I wish I knew had to do that. The separating myself from the work thing. I mean, I've written stuff that I felt was crap, which never saw the light of day. And I've written stuff that I'm very proud of, which, oddly enough, also never sees the light of day.

I've wondered if I should write under a pseudonym. Because I'm okay with anonymously submitting my stuff to contests. I just get incredibly freaked out by sending anything to someone I know when my name is on the title page.

Professionally, I've had too many people rewrite my words to take it personally. Four years in consulting and three years working for the military will do that. Sure, fine, fix it how you like, whatever.

That's bled over a bit into the fiction. I'll argue, and I may fix it or not, but you're not going to hurt my feelings. t pauses to stare meaningfully at Nutty

I write every frelling day, and even if it's analysis, it's writing. And I'm the best writer in my office. So it's not fiction, it's still something.

It would be nice to have written a novel at some point, though. I keep thinking I need to try that.

bitterchick, why don't you do that then? Use a(nother) pseud and see how folks react.

My sister (nine years my senior) spent years in journalism; she wrote articles, rock and roll review, essays, coverage. But I had to pry the first draft of her novel out of her hands because she was doing the whole "Oh, this is fiction, I can't possibly show this to anyone!"

OK. Query: it's now 1100 pages long. Was this merely an emotional diuretic, never meant to achieve any status in your life beyond whatever it does to your head and heart to write it? Because if you're seriously writing it, and it's a novel, which you keep saying it is, you might want to consider the fact that most novels are written with this odd idea in mind: that other people are going to read it at some point. I'm just sayin'.

She finally handed it over with a "don't hurt me" vibe I could have cut with a knife. It was damned good, but it wasn't a novel. It was five of them. She's spent so much time compulsively writing, refusing to show it to anyone, clutching it to her breast like a secret sin, that it had bolted on her. She separated out the strands, figured out that she didn't need all nine major characters intertwined on a molecular level of minutiae for every page, took a deep breath, and trimmed.

She now has three novels. She alternates between working on each one. Getting married in her mid-fifties has kind of distracted her, though.

And now we come to the other issue. I've become somewhat...disenchanted with screenwriting for a variety of stupid reasons. I keep waiting for it to pass. Hoping that one day, I'll actually be moved to find my Final Draft CD to install it because I need to write something.

It's been a year and a half. I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

It's been a year and a half. I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

Not necessarily. I didn't write a single word of fiction for 10 years. Then I discovered the Buffistas, fanfic, and slash. And now I remember how much I enjoy writing.

And maybe it won't come back - but maybe something else will come.

Oh I still write. Popslash by the truckload. I just can't write scripts anymore.

I've become somewhat...disenchanted with screenwriting for a variety of stupid reasons.

"Dude Where's My Car" strikes me as a disenchantment unto itself.

It's been a year and a half. I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

Maybe. Maybe not, though. I ran into a completely disillusioning experience with publishing in the early nineties and got so disgusted I shoved the novel in progress in a drawer and walked away from it, leaving it unfinished. That was in 1993. Said novel is the one coming out this autumn. So, you never know.

Waiting for my husband to get out of the shower. It's MS meds night and I am definitely hurtin'.

deb, every once in a while I'll get my abbreviations confused and think that MS=manuscript. And then I think, wow - medications for manuscripts? Who cares if it's painful - but, really, of course, that's not thinking at all.

Dude Where's My Car is a fine, fine film. Shibby!

But, I also own Hudson Hawk. It's just that there's a sweetness to DWMC that is hard to find in silly little films, and I cherish that.

Also, I have plans to write a DWMC/Smallville crossover called Dude, Where's My Clark?