly.

I'm absolutely sure he's nothing like I've imagined him to be. And what's worse, I'll never find out because I'm too afraid to talk to him. He scares me and when a man scares me this much, I don't have anything to do with them. Better to let guys like this go because he's to threatening to my self contro.

I know that I'll be in this weird kind of hell from now until the end of class because I'll spend half he class wanting to jump him and the other half freaking out because I'm feeling a 150% attraction for him.

And wha't worse, he's not even my physical type. He's just like Brian. I was never physically attracted to Brian by his looks but liked him because of his personality and his brain. Then we became such good freinds and I started to find so incredibly attractive. But I let all of that go because we were just friends.

This guy in screenwriting class sort of looks like him but is not him. They just have the same boxer/linebacker/pug dog body type. Other than that, the two men have no resemblance to each other. Brian has hazel greenish brown eyes with reddish/brown hair. The new guy has sea blue eyes and brown hair with some gray streaks.

It's so crazy. I just hope that some great story comes out of all this dramarama. And it really is just god awful Brenda dramarama.

God, I miss Brian. I know I'm not supposed to but I miss him. He was such a good friend. I could always rely on him to tell me the truth and he was so smart about so many things. He is one of the few men I really respect as a person. But you know, he just couldn't handle just being friends with me and when he told me, it all got so awkward between us that I think, out of self-preservation on his part and on mine, we parted. But shit, it's like losing your best friend because he's physically attracted to you, how messed up is that?

I think I really hurt him too when I said that I could never contemplate getitng into a relationship with him. As much as I so adore him, he would have been a hard person for me to live with. He's not the most easy going of people and I need that. I need to be with a male partner who's steady and stable and most of all easy to live with and very easy going. When I'm not with this kind of guy, it's been hell and I'm not willing to go through hell one more time. Brian is steady and stable as the rock of gibraltar, but he's not laid back and easy going. He's such a neurotic virgo! As much as I think we could have made a go at being together forever, I think part of me would have come to hate how high maintenance he is. Not to mention that he has a really bad temper and when he gets upset, it's pretty nasty. We were just friends and I got a couple of tongue whippings/lashings from him which left me breathless in their severity and anger.

I wonder what he's doing now. If were still talking, we could have celebrated three years of friendship a few weeks ago. It's all such a sad, sad waste. I'm glad he told me he wanted more than friendship from me. I value his honesty and his comfort level that he obviously had with me to be so honest, but damn! All that physical lust on his part just got in the way.

I did contemplate having sex with him once just to satisfy him, but Amy my friend who died, said that sex would hurt him even more. I could have sex with him for one night and walk away, but not Brian. Brian is too much of a romantic. One night would have led to more nights and then, since he's conservative kind of guy, marriage. And a marriage to Brian would have been way to challenging for my taste.

I miss him though and I think I always will. He's not the guy who got away, that honor goes to Steve. No, Brian is in his own category but I don't think there's a category for Friend You Totally Love but Can Never Marry.

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged. I keep thinking of making an entry but then I get sidetracked. I could probably write alot tonight but I'm tired an it's late. I am taking a screenwriting class and just finished bookmarking the websites for the screenwriting magazines which I'm supposed to find for class, but can't find anywhere. I went to the Borders on Union Square and of course, they were all gone. I ended up picking up another magazine not mentioned in class but seemed interesting. It's for international screenwriters, whatever that means. I also picked up a copy of Oxford American, only because they had a screenplay written by William Faulkner and I have to read that.

I like the Oxford American magazine even though it's very expensive. It's all about Southern writers and writing in the South and since I've been told that my stories read like I'm a southern writer even though I'm so not southern, I feel like I should read this magazine.

Borders is an interesting store. Either there are too many salespeople with nothing to do or they dont' have enough help. I guess they just need to improve their scheduling skills.

I am contemplating buying a Palm Pilot. My friend Mel said make sure the batteries are rechargable. I only want to spend about $100 and don't care about color, so I think I might purchase a Palm IIIxe. It has a cover for the faceplate which I like and I found a company on the Palm Message Boards that makes a rechargable battery for this model. The Palm IIIxe is bigger than the M100 and more recent models, but not by that much. The best thing about the Palm is that it's got all these software applications you can load.

You know, this whole Palm Pilot thing only started because friends of mine made fun of me for carrying around three small notebooks; my calendar, my Hello Kitty notebook for notes and a notebook to keep track of my expenses. My friends said I could just carry a Palm Pilot and not have to worry about losing three separate books. The problem is I love my Hello Kitty notebook and I like writing in it. It's not the most efficient way to organize your life but it works for me.

But I'm willing to give this Palm Pilot thing a try as long as I don't have to spend that much money. I lose small things very easily and can see myself easily looking the Palm. It's trivial I know, losing things, but it's the thought that the information I stored on my Plam could be lost forever has always been a sore spot with me.

More later.