"Everybody Got Their Something"

Listen, do you hear that? No, no, listen closer...yeah...there it is. You can hear the screams of the people as they run down my street. Good...that's finally subsided. Now come a little closer and you can hear my neighbors banging the broom against my ceiling or least that's what I'm guessing it is because you can't hear them over Nikka Costa.

I have a ridiculous shampoo commercial to thank for pushing one of her songs into the forefront of my conscious mind when the ad finally played a few verses clearly enough for me to Google them. This song, "Everybody Got Their Something" made such an impression on me from a musical and misheard lyrical standpoint, that I actually wrote twenty pages of a screenplay from just one hearing.

ABC was using this song to pimp "Desperate Housewives" and I heard the lyrics as
Everybody's talking
Everybody's talking.

It's one of the best songs I heard last year, yet it couldn't win me over in terms of watching the show. Right or wrong, I've dismissed "Housewives" without watching an episode, as "Melrose Place." I got three seasons into the latter before I realized it was rotting my brain from the inside out.

The correct lyrics are
Everybody got their something
Everbody got there something.

"Their/there" is intentional, I doublechecked the lyrics in the liner notes. The lyrics could've been
Everybody go duck hunting
Everybody baby-bunting
and I wouldn't care, the song is that damn funky.


Musically, it's like she blended Boz Skagg's "Miss Sun" along with Ray Parker's former group Raydio's monster instrumental "For Those Who Like to Groove."

Don't take my word for it, listen here

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005B0S6/qid=1133291559/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/104-7890308-5731935?v=glance&s=music and beware if you love late 70's funk 'cause you ain't gonna be able to get it out of your head!

And no, I'm not really playing it quite as loud as that schlemiel in your neighborhood who rattles your windows with his car stereo that costs three times as much as his car. But yes, the neigbors downstairs are taking a broom and everything else to their ceiling....ahhh, the things you put with for rent control.

There's a time for every star
There's a time for every star

Two Pages Away From Greatness

Behind every great man, there's an even greater woman putting a foot to his tokhes. So the Missus once again put her Cooper Union degree to good usage and she helped me come up with products to make you and your house look good. Or should I say, to help you on your way at...

http://www.cafepress.com/Writeprocrast

Because "you are two pages away from greatness."

If you are a serious writer, this isn't empty rhetoric. You should believe metaphorically that you are no further away than that. That you can come up with two pages that will become your "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Two pages that will give you that a twist ending that will be mentioned along with "The 6th Sense" and "The Usual Suspects." That it is within your ability to create the two pages that will propel your work from pedestrian to extraordinary.

If you a writer, "two pages away" is not arrogance, it's a fact. You have to have some confidence in that or you are just writing for friends or just as a hobby.

Now, here is a shirt to let people know how serious you are. How dedicated you are.

Or a shirt to let a loved one know how much you believe in them. A shirt that represents a writer's desire.

The Treasure of The Oldsmobobile Ciera Padre

The last of the old posts/original material from the old blog and even though the rain has slowed them down, it's still valid...

The local gas company and the local cable company are looking for buried treasure. How else can you explain why they will dig up sections of the sidewalk and flee for a week, only to dig up a section right next to it and scamper away again? They just leave partially-exposed holes in the sidewalks with no new wiring or pipes in them.

What are they looking for anyway? The Treasure of the Oldsmobile Ciera (sp) Padre? Normally I wouldn’t mind the fact that they don’t want to finish any of their particular projects but I work at night and thus, have to sleep in the day time. Recently after so many weeks of being jarred awake by jackhammers, concrete saws and the backup klaxons of trucks and machinery, I decided to confront one of the crews. It did not go well.

“Permits? We ain't got no permits. We don't need no permits. I don't have to show you any stinking permits!"*










*That was almost verbatim...except he didn’t...he didn’t use the words, “stinking” or...well, it was more like “we don’t need to show you a permit actually, it’s on file at City Hall.” And he didn’t quite sound so much like Alfonso Bedoya or John Belushi as he sounded more like Cantinflas. But damn if there wasn’t a homeless dude across the street who didn’t look like Walter Huston’s “Howard” and damn if I don’t look Bogart’s Dobbs when I’m jolted out of bed.

Have a Happy Turkey Day

It's the day to be thankful for and I'm thankful for the wife and kid. Thankful for still being gainfully employed though some days are more like boxing with Gerry Cooney than others and even a cup made of titanium just ain't gonna cut it.

Thankful for the blog because I've actually come close to finishing two short stories and have found out that short stories in other magazines are actually just excerpts. Thankful that no one has answered my emails because it's helped me discover that...




(cue Denis Leary)
...he's the world's biggest a**h***!



Thank you Denis, your royalty check is in the mail as soon as I actually sell a t-shirt.

Bitter? No. I've confronted the problem, diagnosed the problem, called in the Hoover Think Tank and Ralph Nader at the taxpayer's expense, brought in the neighbor's bloodhound. Brought in "Condi" and the "Big Cheney" because they know what they're doing and the mission is accomplished so let's move on to the next front. Brought in Dickie York because the franchise is running in the right direction because Coach Nolan told me so, brought in Dan Rather because he ain't got s*** else to do and the man knows his ducks, Kenneth.

So I brought together all these great minds ladies and gentlemen, and found out the problem is...








me.


Got it, okay. Filed it. Wait, wait, , no. Let me go get an NFL Referee...



NFL Referee: Upon further review...the play stands!



Damn, I hate instant replay. Oh well, I'm usually less of an a**h*** the day after Christmas anyway and this year I will take that advice clad in all the silky refinement of silence to heart. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Don't That Just Say It All...

Writer's Quote of the Week

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs."

-Christopher Hampton

this was snagged from http://www.crimeandsuspense.com/

This isn't my sentiment for the people that have read my work, every criticism that I've received has had a whole lot of truth in one way or another, behind it. There's only one piece of work that I am completely attached to and consider to be my magnum opus. No one has read that so far except my wife.

I agree with this sentiment in that when you go to a particular movie or read an outstanding novel where you can literally see the heart and soul put into the work, only to later see a critic dismiss it with a mere wave. It is far easier to tear a house down than to build or design it.

The Shop Ver. 2.0

If you haven't done so and you know you haven't, check out the new shop featuring even more t-shirts, tote bags, sweatshirts, hoodies, mouse pads and mugs! Christmas is right around the corner (or so the retailers keep telling me), so get that special someone the perfect gift that exposes them for what they really are...procrastinators!

The great American novel, indeed! They could've wrote "War & Peace" five times over by now!

http://www.cafepress.com/Writeprocrast

Sportswriter Cliches and The Return of The Bullet Ballet

This has been lying in the edit bay since November 11th...

Yahoo has this little feature that is similar to that "push technology" from seven years ago that was going to change our lives and our stock portfolios. But instead of throwing it on your desktop, you get the relevant information in your mailbox by giving Yahoo a keyword to search with. So I use "script" and "screenwriting" as a search word.

I get about twenty links in two or three convenient emails a day. About eight percent of the links are either good or interesting. The rest? Well, unfortunately, I've also found out that the most abused cliché in the sportswriter's lexicon is "script." As in, "they've flipped the script on Auburn" or "the Niners tore up the script and wrote their own." It's as if athletes do not have to practice their plays or train hard, they just have to do a few Stansislavsky exercises or work with either The Groundlings or Second City.

This abuse seems to be most prevalent in the mid-Atlantic states and the South. I know that you sportswriters are on a deadline, still...please cease and desist.

On another note, this popped up in my yahoo mail...

"Variety reports that Universal has acquired the rights to Hong Kong action film "Cheung Fo" and will remake it as "The Mission." Peter Berg will direct using a Dario Scardapane script.
The movie follows a group of criminals who bond while serving as bodyguards to a crime boss. Their brotherhoos is tested when one of them breaks ranks."

http://www.cinecon.com/news.php?id=0511118

This was the very last bullet ballet that I saw in the theaters and it was the best non-John Woo, non-Ringo Lam, bullet ballet, plot-wise. Hong Kong films of the triad/cop variety tend to skimp on plot and plausibility...wait a minute, there's a title for you Ms. Austen. Anyway, they skip the story almost altogether for the sake of friendship, saving face, and action. In that order exactly.

Certainly the first two values have a significantly higher importance in the Eastern culture than in the U.S. I guess the producers of these films believe that the Hong Kong audience will be so absorbed with the fact that protagonist would take on the entire police department over what believes to be his partner's innocence, that they aren't supposed to notice that a simple ballistics test would clear or convict him.

Of course, that would also negate: the shootouts, the confrontation in the bar where someone always waits until the last second to pull them apart, the tearful take by the girlfriend and Misunderstanding #5 from "Three's Company." Except it will involve guns and triads instead of John Ritter and some casting couch actress never to be seen on TV again. Still, I'm partially stoked, hoping that Peter Berg can get it closer to the original film and the work he did with "The Rundown."

Becoming John Woo-kovich

I posted this on Halloween on the old blog, which I haven't decided whether I will shut it down.

My specialty is running an idea past a friend and if my friend doesn't do cartwheels and promise to name their first-born after me, I leave the idea alone like Ted Nugent at a PETA convention. I ran one past one of the only two screenwriters I knew personally at the time. He was a second-unit director on a couple of independent films and I figured that he had the experience necessary to help me stage it.

It was not that long after "George Lucas in Love" hit the Internet and putting your short film on the web as a calling card was all the rage. This friend, Mr. C., described "G.L.i.L" to me in an email while I had John Woo on the brain at the time because I was writing my own Hong Kong-style bullet ballet.

If you're not familiar with "George Lucas in Love," let the IMDB describe it for you. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0203523/plotsummary "In 1967, writer's-blocked USC film student George Lucas has only three days to finish his script or he won't graduate. He ends up falling for a girl named Marian (with her hair done up in buns on the sides of her head) who encourages him to write what he knows and feels."

Or if you will, a combination of "Star Wars" and "Shakespeare in Love."

The surrealism of "Being John Malkovich" was still a major influence on me at the time so the next logical step obviously, was "Being John Woo-kovich."

I was going to open the film on a rooftop, a woman hanging laundry on a line and then have her bask in the sun like Nicholas Cage in "Face/Off." Then, plop...plop, "what the?" Have her look up and then, "John, you and these damn doves! Keep them in their cage or you are grounded!"

I would have characters enter John Woo's head by falling in an open manhole cover instead of an elevator stuck between floors as in "Malkovich." Instead of the protagonist and antagonist leaping in the air Woo-style and firing guns at each other at close range, John Woo and his son dueling each other with remotes!

John Woo cranking the TV remote and his son jacking up the stereo. Then, just as in Woo films when both the hero and villain run out of bullets, Woo and son's batteries would run out and they would scramble for the last pack across the room.

So I ran that past my second-unit director friend, Mr. C., in an instant message and yes, the man puts ellipses in his IMs.


Me: We could riff on all the John Woo standards...the dove, the point blank face-off, right?

Mr. C.: Okay.

Me: C'mon man, can't you see it? Instead of winding up on a Jersey turnpike, they would wind up in a restaurant kitchen in Chinatown where a crabby cook chases them out with a cleaver.

Mr. C.: Ah...yeah. I...guess.

Me: Whaddya say? We could shoot it for cheap.

Mr. C.: I don't know, you're more of the John Woo fanboy than me and you know his films much better than I do. Anyway, sorry. I gotta get up early tomorrow and...

Me: Okay man, your loss.

Of course I put it off like one-hundred other projects that did go gently into that good night. The moment passed just like that inexplicable seventh-grade crush on that girl who would cross her eyes at me everytime I said "hi." Somewhere in Chinatown, someone got payback on Noah Cross and there is a crabby cook who isn't so crabby because gwai-lo aren't falling from the sky.

The Devil's Advocate in Search of Billable Hours

From time to time you might see me making fun at the Missus' expense and you might wonder, "is he really such a picnic to live with?" Yes, yes I am a picnic to live with. One with savage fire ants, winds whipping up leaves and dust, sudden gusts of rain and thunder, a rabid squirrel, and potato salad that ain't quite right. But still, a picnic nonetheless.

Procrastinator, it's what's for dinner...er, lunch.

So What's Up With The Blog Name?

I'm sure that the few who have perused this blog or the many of you that have seen me post on other blogs have wondered, "what the hell is up with that name?"

Well, ponder no more. Introducing...

http://www.cafepress.com/Writeprocrast

I've been putting this project off for four years and it has finally come to fruition. On my signature at the bottom of my posts and emails through out my Internet life, there was this quote...

"Procrastination? It's crack for writers!"

All of the writers who had seen that slogan got it right away. It wasn't an endorsement of drugs; it was merely a metaphor of the addictive property of procrastination to writers. It's the one thing that all writers have a hard time kicking.

There are two slogans up there, soon to be three. I'm going to have to bump the store up to a premium shop to do that so...please be patient. In the meantime, take a peek at the shop and please give me some feedback.

P.S. If not for me, then for the Missus. She traveled a road that would've made Moses throw his hands up in surrender. She had to contend with a Jasc Paint Shop that is not newbie-friendly and a crabby husband with just her whip and a chair. Then, she conquered them and Corel Paint Shop and turned them into the PNGs that are now up on that site.

Disney, Give Pixar What They Want!

I took Procrastinator Jr. to see "Chicken Little." Yes, he has his dad's bad work habits, though he's ten times smarter than I was at that age and he will be a combination of Dashiell Hammett and Albert Einstein when he reaches adulthood. Gets it from the Missus.

Depending on your point of view, the peril or boon of a non-Pixar Disney film lately, is sleep. Sweet, blissful, uninterrupted sleep though not so much if you have to watch the kid. He's nine, so he wakes me up with a popcorn kernel in each nostril when the credits roll or if it's time for a bathroom break. Getting back to the point, I almost fell asleep three times before the baseball scene in "Chicken Little" and it wasn't the fault of the cast or the quality of the animation.

Zach Branff was pretty damn good, Garry Marshall was brilliant and Amy Sedaris was funny though you won't know who she was until the credits. Joan Cusack and Steve Zahn were phoning it in because they were doing the exact same roles as they've done in other kid's films and their parts were severely lacking. Even Wallace Shawn was just going through the motions and anyone who has seen in him shine in "The Princess Bride" or lift "My Dinner With Andre" onto his shoulders like Atlas on "the Clear," knows this guy don't just mail it in. Yet, he did just that.

Why did this happen? Because the writers didn't tighten the script nor did Disney want them to even try to. This was a project that the corporation knew would make oodles of money in this holiday slot and would recoup any money spent on ads by virtue of the DVD revenue. It was a sloppy, by-the-numbers whiff at mediocrity and the end product seemed like one big, overcooked pot of Disney leftovers. I haven't seen such a sub-par film from Disney since "Home on The Range" where I was out cold for thirty minutes and Procrastinator Jr. took the opportunity to empty my wallet and spend nearly $200 on Yu-gi-oh cards.

Disney's features are on a slow, downward spiral and they're limping toward the dreaded sleep-infested "Scooby Doo 2" territory. I only saw the first fifteen minutes of the aptly named "Doo 2" and its end credits, period. This is how you entertain the future of our country, Disney? Don't make me get Sexual Chocolate out here to sing "The Greatest Love of All."

Hell, the only non-Pixar Disney film Procrastinator Jr. has liked since "Holes" was "Brother Bear" and the Eisner/Jobs feud is allegedly Scooby Doo, I mean yellow water, under the bridge. Please, negotiate with Pixar and give them something to go on. Or at least lock up another film beyond "Cars" because my son will be a teenager by then ; )

But most importantly, please, give children something to be inspired by, Disney. Not something that's going to lull them into a stupor and push the parents to the brink of nearly irreversible comas. A snoring, slightly overweight man with his tongue lolling out is not a pretty sight nor is a house full of Yu-gi-oh cards. You can inspire a generation and in turn, have a new generation that will write greater stories and give you even greater profits.

Writing Spaces of Famous S.F. Bay Area Writers

For those of you outside of the San Francisco Bay Area or that don't know about the San Francisco Chronicle's website, here are the writing spaces of some of the most famous Bay Area writers

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/09/HOGANEMICS61.DTL

I do all my basic structure and the majority of my writing on this relic

http://www.brother.com/usa/geobook/info/nb60/nb60_ove.html

I download it all onto a carrier pigeon, er, floppy, and upload it to Compaq that still runs Windows 98. The Brother NB-60's sole advantage is its toughness. It runs on a flashdrive so that it is not affected by jostling nor the unintentional (or intentional) thumps of co-workers.

The OS is even more primative than Windows 3.1 and the screen hurts my eyes after ten solid minutes to the point that I find myself empathizing just a little too much with Elias Koteas's character in Andrew Niccol's "Sim1one" a.k.a "Simone" http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/

Still, I just love this laptop, I can't imagine what a writer's life was before them and yes I know, "typewriters and writing it down on paper." I'm the kind of writer who corrects as he writes and I like to keep the page neat as I go. So I would use up any of the "correctional" features (ribbon or ink-based) that were built into the typewriters or I would gum the typewriter up with white-out and it would wind up like Frosty the Snowman went sneezed into the keys.

Paper and pen? Good for a couple of sentences, not for an entire page with so many of my unrefined thoughts that were crossed out or darkened in that it was like a caterpillar infestation within two paragraphs. Computers are sweet, with very little to take away from the momentum and the moment of writing.

The luxury of your own writing space, is that a boon or curse?

They Call Me Mellow-Jello, Quite Right Slick...

My city done up in Jello...

http://www.lizhickok.com/assets/portfolio/pages/01city.html

What the hell, the place is getting too soft anyway and kids are actually walking around with shirts that say "Frisco" on them. No offense Elizabeth, I just meant that in a post-dot-com-combustion-kinda-of-way. You do fantastic work...

http://www.lizhickok.com/index.html

How about Twin Peaks, UCSF and the Sunset District, please?

Learning to Strike While The Iron is Hot

One of the keys to beating procrastination, is to write whenever and wherever inspiration hits you. I believe in the philosophy of writing on whatever is available: take-out menus, bus schedules, newspapers, ATM receipts, court summons, bail agreements, audits, etc...

However, I don't believe in cocktail napkins. I don't understand how so many great inventions, investment deals, contracts, or plot outlines for novels come from napkins when I have yet to field a solid idea from one (if I can remember to take the damn thing out of my pocket before it's laundered).

I used to post on the AOL screenwriting boards and an acquaintence of mine from there had a saying that was a variation of "if you set something free..." He claimed that if you couldn't "write it down right then and there. It was no problem because if you can't remember it when you get home, it really wasn't that great an idea in the first place." I strongly disagree with that sentiment but what do I know? He's had two sales published to fanfare in "Creative Screenwriting" twice in the past twelve months and the best I've managed is an e-mail version of a form letter placing me in the semi-finals of a third-rate contest.

This year I thought I could simplify the clutter of paper odds and ends by buying an Olympus VN-240 Digital Voice Recorder. http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1078

Which has not so much as helped with my plotting, as it has helped with my dialogue. This thing is a godsend, you can dictate to yourself in a crowded subway, streetcar or bus instead of jotting everything down on the forehead of that jerk that elbowed you for two blocks straight. Even better yet, during dictation, remove just enough of the context to your pulp or thriller novel, and lo and behold, everyone will give you plenty of space. For even more space, conceal the machine and yell out your dialogue. You'll get the whole car to yourself then.

My only reservations are:

1) I should have bought a model that had WAV. file capability so that I could download the files directly to the computer.

2) That both the live and automated messages of the San Francisco Transit systems can drown out crucial dialogue.

3) Also that in rare instances, I have to talk in a code that I can hopefully remember later on because you will get some nosy-ass people that lean in on you like you're E.F. Hutton.

Aural Wrecks

I'm sorry, I can't help it.

I make Thai people grimace and shudder.

I'm sorry, I mean well.

I drive Vietnamese into apoplectic rages until they wail and tear chunks of hair from their scalps.

It's never been my intention to bring pain to anyone, I'm trying to apologize.

The most tranquil Burmese are goaded into full-on psychosis until they grab a fork or sharpen a chopstick and charge me.

Please hear my pleas for forgiveness...







I'm sorry. I won't try to speak your language anymore when ordering and I'll just use the number corresponding to the desired dish.

Stop! Don't Spend Your Money on The Brooklyn or Golden Gate Bridges...

...when you can devote your funds to this

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/11/prweb304775.htm

Why devote several thousand hours to your craft, watch hundreds of films or waste valuable and precious time in film school? When you can be William Goldman just by opening a book?

Damn, I knew I was going about it the wrong way.

O Pioneers!

So I had a ten minute window this morning to pop into the blog and figure out how to add three more columns of links when I saw that someone had posted a comment...what’s that? “Drew?” I ran the cursor over the name to see if the person has a blog or page and it says
http://www.script-o-rama.com/

As in, Drew’s Script-o-Rama. I’m looking over my shoulders for the ghost of Allen Funt because it’s too close to La Dia De Los Muertos and Halloween for comfort. Nope, no Funt or Funt Jr. No Ashton Kutcher. Holy (expletive) (expletive)!

I danced the joyous dance of a soccer player who has just scored a goal! I could hear Andres Cantor as I pulled my shirt over my head, spread my arms and flew like an airplane! Yeah! Yeah! I! I...hit the damn refrigerator because the apartment is only 780 sq ft. Ow, there went this morning's ten minute window.

A serious pioneer actually visited my tiny corner of the web, ladies and gentlemen. We're talking a combination of Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, and the first proto-Mongolian to follow the food across the Bering Sea. Neil (expletive) Armstrong, people!

You see, you kids have it easy today and you don’t understand what is was like in dark ages of the Internet. Today, you have more content that one person could possibly read in one sitting,
much less one month. But in the days of old when "google" was nothing more than a math term, you would type in “screenwriting” in your search engine like Alta Vista or the one with the spider whose name escapes me now and you would get just three pages of sites and links.

I’m talking the era of 33 Kbps people. I’m talking about it took me thirty-two minutes to download a two-minute trailer of “Copland” because my ISP would slow to 19.6 Kbps. You
wussies with your high speed and DSL, I scoff at you!

There was Max Adams http://seemaxrun.com/home.htm , Rossio and Elliot’s Wordplayer http://www.wordplayer.com/ , http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/ (it was a different incarnation back them), Kevin Smith's http://www.viewaskew.com/ , a couple of sites on formatting, sporadic updates by the WGA and that’s basically it. I’m exaggerating, but not by all that much. I’m not going to include the neophytes who put their so-called scripts on the web when it was really just fanfic that was barely properly formatted.

Last, but not least was Drew. I would run out of content to read and would actually have to sit down and write until I discovered Script-o-rama. We're talking “Alien Vs. Predator” when it seemed like a good idea at the time and the studios couldn't get it off the ground to save their lives. Kevin Smith’s take on “Superman,” “Scarface,” and more scripts, more classics than any other free script site.

I was a kid in a screenwriting candy store. "Drew, get some Oompa Loompas to roll me the hell out of here."

S.T.A.S.I.S

Contrary to popular belief, a screenwriter’s worst enemy is not preposterous or outlandish notes from the studio nor an indifferent agent. It is not the unreasonable deadline nor the dreaded blue screen on the computer that forces you to realize that you forgot to backup the rare, brilliant forty pages that poured out of you like manna from heaven.

The screenwriter’s worst enemy is solitaire, plain and simple.

Drugs: if you are so inclined, you have to go out to get them. The alternative to that is to have someone whom you would rather not have around, come to your house and deliver them if you want a re-supply. Likewise, all of the above for alcohol.

Food (which is my drug of choice)? You have to go out or have someone slightly more tolerable than the drug dealer deliver it. Better yet, cook it yourself. Food is not the screenwriter’s enemy if he or she knows moderation and exercise. Plus most of us think better on a full stomach, so food isn’t that much of a distraction.

But solitaire? Don’t listen to that siren’s song. So sweet...so warm...you are in a Zen-like state...red over black and you are not coming back. Spills over when you win and you want to do it again. Click, click, clickety-click, and you are heading for the procrastination rocks.

That’s why I’m starting “Screenwriters Together Against Solitaire Interrupting Screenplays” or “S.T.A.S.I.S.” You can join me by taking that solitaire icon off your desktop, your taskbar, your “start” taskbar, or by deleting it entirely if you can (don’t blame or email me if it crashes the computer). You too can help defeat procrastination in our lifetime.

The Blank Page

Are you a writer? If so, you understand procrastination. I believe Cameron Crowe said, " no one faces the blank page like a writer." I would add to that, "there's nothing a writer would rather do than not face a blank page." In a roundabout way, I could claim to be the rightful heir to the kingdom of procrastination because I've managed to delay (put off, avoid) my updated version of "1,001 Arabian Nights" for eight years now.

No, no, don't look at my script...now you've done it, it's coming this way!

"Look...no honey, yes honey, I've been meaning to add a couple of pages...it's just that...I've been, uh, busy."

You get the idea.

I've been casual blog reader going back to http://seemaxrun.com/home.htm in 1999 and the blog has struck me as a medium with a wonderful upside for writers in terms of creativity. A blog can be the mental equivalent of a gym, keeping the writing mind in shape. The writer can express things both profound and things that belong in the file that is circular and round.

I hope that this experience will be akin to that of Steven Soderbergh when he did a quirky film called "Schizopolis." He got a lot out of his system and expelled his frustration with the movie industry and film in general. After that experiment, he went on to "Out of Sight" and "The Limey." Which in my book would be pure heaven in terms of where I would like to go.

Just moved in...

After passionately pouring my soul into two posts and losing them to the internet ether. After not being able upload a basic jpeg. into my blog (though my tech skills are lacking), I've decided to change blogging engines.

Being as lazy as I've been these last couple of weeks, I will import two posts from the old blog until I actually have to come up with something new.