I realized tonight that I moved down here one month ago. A month? A month? I passed a month several years ago, if you know what I'm saying.
Of course, the time is also flying by. One month out of 20 (or so). And I haven't written any scripts or gotten an agent yet.
Last night, I said, I'm going to go to bed, work done or not, and I'm going to get a good night's sleep. You know what happened. So, as I lay there, I thought up scenarios for the scenes I had yet to write for writing class. And once you've got the scenario, how hard is it to write anything? I didn't think so. No problem. I finally came up with something, scribbled it on the notepad by my bed --
(All of you writers out there keep notepads by your beds, right? And in your backpacks and purses and cars and...)
-- along with the name of a movie I wanted to go rent. I didn't fall asleep immediately thereafter, but I think I was more settled when I finally did.
I had to rouse myself out of bed this morning. It was really difficult to do so, for some reason. I don't know why. I listened to a discussion about the proposition on the fall ballot to end affirmative action in California (remember, all you right-thinking bleeding hearts out there: vote NO on the civil rights initiative!). I finally got up and started working...and the guys showed up to refinish my balcony.
Do you know what it's like trying to concentrate when a guy is using a jack hammer on your balcony, about three feet from your ears? It's not fun. Don't do it.
Finally said screw this and headed off to school. I had to do that anyhow, because I was meeting Evan to rehearse our scene (from Reality Bites -- that sound you hear is my gagging myself with a power drill). First I dropped by the Dean's Office to talk to Michele, because I'd volunteered a friend of mine for the Friday afternoon lecture series, and we chatted a little bit about her interviewing Mel Gibson last week (heh).
Then I met up with Evan, and we spent about an hour chat-chat-chatting. (He's also married, and his wife is back in New York, so he doesn't even get to see her every other weekend or so.) He's older than the majority of the class, as I am, so we bitched about the youngsters -- lovingly, of course -- and then went to rehearse.
Afterwards my friend Edgar, whom I had invited to Business class tonight to meet Brooke, showed up. He read Brooke's book (free plug: The Writer Got Screwed) and loved it. So we went to get coffee and then headed to class. Brooke let him sit in, and despite the fact that the class went three hours instead of two tonight, because of Yom Kippur next Monday -- have your ordered your challah yet? -- we had a great time. Brooke is very feisty. She's really into what she does, and she wants us to know what we're doing. It's cool.
Of course, now I have to go to bed and wake up early so I can watch Ordinary People before the balcony guys show up again. Uck. My first goal with this MFA program is to write a sellable thesis script worth millions; my secondary goal is to learn to sleep on command.