Last Night

This is me partying it up on my last night in Paris. Boobtastic bustier and silver lamé pants. You need a license for these heels...and this ass. The cocaine tipped me over the edge, but the champagne brought me back. The bitches who brought the blow also brought the blokes. Ex-model musicians whatever. We're gonna rev it up on Rivoli. Because we can. I might get a tattoo.

I'm a writer. A pants-on-fire, truth-seeking liar. Bitch, please.

I got my laundry on. I got my vacuum on. I got my sweatpants on. I'm sippin' on the 2004 vintage of Chateau Four Euro Bordeaux and my microwave dinner blew my effing mind. Hermetically sealed haute cuisine, baby. You want sexy. I give you sexy. Next up on this one-woman all-night show: rippin' off the plastic on the grocery store creme brulee. (Includes a convenience sized packet of brown sugar!)

We do it right here at Melanie Jones Productions, Paris HQ.

Yo-yiggity-yo, this is MJP.
Dude, we have to get up at five.
I know, dude.
We got dishes to wash, man.
And, like, someone has to clean the toilet.
Fuuuuuck.
Mr. Clean styles, bro.
Dude, this place has, like 350 square feet. It's giant.
Face it brother, we're up all night with this shit.
Should we smoke a joint?
Mos' def.

It's 8 pm. I can't work the dryer so the bed linens make ghostlike lumps draped on all the chairs. I spent the day freezing cold in the relentless rain, wandering from gallery to gallery with a woman I didn't know. I think I'm invited to her wedding. But I could be wrong. Her English wasn't so good. I don't think her "fiancé" knows of her plan. Should be awkward.

I meet the rental manager tomorrow at either 6 or 7 am. There's been no confirmation. There is, however, a red light flashing on my phone. But since I haven't been instructed on message retrieval, it contributes a true club-like atmosphere to my last tango in Paris.

Glam-o-rama, people. Remember this when I'm famous.

Last Day

There it is. The screenplay sur la table. I'm tired. I'm going home.

Two Sleeps Left

I'm miserable. Totally, completely fucking miserable. I'm working on my second draft and it's going well. It's only lunchtime and I'm about a third through. I'll have to pick up the pace this afternoon, but it's going really well. Despite the fact that I'm miserable.

Tomorrow is my last day here. And it's not that I don't miss home. I do. Kind of. It's that this dream is suddenly ending in a feeling of abrupt amputation. My own momentum here is building. Connections being made. Work getting done. And in two days I get on a plane to suburban Calgary, Alberta and leave it all behind.

I don't know what's next. And I know that doesn't matter and I know I'm not leaving anything behind really, but this thing is ending and I can't see what's ahead. So it feels like nothing's there. And you'll all probably try to make me feel better, and I might even start making myself feel better. But right now I don't want that. I want to be miserable and I want to fucking vent about it.

It's cold and rainy today. Surly Manager at La Fourmi was in fine form, which is to say I practically had to get back there and make my own coffee this morning. Or travel to Columbia, pick the beans, roast them, grind them and add my own milk. "Service" was not on her agenda. Does she not realize that she'll never see me again? Did what we have mean nothing?

I sat there writing and two girls with huge backpacks wandered around trying to find their hostel. Their maps untattered and unused. They've just arrived and I hate them.

I have no candy in my apartment. The milk ran out this morning and there's no point in getting more. I'll be washing the sheets and towels tonight and taking my dead-body duffel bag up to Dana's.

Yesterday I spent the day with Dana talking about the ends of relationships. Sort of. The point of them. The ideal partner. Why it all matters. Not really sunny stuff. I realized that I put a deadline on everything I do.

Leaving for Paris was a deadline. As though everything in my life had to be perfectly defined and understood before I got on the plane or else it would never be clear and die of neglect in the 30 days I was gone. I made my boyfriend suffer. He's probably glad he's not here now. And I'm worried about what kind of shitstorm I'll unleash on him upon my arrival. Please God, let me be a nice girlfriend. A good, loving, caring one. Let me cover him with kisses and gifts, and not the wrath of my misery at this dream of dreams coming to a close.

My other deadline is children. My unborn children are right there, ticking timebombs in hand, saying in their sweet angelic voices, "Mommy...you only have a few years left. We're coming Mommy. We're coming." I've had the Age-35-Have-Kids deadline for awhile now. Only it's Age-33-Have-Kids because I like to be early with things. And I already feel late for some reason.

Last night, I lay there in my lumpy bed. Springs digging into my spine. And I tried to release the babies. I tried to let them go because it hasn't happened yet and it's getting me down.

My momentum is building. The creativity that's waited a decade to come out is here. It's here and it's strong and it's loud. It wants to work. It wants to kick ass. It's a heat-seeking missile. It's coming from my gut and from God and it's really flowing now. I remember reading about some now-famous someone who came to Paris to work. His journal said, "I no longer feel like an artist. I am." I understand that. I feel that.

I don't know why and maybe it's only an internal shift, but it's there. Perhaps it's the very fact that I did what I said I'd do. I came to Paris. I wrote a screenplay...and a one-woman show...and a large chunk of something that could very well be a memoir of a creative process. I've written well over 60,000 words, when I could have easily written nothing at all. I could have arrived here, seen the Eiffel Tower and said, 'Screw it. I just want a vacation.' That would have been great. No pressure. No fear. Just hanging out in Gay Paree. No one would have been surprised. Not really.

But I didn't do that. I wrote. I wrote a lot. I battled back fear and self-doubt, loneliness, culture shock. I sailed through epiphanies, productive days and moments of bliss.

And this is just another of those moments. Another signpost on the journey: I Don't Wanna Go Day. Very similar, in fact, to a day I had before I left. I don't wanna go. I didn't! I cried and complained. I asked Mark why I had to go tripping off all over the bloody world. Why I couldn't just be happy with a 9 to 5 life like everybody else. And he smiled at me and said, "Because you can't Mel. You just can't." And he was right.

He'd probably say something similar to me right now if he were here. He'd say, "Don't worry about that now. Just finish your work and you can figure the rest out later." And I'd make another cup of tea and sit back down at my computer. And I'd take a deep breath. And I'd begin again.

It's Like Magic

The #9 line of the Metro stops about a billion times between Strasbourg-Saint Denis and Trocadero station, where Signor Producer was presenting his film. It was 4:47. I calculated that, if I didn't get lost and it only took one minute to get to each station, I'd be on time.

I watched the clock creep irrevocably toward 17:00 and burst off the train at Trocadero in my stupid but stylish heels. The Auditorium de la Cité is on the opposite side of the building and down several spiraling sets of stairs. I ran through the maze of the Cité de l'Architecture & du Patrimoine, doubling back twice and asking for directions from rather sleepy museum employees.

Finally at the Auditorium, the first set of doors in the vestibule closed behind me with a subtle sonic boom. Shit. I opened the second set slowly, peeking through the crack. The entrance was in the centre of the auditorium and Signor Producer was already introducing the film. Chances were these doors would offer the same colossal banging as the first set, so I'd have to stand there in the middle of everything nursing the doors shut. Double shit.

Not an auspicious beginning. I have learned about myself that I am either ridiculously early or just a little bit late. There is no 'on time' in my world. I wonder what that means. I "snuck" in and sat down while Signor Producer passed the microphone back to the man hosting the presentation.

The film is called Tramas, an avant garde documentary on life in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This was its Paris premiere and the film was just accepted into one of the "big festivals," although Sig. Producer couldn't tell me which. It's confidential.

As the film began, I worried briefly that it would be terrible. But that feeling passed as I undertook the daunting task of reading the French subtitles. I did fairly well, actually. And by the end of the evening, I decided that I must become fluent in French. It is now a personal necessity.

Tramas is a documentary that isn't a documentary. The narrative is fragmented and mediated – projected on to other surfaces or through computer screens – a film within a film. The sound bites were funneled through answering machines or telephones. Again – pushing the boundaries of form.

The film ended and Signor got back up there for the always-embarrassing Q&A. He spoke in French and I picked up something about the music. They gathered artists from Germany, Canada, the US, Australia and France together for the strange and dissonant soundtrack.

Afterward, several of his friends gathered and I lingered in the periphery. It was like being at a junior high birthday party of the guy you like. A game of space and proximity. A social job interview. "C'est genial," I gushed to his girlfriend. Producer introduced me to his friends and said, "We gonna go hout. You welcome to join us."

I flowed with the conversations between the theatre, the street and the cafe, drifting in to chat with Signor about funding and his attraction to Brazil, before drifting away. When we got to the cafe, I placed myself beside him, but turned my attention to the woman across from me. She was an Italian performance artist and she pulled out a catalogue of her work saying, "I go places without him (her boyfriend) but never without my catalogue."

It was time for us to talk. Signor Producer asked about my work, my screenplay and my plans for it. I asked about his companies and the work he's interested in making.

I made the first move.

"We should make a movie together, " I said. He nodded. "I want to read your screenplay," he said. I nodded. "Leave a copy on the table," he said.

I almost fell off my chair. These are the exact words I've been saying for two months.

Fermentation

The difference in experience of wine and grape juice is like night and day. But they are made from the same fundamental ingredient. The essential difference, of course, is the fermentation. Yeasts and sugars confront each other and are changed irreparably in a slow, invisible drama.

I looked at my screenplay today. Signor Producer was due here in a couple of hours and I scrolled its pages while fretting over what to wear: look professional yet casual, smart yet artsy, and above all, like you aren't trying. I fretted over whether to have any food on hand: oh this sudden and glorious spread of nourishment? I just whipped something together. I fretted over whether to rush out and find a place to print my draft.

In the end, the experience was strangely off-hand. The man arrived with his girlfriend, packed a few things, made a bit of small talk and left. He invited me to a showing of his most recent film tonight at five. It is important that I go, I have a feeling.

He asked with interest about my screenplay. And I had the distinct feeling we were sussing each other out in a warm, curious way. Everyone kept their cards hidden, but it was a friendly game. I felt a little bereft after they'd gone, but only for the amount of build-up in my own mind.

And what I discovered when I looked into my screenplay this morning. It's not ripe yet. It's still green and bitter and stringy. Structurally, it's there. I have a well-formed, handsome skeleton of which I am proud. But you can't show a skeleton to a producer and you can't bring him home to mom.

The past several days of touristing have been essential to my creative work, I realize now. I'd been looking at them as some kind of labour or duty. I'm in Paris, so I should see the sights. The relentless, irrepressible sights.

But, like so many thing along this journey, elements of the past few days have clung to me like cobwebs. Sticking to my skin and looping around other strands I've picked up as I move from gallery to museum to cafe to conversation.

This has been a sensual week. The week of the senses. Music has figured importantly. As has visual art. And I've determined that the flesh that fills out my skeleton and breathes life into it is a language of the senses. I must create a world now. I must layer in the smells and textures and sounds of this place or that character. I have wandered through galleries, watching my emotions range from hollow isolation to elation and joy. What is the feeling of Charlie's world? Of Albert's?

Louise Bourgeois' work lingers. The sense of dramatic isolation she builds, locating memory in stark rooms of strange objects. Things like flashlights and glass globes, old wooden chairs, scraps of tapestry. I feel the hollowness of memory. The frightening removal of time. The receding horizon. This is the feeling before the choice. Before the choice to live or die, there is the wasteland of indecision.

My recent dinner with Maud – and the influence of Dana's work – also lingers. Talk of humour and how it can draw people closer while pushing them away. Talk of pushing out on form. A poet can be an artist just as a film can be a song. Push back on the boundaries and see how far they give. See where the holes punch through and what strange light shines in. The way you've experienced movies isn't the way they have to be.

The power of ugliness. Of repulsion. The shadow opposites of the things we long for. The whitewash we paint over our lives: happy, loving, fulfilled, productive. What are the sinister opposites and how do they inhabit us? At any given moment is a tug of war, a fight for balance. The pain of beauty. The beauty of pain.

I read Anais Nin's diary, edited to focus on her passion for Henry Miller and his wife June. One part of life, when distilled away from everything else, becomes an obsession. A dark, addictive tale, quite different from superficial thoughts of "love" and "passion." How much of each other do we see?

I feel the next draft building inside me. It is a pressure in my chest right now and it is pushing to come out. There is an integration happening, I can feel it. Creative fermentation as the yeasts and sugars boil together making sweet chemical love. I am uncomfortable in the pressure, pregnant with it. This great thing, growing ever larger, pushing out but not completely out. Not just yet.

A Note on Travel Size

Travel size is a deceiving size. A month-long adventure in Paris has given me unique perspective on the subject of tiny toiletries. I give you, gentle readers, my dissertation...

Toothpaste
A travel sized tube can easily last a month if you use the recommended "pea-sized" amount. I did not. Thinking that this wee tube was going to last maybe a week, I was way too liberal in my usage. I am now in the uncomfortable situation of having one pea-sized amount left and five days of tooth-brushing ahead of me. Current conundrum: buy a new tube or sneak some from landlord's tube (which is peeking out of his toiletry bag under sink...taunting me).

Contact Solution
Travel size here will get you through a week to 10 days. Buying contact solution in Paris put me back around $20 CDN. But that was, I hope, an anomaly. Only I haven't seen contact solution in any of the larger grocery stores. Recommendation: bring two travel sized or one unopened full-sized bottle from home. Alternate recommendation: get laser surgery.

Motrin (Ibuprofen)
You look at the cute little tube and you think it is full of pain relief. You are wrong. There is a pathetic 10 tablets in that conveniently sized tube. Enough for one bout of PMS, but not enough for PMS plus...other pains. It could easily fit thirty or forty. Recommendation: fill 'er up before you go. Unlike I did. My Beaujolais Nouveau hang-over was way worse than it needed to be. You don't have to suffer alone.

Shampoo
I was given a cute matching set of travel sized containers for shampoo and conditioner (labeled 'Shamp' and 'Condi' by my Mom using letter stickers). Shampoo lasted me a month, no problem. I have short-ish hair and I'm not huge on the shampoo usage. However...

Conditioner
A different story. I have unruly naturally curly hair. Conditioner is a necessity and the more the merrier. My container lasted two weeks and then I bought a full-sized one here. Recommendation (based on presence of an afro): leave the travel size at home and buy a full size upon arriving.

Body Wash
Pointless. Chances are you didn't bring your big stupid scrubby puff thing. And the showers are too bloody small to work up any kind of lather on your own...or truly enjoy the self-nurturing luxury that a scented body wash provides. Recommendations: bring a couple of those hotel soaps you've saved for no reason and use showers for simply cleaning yourself. Perform self-nurturing activities with chocolate, cheese and kissing by the Seine (if applicable).

Deodorant
Damn. I almost made it. The travel sized deod has enough antiperspirant power to last a month, but the stick JUST broke yesterday because I have it cranked all the way. Recommendation: apply liberally but carefully. Current conundrum: buy new deod stick or rub crumbly pieces into (hairy) armpit by hand. (See below.)

Disposable Razors
Please refer to the microscopic shower reference above under Body Wash. This is why European women don't shave. There is no room. I was overoptimistic when I packed three or four razors. One is fine. Just don't expect to have a Parisian romance or lift your arms much. Recommendation: use hedge clippers/weed whacker when you get home.

Face Wash
I totally succeeded in this arena of personal hygiene. I went with the travel sized Noxema jar. Yes, you used in in junior high, I know. So did I. And the smell memory part of the experience has been strange. But this thing could go for another month easily. Well worth cramming its awkward round jar shape in my toiletry bag (and re-suffering the indignities of Grade Eight). Recommendation: stay in Paris until Noxema runs out.

Just Ask

Yesterday, I fretted about what happens next. And I wrote a big therapy post about how to manage slipping out of the present moment and into Worryland. I followed my own advice and did some affirmation work.

I also visited the Musee Rodin, but saw the giant line and, rather than repeat the Orsay Ordeal, I walked away. Ended up seeing the Petit Palais (a free municipal gallery) and witnessing the Bodyguard's Bad Day (see yesterday's post). In other words, I added positive to the negative.

And I was rewarded.

The fun began with an email from Hilary reminding me about the idea to leave the screenplay on the table for Signor Producer. I smiled because I had actually kind of forgotten about him. I got ready to leave for my dinner with Maud when the phone rang for the second time all month.

It was Signor Producer.

I almost fell down. He is in Paris for a few days and wants to come to the apartment to pick up some spring clothes. Will I be there so he can meet me? Um, yes. He says he's so happy that I'm staying there to write my book. I casually mention that it happens to be a screenplay. He's coming here at 11:00 on Saturday.

Filled with joy, I flew down the stairs and into the Metro to meet Maud. I have been to Le Marais (a fun gay/Jewish district) three times now and gotten horribly, horribly lost each time. As I doubled-back, no...tripled-back, along Rue Saint-Antoine, two men sitting in a bistro cheered. There she is again! It started to pour. I was lost, wet and cold.

I finally found Maud and her friends. J'etais un chien humide (wet dog). Only one of them spoke a little English, so I spent most of an hour trying to warm up, breathing inhuman amounts of second-hand smoke and nursing a cafe creme.

The two women who didn't speak English poked fun at the language, speaking like cowboys. I think we all must sound like John Wayne to them. I also learned that the French don't dig our large, enthusiastic greetings. They kept yelling Hi! Hi! Hi! and jumping around. I guess the French prefer a more subtle approach. Involving kissing people you don't know.

As we stumbled through a "conversation" that was half broken English, half broken French, I learned that the woman across from me is a film editor and director. She knows a good producer. Maud suddenly remembers that she knows a director who is looking for a screenwriter. I get the editor/director's card and Maud says she'll set up an appointment with the other director.

Le chien humide est heureux.

These three leads don't mean my film will get made next week. Who knows what will happen? But I believe the message here is that everything I need is at my fingertips. That it's all coming together...right now. The right people, the right money, the right opportunities are available at all times. If you get clear and ask.

You chose everything that is in your life right now. And you get to choose whatever comes into it next. Don't worry about the how. It takes care of itself.

Three Paris Stories

Drama and stories are all around you. Images. Ideas. Snippets of conversation. It's all there and it's all material. Here are three little scenes – examples of the joys of observation.

1. The Shoe Tier
The Paris Metro is full of all sorts. To mention the weirdos would be like mentioning the smell. It's a given. Weirdos are to public transit what ham is to cheese. And pissing in the stations just goes with the territory.

I remember one day when I lived in Toronto, a drug-addled woman made her way down the aisles fixing us one by one with her weird vacant stare, asking 'Can you spare me two dollars?' And yesterday two Middle Eastern men got on the train, turned on a really loud and dated backbeat and started rapping. Well, the older one started rapping. The younger one just stood there, looking tough but embarrassed. The older one shoved a cup in his hand and made him go up and down the aisle collecting change. They got off at the next stop, rolling their sound system behind them.

But today was the Shoe Tier. He was nearing forty but had a youthful sense, like a person who had never grown up. He breathed heavily, working under some immense but invisible strain and his face dripped with sweat. He spent the better part of five minutes just methodically wiping and wiping his face. He was wearing two coats and I couldn't help but think that taking them off might have helped, but I stayed silent.

He wore shoes with large velcro flaps over the laces and when he stuck one leg straight out and bent forward a strange and violent scar was visible on the back of his head. No hair grew around the scar, emphasizing its shocking whiteness even more. He slowly, awkwardly untied his shoe lace and then slowly, awkwardly re-tied it. His hands had trouble with the whole ordeal. As though they refused to move the way his brain told them.

After he was finished one shoe, he moved on to the next, breathing heavily and sweating away. The same painful ordeal followed and by the end, most of the passengers in the train were watching him. His task had compelled us all. I think we all sensed that this shoe tying was part of some larger, more profound journey.

He picked up the magazine that had slipped out of his overfull plastic bag. With the same awkward, methodical movement, he turned the page. He had underlined most of the article and made notes in the margins. He leaned back, closed his eyes and sighed.

2. Petit Palais
I sat outside the gallery, working my way through a not-so-great sandwich, while eavesdropping vaguely on the couple sharing the bench. While I was sitting there, he arrived apologetic and late. Now, it appeared, he needed to make her laugh to make up for it. A chauffeur waited beside a pristine black Benz, bending to brush the grime from the gleaming tire rims.

I didn't notice the two limos pull up, and when the group of them moved happily towards the ornate staircase, I noticed him. He lagged behind them, only it seemed intentional. As though he was watching, making notes. I thought, when I looked at his too-perfect madras shirt tucked into his too-perfect khakis, that he seemed like the control freak college boyfriend of one of the elder daughters. His blondish hair was in a pseudo-military flattop and he wore sunglasses.

He also wore a giant backpack, which I noted with a smirk. They'd never let him through with that thing. And that's when I noticed his ear piece. The transparent coil tucked behind his ear, descending into some kind of receiver. Mr. Control Freak Boyfriend was a bodyguard.

I looked quickly at his charges, wondering if they were celebrities. The blond woman smiled and flashed perfect teeth, but looked more royalty than Hollywood. I imagined them to be a Swiss diplomat's family or Princess Something from Somewhere. They breezed up the stairs and the bodyguard hoisted his backpack and followed them. I kept watching.

A man wearing a long coat stood sentry on the steps. He fiddled with his cell phone and it struck me that these highly trained combat-ready professionals really just stand around a lot and wait. That is the real skill set for a bodyguard: ability to do nothing for long periods of time. And to not talk, I imagine. To conceal one's profound boredom with a mask of surly intimidation.

The chauffeurs of the limos made sure the Royal Whoevers were in the building before turning on their stereo and pulling out sandwiches. I kept an eye on the staircase. I couldn't imagine Bodyguard submitting to the indignity of a bag check. The backpack was probably full of plastic explosives, high-tech surveillance equipment and more than one gun.

He came running out moments later. He sprinted towards the limos and the drivers stood up in an effort to look professional. He unloaded the backpack, put his sunglasses back on and ran back up the stairs, probably thinking, 'Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!' It was a rough start to his bodyguarding day. I wonder if his charges were still alive when he got back.

3. The Maboro Men
One of the entrances to the nearest Metro, Barbes-Rochechouart, is lined with African men. They say a word that sounds like 'Maboro' over and over and over again: Maboro. Maboro. Maboro. They sound like the market vendors that gather to the same station on Wednesdays and Saturdays calling out 'Un Euro' over and over, trying to entice the thronging crowds to their stalls. Although I have a feeling the Maboro men are selling something more illicit.

I've been trying to figure out what Maboro means for 24 days.

Coming down from Metro Line 2, elevated high above the street, I noticed people reaching through the bars, exchanging things with the dealers who stand just outside the station. The people, on their way home from work, make their way to Barbes, buy their drugs without leaving the station, get back on the train and go home.

I saw a stylish 50-something couple buy what appeared to be packs of cigarettes. The other day, it was an African woman who looked profoundly sad as she palmed the white packet.

The stairs from the station to the street are full of these guys, at least twenty every time I've passed. Maboro. Maboro. It's like a chant, a mantra. At the base of the stairs is a newspaper stand. There, older men lean in lines presiding over sales with their brown folded skin and brown folded arms.

Today, though, the Maboros were silent. No dealers stood at the gates and nobody reached through the bars, grasping for powdered relief. The men were still standing around, but they looked falsely casual.

As I left the station, I understood why. Four police officers jostled towards the entrance, wearing kevlar vests and holding back a muzzled and anxious German shepherd who strained at his leash.

The crackdown made me convinced that Maboro was the Tunisian word for crack or meth. Something horrible and highly illegal. I was sure the people of Paris were ruining their lives with their five o'clock detours to Barbes-Rochechouart. I searched the internet for some kind of translation, spelling this mysterious word every way I could think of. Moboro. Mabaro. Mabodo. Nothing. And then, finally, it dawned on me.

Marlboro. Marlboro. Marlboro.

Mental Kung Fu

Julia Cameron (Artist's Way author) describes the path of the artist as a spiral one – you often cover the same ground, but with a slightly different perspective. I'm covering some old ground right now. Thinking too much. Analyzing. Processing. Wondering about the 'how.' How is my screenplay going to get sold? How will the film get made? How can get an agent/manager so I don't have to actually sell it myself?

All good questions. All valid and important. It's just that they may not be necessary. You see, my job is not the how. My job is to listen and obey. To do what I'm told by my intuition, God, the universe...whatever or whomever is driving this bus.

I know for certain my analytical mind isn't driving. The mind is an irritating back-seat driver that wishes it could drive. And really, if you put it behind the wheel, it would turn left when it meant to go right and over-think lane changes and miss exits. It would make a real mess of things.

So, I'm asking my little hamster of a mind to relax. To just take a vacation. What I could do, is keep it busy with some affirmations. Affirmations are the perfect distraction. They allow my mind to keep busy with something, and behind the scenes they begin to reprogram things, energetically speaking.

The real problem with the mind is that it can really be counterproductive. For example, if I'm thinking about 'How do I get an agent?' and I'm going over it and over it. I'm thinking (THINKING) about things like making a list of agents and putting together packages. And I'm thinking how that makes me nervous and I hate phones and am terrible at mail. And now I'm feeling (FEELING) insecure and inadequate and I'll probably never get an agent. That's the thing that 'other people' get (BELIEF). In this case, my crap thinking leads to crap feelings which leads to crap beliefs.

Beliefs are something that has been programmed into your brain over time. Some beliefs were programmed by your parents. Some you did all by yourself, you big boy! Others come from elsewhere and glom onto other things you've heard until they become 'the truth' in your mind.

I can't remember when or where I heard this, but I heard that 2 million people try to break into Hollywood (every year?) and only one percent make it. This affected me in junior high or whenever I heard it. It contributed to my belief that success happens to other people and not me.

And really, it's a crap statistic anyhow. How do "they" know how many people "try" to break in to Hollywood. And how do "they" know that only one percent make it? Is there an entrance/exit survey? What does "making it" mean? One percent of two million is 20,000 anyway. Are you telling me that 20,000 people "make it" every year? A Saddledome's worth of starlets?

Whatever. The point here is that beliefs and 'things you've heard' aren't necessarily true. It could all use a little scrutiny. Or don't bother with scrutiny (analytical mind again) and jump right to reprogramming the hard drive.

So. Thoughts. Feelings. Beliefs. Beliefs are the hardest to reprogram. And feelings are tough too if you're already a quivering lump of insecure self-loathing. So, we'll start with thoughts.

Affirmations are like thought implants. You are giving yourself a mental boost with phrases that you repeat over and over that are relentlessly, inexcusably positive. They are partly good because they drown out the sound of 'I can't, it's not feasible, I haven't figured out how' and all that other crap. They are also partly good because they can actually help in manifesting all these positive things you keep saying to yourself.

What we're doing here is mental judo. Is it judo where you take the energy of your oncoming enemy and redirect it such that, miraculously, they are on their ass and you are standing still, checking your fingernails? Anyway, that's what we're doing. We're using thoughts to redirect thoughts. Beating them at their own game in an 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' kind of way.

Complaining about your situation will only get you more negativity. Trust me. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Affirmations are about adding positive energy to an area where you want to see positive change. You don't have to know how to get to where you want to go. But you need to start by adding love, joy and possibility.

If you want to write your own, that's cool. Just make sure they are in the present tense. If you affirm something that is in the future tense...you are keeping it in the future and out of reach. 'I will be happy' means your happiness is always 'one day.' 'I am happy' means happiness is available right now. With me?

Affirmations get turbo charged when you add some emotion. I know a woman who buys herself flowers every week, but rolls her eyes when she tells you it's to romance herself. How...romantic? Imagine if a real-life lover rolled their eyes when giving her flowers! The flowers become meaningless. Grudgingly repeating 'I am happy and fulfilled' with a bored look on your face and a snarl in your voice really, really defeats the purpose. So, once more with feeling.

A few from the International Bank of Affirmations:

• I am genuinely talented.
• I allow abundance to flow through me.
• Money comes easily and naturally.
• I am joyful and fulfilled.
• I accept the gifts from the universe.
• I am safe and secure.
• Love fills everything I do.
• I am vibrant and healthy.
• I am peaceful and serene.

Oh God, there are millions. Hey, here's an idea. Make a deposit to the bank. Add your favourite affirmations to this post. Don't be shy.

It Started in a Waiting Room

The first seed of the idea for my screenplay took root in a waiting room. It was a Monday afternoon and my boyfriend needed a medical for his Class 2 driver's license which had expired a couple of days before. Most people would have just driven with an expired license, but there is a speeding ticket/demerit thing, so I drove him.

I suppose I could have just dropped him off, but that would mean coming back. And what if I had just gotten into something, like really flowing with something, and then the phone rang for me to go get him? I would have been pissed. Frankly, sitting in a waiting room surrounded by the coughing, wheezing unwashed of Calgary’s northwest for the better part of three hours wasn't exactly my idea of fun either. The poor guy just couldn't win.

So, I used to time for one of my favourite activities. Staring at people. I look someone up, down and sideways, trying to figure out their story: marital status, kids, happiness level, major psychological "issues," sordid childhood abuse, etc. And also what was wrong with them. They are sitting in a clinic, after all.

As I was sitting there, I remembered my waiting room thing. It’s an idea and an ongoing series of observations I have about psychiatrists’ waiting rooms. My psychiatrist’s waiting room, to be specific. Yes, I have a psychiatrist. Most people have therapists and that is kind of a non-issue. Having a medical specialist of mental illness ‘on staff’ is a bit of a different matter, I know.

Without delving into my mental inner workings too deeply, let me say that a shrink’s waiting room is, for a writer, a delicious slice of the human comedy unlike any other. Regardless of one’s level or depth of insanity, a psychiatrist’s waiting room sentences you to all kinds of ghastly diagnoses based solely on your body language.

The woman staring into space? Catatonic depression. The one absently twirling her hair? Obsessive compulsive. Any laughter? We're talking mania. Talking to yourself, even if it’s just going over the grocery list? Schizophrenia and God help you.

Trust me, I’m not the only one who thinks this. My own father understands the inescapable implication of the psychiatry waiting room.

One afternoon, he arrived to meet me for a coffee after my appointment. I walked out of the Dr’s office and there he was, reading in the waiting room. When he saw me, relief washed over his face. He stood up abruptly and yelled, ‘There you are!’ And as if I didn’t know, “I’ve been waiting for you! I’m not crazy!”

And two things struck me:

1. His yelling made him seem a little crazy.
2. Waiting rooms are powerful places.

To be honest, I felt badly for anyone sitting there when my father yelled, ‘I’m not crazy!’ into the page-flipping silence of the room. Because they, of course, are. And that is hard enough to take without being in their only place of safety, the shrink’s office, and having someone yell about it.

It’s not the only time a so-called sane person has done this kind of thing. The receptionist, Claire – on whom Screenplay Claire is based, actually – had a good one several months later.

It was a busy noon-hour with a dozen or more patients filling the chairs and the phone ringing off the hook. She put people on hold and handed out washroom keys and intake forms and took a call that was obviously someone she knew. "God," she said into the receiver. "It’s crazy in here today."

Why yes, Claire. Yes, it is.

I almost sniggered out loud, but that would've pinned me with some kind of wacky unmanageable affective disorder and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood.

Writing Off the Page

This is something that has been suggested to me a couple of times in different ways. Writing off the page simply means, working on something 'else' while you are working, struggling or completely blocked on a project. It's an exercise about restarting the flow of creative energy, even if it's not in the exact same direction you were working.

Write about a character's childhood, even if it has nothing to do with the thing you're working on. Do laundry as your character. Paint something else entirely, maybe or maybe not using one of the colours you were working with. Listen to music that is totally contrary to your usual style or genre. (Speaking of which, Mickey Avalon's 'Jane Fonda' refuses to leave my head.)

I've come to believe this is what my one-woman show tangent was about. It's no accident that the character's name is also Charlie. It's also no accident that it begins as personal narrative (my personal narrative) and veers off into something else entirely.

I was workin' it out. Working Charlie out and playing with her voice. Working out where this character begins and where I end. Working out how to release "I" entirely. Working on following where a character wants to go, rather than where I think they should go. And allowing something not to be just one thing (i.e. personal narrative) or just the other (i.e. made-up fiction).

The voice in the OWS (one-woman show) isn't me. It's louder, more trailer-park. More dead-end Minnesota. The kind of voice that has seen more monster truck rallies than opera houses. That wears a t-shirt with no bra, sneakers with no socks and drinks beer from a can.

It was practice letting the character speak and letting me stay quiet. It showed me shades and nuance that I wasn't able to see.

In the end, Screenplay Charlie was nothing like OWS Charlie. Screenplay Charlie is quieter, more observant. She is way more likely to ask you your opinion and thoughts and philosophy, than she is to tell you hers. She's a bit evasive, although that's about protection. Internal. She's working things through in her inner landscape, not loud-talking her way through the problem of Born Agains and their strange notions of sin.

I wonder if Screenplay Charlie is influenced by the introverts in my life. There are a few. And as an extrovert, a person who finds energy in other people, I have often been baffled by these creatures who don't 'talk through' problems or conundrums. Frankly, as I sit here, I realize I don't know at all how they work through the inevitable confusions of being human.

I don't actually know how Charlie came to her conclusion. I like to think that she was already too far down the path of death to really even consider life (and love) when it landed in her lap. That 'death' had implanted itself and was growing quickly, like a tumour only not as violent an image. And love/life was only a trifle at that point, a distraction from her path.

My friend Cathy is a life coach. And she had the opportunity to work with a woman who had serious cancer. During the course of their relationship, Cathy asked her if she wanted to live. One just assumes that 'Life!' is the only option, but it isn't. And it wasn't for this woman. She went away and listened to her intuition and when she came back, she said, "You know Cathy. I want to die. I'm ready to go."

And I can imagine that Cathy, a LIFE coach for God's sake, and I went through some similar feelings. I can't do that. I can't 'let' someone die...and I certainly can't coach (write) them to do it. I believe in life...in living to the fullest.

But when someone is telling you, point blank, that they choose death, you are forced to concede.

There is a grief that happens before a death, or can happen if you are willing to see it coming. We as a culture have a great denial around death and dying. We believe that it is not okay. That it is a devastation. But really, it's just another part of living. And if people can make choices in their lives, they can make choices about its end.

"We all visit The Undertaker in the end." I wrote this in my notebook when I realized who the characters of this story were and how they were connected. And even after writing it, The Undertaker himself had to beat me over the head with the fact that he, in fact, not Charlie, is the unifying character. The hub. The centre. The heart, even, of this story.

We resist death. We resist change. We resist the idea that we (or others) may not be the people we thought. And can we keep loving them, even though they no longer fit the mold we made for them? Can we...expand...to fit the possibility of this new human (who was themselves long before we decided they were someone else)?

Choosing A can mean B disappears from the storyline...of our lives or our work. Not choosing at all is a choice. Putting your head in the sand doesn't avoid a choice, it is a choice. Doors open. Doors close. Every choice is a kind of death. 'That others may live.'

Things I Will Miss About Paris

(Besides the obvious pleasure of doing nothing but write for a whole entire month in one of the most culturally and historically rich cities on the planet.)

• The cheese. One Euro ($1.50 CDN) gets you brie so mind-blowingly creamy and buttery that you are transported to heaven. Then you get angry that you spend $15 for it at home.
• The bread. I have not had one bad baguette. Not one.
• The Métro. Like a time warp that arrives every three minutes. And a ticket costs less than it does at home.
• Markets. Rainbows of fruits and vegetables. Strawberries so sweet they make me want to cry.
• Full-frontal in-your-face gorgeousness. Everywhere you look, there is something breathtakingly beautiful.
• Dana the Wyse. And not just for the dinners she makes me. I swear.
  
• The value of art and culture. Creative expression is important, nay...essential here. What a concept.
• Mixed-use urban planning. I'm dreading the mile-long gauntlet of cookie-cutter suburbia between me and the grocery store at home. Here, you walk out your door, it's there. Whatever it is you wanted. Unless what you wanted was a gas station, in which case, you are S.O.L. Sorry.
• The attention to detail. The architecture here is so stunningly ornate it makes me think that modernism is just a euphemism for laziness.
• Grocery store desserts. These ain't no Jell-O Puddin' Pops here people. We're talking chocolate mousse, almond creamy-something, creme brulee...all for a Euro.
  

Things I Will Not Miss About Paris

• The smell. There have been days that can only be described as pissy. I think you know what I'm talking about.
• The noise/traffic. It's a constant audio-visual assault.
• Les pharmacies. While the notion of getting bread at the bread store, meat at the meat store, etc. is charming, the guy at the pharmacy wanted to charge me 20 Euro ($30) for contact solution and tampons. I stared at him for a long, long time. Which brings me to...
• Parisian men. I know. I know. I'm sorry. But. It's not the women who cut in front of you in lines, give you the wrong change, run you over with scooters, overcharge you and leer at you on the subway. Just sayin'.
• The sidewalks. Or rather the mass of humanity on the sidewalks. They don't walk, they ooze. They drift. They inexplicably stop. They somehow manage to take up the entire expanse of the sidewalk moving not forward but sideways like some sort of human crab. Marchez! Allez! Mon dieu!
• My teeny-tiny shower and the scummy clingy shower curtain. That thing sticks to my legs and it pisses me off. The shower is so small, I've burned my elbow 20 times on the molten hot water tap.
• The reek of my refrigerator. Senor Producer, the flat's owner, keeps some manner of fermented something in there. Olives maybe. The smell of them, wafting out and filling the whole apartment, makes me homicidal.
• Climbing six flights to my place. 104 stairs x at least once a day = 3100 - 4000 stairs. My ass, though...is fantastic.
  

Ca-lunk

Four love affairs and a murder really does a number on a girl. Tires her right out. Am in the thick of a fatigue so dense it could barely be penetrated by absolutely wondrous beauty at the Musée du Cluny. And even that just exhausted me further. And made me cry.

There is a feeling of letdown after the completion of anything profound, whether it's a marathon or a creative project. Anything where there has been build up and preparation and a great peak of effort. It's like a natural balancing. What goes up must come down. Sounds kind of like sex, when one thinks about it. Or giving birth. Which, I've heard, is one of the possible end results of sex.

Writing this post is difficult. My fingers don't want to work on the keys and I'm certain it will be rife with typos. Even more than usual.

I took yesterday off. Spent it reading and puttering about the house, tidying up after last week's creative explosion. Early in the evening, Dana the Artist and I toured the city in her car, stopping at the museum where she dropped off some pills. Understand Your Mother Instantly. Stay in Love Forever. Feel and Look Canadian! (She describes it as an alternative lifestyle.) We spent a lot of time talking about pills and love, interestingly. After I got home, she offered me this: "pari" is the French word for a gamble or risk. Paris, then, is the plural form, bets or high stakes. Those cheesy I Heart Paris t-shirts take on deeper meaning when you think about it that way.

This great adventure is a risk. Creativity is a risk. Love is a risk. Living one's dreams, also a risk. And, yes, there are low points. Today feels like one of those. But even the lows are delicious. My exhaustion today comes from massive creative output. What could be more satisfying than the knowledge that you've worked incredibly hard doing something you passionately love?

Today in the museum I was stuck by a series of ancient, ancient statues standing in rows. Many of them had no heads, the heads having fallen off over time. A crop of heads was displayed off to the right, but what struck me was this crowd of headless bodies. It made me think about death for some reason. History is death.

It reminded me of an evening I spent in Sienna, Italy going on four years ago now. The town's centre is a circle called Il Campo where horse races were hosted every summer. Apartment buildings with flat curved faces rose all around this circle. Each apartment window was a little glowing light.

For some reason, at that moment, I saw generations of people's lives in those little glowing lights. Living and dying in waves of birth and death and history. Hundreds and hundreds of lives flashed before me and I stood there sobbing while teenagers smoked and looked sullen. Individual life, my life, seemed in that moment powerfully insignificant.

I had to meet my group for dinner and I arrived tear-stained and embarrassed. This grief for people I didn't even know confused me. 'It's the old places,' one of my companions said, nodding. Being our cycling tour guide, he'd know. He'd seen it before.

When I got back from Italy, I read about Stendhal Syndrome – a psychosomatic 'illness' resulting from exposure to large amounts of art. My research today took me to something called Paris Syndrome. A cousin of Stendhal's, I suppose, involving language and culture and an 360-degree overdose of beauty.

But really, when it gets right down to it...I'm just plain tuckered. Your body tells you when to slow down. It also tells you to stop. And this afternoon, as I felt like one of the ancient headless statues, mine said, 'Honey, grab some chocolate mousse and take a wee nap.'

Killing Your Parents

Now that my first draft is complete, I need to let it stew...to let (as my friend Dulcy says) the 'flavour bond' form. Although, you have to say 'flavour bond' with a Jersey accent...flavah baaaaand.

So while the flavah baaaaand forms, I want to fill in the hows and whys. How Charlie, Claire, Albert and The Undertaker emerged and why their stories came to life the way they did. The how of actually writing. Why I'm blogging this process in the first place. Let's start there, shall we?

I know from experience that creativity can seem a scary place. That it's much more comfortable to call yourself an engineer or a researcher or a graphic designer and not bother with the possibility that you could be a painter, a baker, a photographer or a novelist. I get that.

So I wanted to document this process, its inevitable ups and downs, anxieties and triumphs, in the hopes that it could help others on the journey or on the verge. So in some ways this is a service to the collective creativity of the world, and a service to those of you trapped in lives you really didn't imagine for yourself. Those who woke up one day and said, "What?! I'm pushing forty/fifty/sixty and I'm the father of how many?! I work where?! Doing what?! How did this happen?"

And it's not that our lives or bad or wrong, it's just that there is a dream life. A life you think other people get to live, but not you...and I think that's crap. I think we should all live our dream lives and be our dream selves. That happiness is our birthright and not a retreating horizon.

I wanted to make stepping outside of that comfort zone okay. I want to show you that, yes, it's hard and scary, but the good stuff is on the other side. Someone offered me a Tennessee Williams quote the other day, which is apropos: "Security is a kind of death." Your comfort zone can kill you. How comfortable is that?

The other, big reason why I am putting all of this up on the world wide interweb is because it scared the poop out me to do just that. To say exactly what I think, to tell my truth, out loud and in public. This process has been about speaking the truth, being authentic, escaping the Censor. So, I'm practicing. I'm practicing telling the truth out loud. Not couched in platitudes. Not edited for TV.

This is not easy. I think we all have the feeling that someone is watching...God, our parents, our peers. And if you write (paint, sing, compose) like someone is watching, you are editing yourself. You are censoring. You are cutting the legs off of something that could be groundbreaking, courageous and great.

Dana the Artist said something last night: "You have to kill your parents." And she didn't mean literally (don't worry Mom and Pop). She meant in your head and psyche.

I know that I'm just about to start writing things my parents won't like. I already have. I wrote an entire one-woman show about God coming from a family where everyone either laughs nervously or clears their throat when the G-word is spoken out loud. Hell, I wrote nine blog posts on the subject. And I have a feeling this is just the beginning.

So writing a blog – writing my truth out loud – is me moving out of my own comfort zone. The people pleasing place. The 'isn't she clever and funny and non-offensive' place. The place where making art is okay as long as you have matching throw pillows and area rugs and decorative vases in your home. As long as you fit the mold.

Connecting to what I wrote about habits, hiding my truth is a habit. Editing myself for the sake of others is a habit. Trying not to offend.

How boring. Honestly. And how presumptuous.

There is a chance that my parents are happy that I write about God and spirituality. They always said, after all, that they wanted us to choose. We were raised without religion and told to find our own way. Well, here I am. Finding my way. Rather publicly, actually. They could be reading this, leaning back in their chairs and looking at each other with parental satisfaction. 'We did a good job, Kid. A damn fine job.' Or. They could be sitting in their chairs, cringing and wishing I would just. shut. up. There is also the distinct possibility that they (gasp) don't even care – that they, like all of us, are really quite busy playing the starring role in their own personal movies, thank you, and don't have time to bother with low-paying bit parts in mine.

Who am I to assume what will offend and what won't? It's all in my head. Most things are. And as Dana the Wyse bestowed upon me today: You're really not that important. None of us are.

So, Mom and Dad...uh...bang bang. (And as soon as I wrote that, I wanted to shrink it back. Delete. Delete. Delete.) I offer the world an evolved version of your daughter. One who speaks the truth in the name of art and love and higher consciousness and the collective heart. Who speaks the truth bravely but imperfectly – who is human, after all. And who will probably need some more practice until she gets it right.

The End

It feels almost anti-climactic. After the build-up of Charlie's unfortunate demise (and my own denial around that), the fact that Draft One is done kind of pales in comparison.

But if you think about it, this whole month has been its own story, with complications and rising action, the whole bit. I guess yesterday was our climax, the narrative explosion of our writer finally realizing that she must eat her own young. Gasp!

So today, the aftermath of my murderous evening, is the denouement. The scenes where everything comes together. Loose ends get tied and we wipe our eyes and file out of the theatre as the credits roll.

Today, finishing my draft meant constructing the narrative sequence out of mountains and mountains of scenes. I had written in vast chunks, you see, one character taking over the script for pages and pages on end as their story unfolded almost faster than I could type.

So, today was a tying together day. Interspersing storylines and building a whole from all of these parts. It was fun. It was tedious. It had an element of loss and one of deep accomplishment.

I came here to write a screenplay. And I did. My experience has been nothing short of life-changing and...oh Gawd...I'm beginning to sound like a high-school valedictorian speech or the final statement of the principled lawyer in the courtroom drama. Truth and justice for all. I feel sentimental, I guess. Like anyone would with an ending. Here we are, at the place we've been working towards, the place we've been dreading, The End.

I really shouldn't get too maudlin, though. My plan is to let it brew for a couple of days before I look at it again. Roll up my sleeves for a second draft...or whatever it tells me to do. It may look me in the eyes, raise an eyebrow and say, 'Fine thanks', and that'll be that until I let someone else's trusted eyeballs take a read.

I guess that's the great challenge of The End. It leads one to thinking What's Next. I don't know. I really don't. I've had a feeling all along that this screenplay is supposed to get made. To become a real boy in the form of a movie on a screen with actors and directors and the whole lot. How that will happen, I don't know.

My fantasy has been some Diablo Cody fairytale, where some successful Manager finds me on the blogosphere (where is that exactly?) and immediately makes me famous. If you're reading this Mr. Manager...I'm ready when you are. My friend Andrea thinks I should send it straight to Peter Dinklage. Dear Pete, Here's your Oscar. Love, Mel.

I guess this is the place where faith is important. Although, faith has been critical all along. Faith and presence. It's all we can do. Stay present. Be true. Bring joy and love to the work. And have faith that good things are happening.

Tonight, I will be celebrating. Drinking real-live French champagne and, I think, dressing up just a little. I've been schlumping around in Writer's Wear for long enough. Time for a bit of rouge and sparkle. The End doesn't come very often, you know.

The Morning After

It's late Saturday morning. The sky is cloudy (as usual) but bright, the kind of day where I'll need sunglasses. Morning sounds filter through as I sip my tea: the metallic clang as the neighbours fold back their shutters, the faint sound of children yelling, steps loud on the stairs just outside my door.

I was awakened this morning by an impossibly beautiful birdsong. It was like Mozart and a sparrow had some kind of miraculous lovechild and there it was, the most melodic alarm clock in history.

I have a headache. It could be a the half-bottle of rosé I bombed while writing Charlie's fateful end. I could be the two hours of sobbing that followed. Could be both. I'll call it a grief hangover and that should suffice.

After I finished writing and the first round of crying (there's usually several when I get going), I wrote an email to Dana the Artist:

"Oh God. I killed her. Or rather, she killed herself. It's what she's been trying to tell me. I'm horribly, horribly sad. It's why I've been fucked all day...I knew it, but I didn't want to know it. How ridiculous, but how lovely, to be crying over people who came out of my own head."

My sorrow did have a really lovely tinge to it...that this was somehow 'right' and good and true and beautiful. There was also the feeling that this, my snot-faced Friday night sobbing over someone who doesn't exist, was absolutely ridiculous.

My boyfriend confirmed it. He offered a rather confused, "I'm sorry...that your character...died?" And I laughed my head off. Because there I was, age thirty-one, slightly drunk on pink juice-wine, bawling my head off over my imaginary friend.

Finding Charlie

Charlie, we'll call her Charlie for now, is a character. She is, or was, the main character. The protagonist. The person around which the whole story pivoted. She was a person who hangs around waiting rooms, watching people wait and unaware that she's in the same boat. That she is in limbo as much as everyone else.

When I vomited out the first 20 pages of this script, it was a quirky love story between Charlie and some accident prone dude I just called 'Guy'. Charlie was smart-assed, intimacy-phobic and marginally suicidal. She was a version of me three years ago. Not the suicidal part...that was six years ago. Regardless.

She was, for lack of a better word, a cartoon. A roughly sketched out cliché heroine from your run-of-the-mill "offbeat romantic comedy". That was back in the 'Look how smart I am for writing 20 pages in my first week in Paris' days. Back before little things like subtlety and nuance and authenticity smacked me upside the head. Little things that scoffed at my Hollywood tripe and told me I could do better.

It's been an intense week. I have had really deep, really fast-moving relationships with three of my characters. Yesterday was hard because Claire, dear Claire of the cancer, self-destructed in a really uncomfortable way. I was anxious all day, sick to my stomach at what she was putting herself through all for the sake of her denial.

I left Charlie to the end. I don't know why. Perhaps because she is most like me and I, like most of us, struggle to see myself clearly. I couldn't sleep last night. I tossed and turned and I know that my subconscious was working overtime, trying to figure her out.

You see, I'm making all my characters choose. Life or death. Authenticity or denial. Connection or isolation. And, also like most people, my characters wait until the last possible second to choose. They twist and turn in the purgatory of indecision, making life really, really hard on themselves and then finally, when they have no choice, they choose. No choice but to choose. A nice slogan and a human reality.

So, Charlie kept me up last night with her writhing about in my subconscious. I woke up exhausted and I tried to figure her out in my Morning Pages (see yesterday's missive), but she refused to come clear. I read for awhile. Drank nine giant cups of tea. Peed for two hours and decided to get the f*ck outta Dodge.

Because when one is stuck in the shit, one should move one's hiney. So I planned an elegant journey to the street market on Rue Montorgueil, where Dana the Artist bought those dreamy, sacred scallops from the other day. As I was sitting at my computer I casually happened to open up my screenplay and poke around.

Ugh.

I had a shower, which sometimes helps, especially if one plans on leaving the house, and the steam from the shower brought more oxygen to my brain and I had an idea. I ran to my computer (after drying off and enduring the absolutely critical agony of blow drying my hair...what a colossal waste of time) and wrote a scene, which I liked. And it was a good scene in that it brought Charlie to the point where she, at the very least, knows she has to choose.

I spoke on the phone with Dana the Artist, who had wonderful questions like, 'Does Charlie go to church? Should she?' and 'Why don't you give her some air and let her take you to the catacombs?' Dana could tell there was serious creative tension going on. She hung up to plan a trip to Arcadia, Greece based on a dream she had last night.

I got dressed. I had a realization. I didn't want it. I put on my thinking cap, a.k.a. beret and left the house.

I walked down Boulevard de Magenta and started to cry. I'd been avoiding it for days, but the truth finally, finally came clear. And it's a horrible truth and a heart-breaking one. But the truth is the truth and here it is: Charlie must die.

Oh, God. No.

And I think: I can't do it. I can't kill someone I really, really love...someone who is creepily similar to how I see myself. I mean what does that say about me and how I see the world? I'm an optimist for Christ's sake! I can't just let her die like that...all alone. I can't. And my brain starts huffing and chugging, trying to find an alternative, a different route to take. An ending where she doesn't have to go. And I imagine this is what people who lose other people think about. What if he took this road instead of that road...would he still be alive?

But the truth of it is, I asked them to choose. I gathered these four people around me and I backed each and every one of them into a corner and pointed a gun to their heads and said, 'Choose.'

I am such a bitch. And I did this to myself.

This is why falling in love hurts so much. Because you can't control someone else and they go and make decisions that are so viscerally painful to you that you end up stumbling down the streets of Paris with mascara streaming down your face.

I went to Rue Montogeuil. I bought the scared, glorious scallops. I bought some special cheese. And some wine. I bought two desserts from a bakery that opened in 1730. It's going to be a long night. It's going to be a hard night. A good, necessary, holy night, but a difficult one. A person needs sustenance for grisly errands like this. Good food, good wine, good lighting.

Wish me luck.

Morning Pages

This post is about a basic, basic practice – like brushing one's teeth – that is absolutely critical to the journey. Maybe it seems as though it is coming late in my rather verbose blatherings. (A friend just emailed me saying he'll catch up on my blog when he has a few weeks of free time...point taken....point ignored.)

Morning Pages are something that you will read in the first chapter of The Artist's Way. They are something you might brush off as silly, stupid and a waste of time. You would be missing out on a major, major spiritual and creative tool if you did that. Morning Pages are, simply, three handwritten pages of stream-of-consciousness writing performed in the morning. Usually the first thing you do in the morning, i.e. before you start working.

It is not journaling. Although you may happen to recount events from your day and how you felt about them. It is not brainstorming. Although you may work through the various solutions to a certain problem. It is clearing space. Clearing mental, emotional, spiritual, creative space. It is skimming off that layer of mental crap that accumulates in the 24-hour period since you last did your Pages.

In Ayurvedic medicine, they recommend scraping your tongue in the mornings. That a layer of waste (called ama) has accumulated and come to the surface during the night and scraping it off is part of hygiene. Morning Pages are scraping off that layer of waste.

My pages always begin like this: Tired today. Hate the smell that is coming from my fridge. Am now dreading opening the fridge. Best diet in the world. A stinking fridge. X seemed pissy last night on the phone. Was it me? Am I imagining as usual?

You get the point. Insecure, irritated, tired...mental waste. Clear it off. As I'm becoming more and more aware: the good stuff is on the other side. In fact, Julia Cameron writes that in her book. Why do we do the morning pages? To get to the other side.

And what, you might ask, is on this glorious Other Side? Clarity, inspiration, gratitude and love. For real! Once you clear off the mental crud, you are able to access the responsive, open and intuitive realm of creativity.

The key is in the stream-of-consciousness, though. If you think and process and "journal" your way through these, the evil Editor will perk up its warty little pointy ears and start trying to manage the process. Write fast. Write faster than you can think. Messy scrawls across the page of total nonsense. Just to sneak past the Editor. Once you're through, you're golden.

Then you locate yourself firmly in your intuition, where thoughts, ideas and answers are true and real and good. Edited, censored, analyzed, processed answers...blech. They are about as authentic as processed food crammed full of additives, preservatives, BHT and red dye #5. The mental additives are things like "shoulds", ego and weird beliefs. Blast past all that crap and get to the good stuff.

How you use your Morning Pages and what you get out of them will emerge over time. These past few days, I've been using my Morning Pages to discover my characters. Today was a marvelous, marvelous example. I have really over-processed one of my characters, Claire, to death. I have no idea who she is anymore or why she is doing the the things she's doing. So today, I went to the pages. Cleared away all the 'I'm tired, life stinks' garbage and asked about Claire. I wrote about where she's at in life and what that means – still stream-of-consciousness. Still trying to sneak by the Editor.

Claire was just diagnosed with breast cancer. She has no children. So her breasts, parts that should have been life-giving and nurturing, are now, sadly, threatening her life. She never used her breasts for their true purpose and now...it's too late. You don't know what you've got until it's gone. So I explored that. What does that feel like? What would I do? What would Claire do? How would she cope with this reality?

And I'm there, hanging out in a really lovely intuitive, empathetic, compassionate space. And the answers start coming. Here's what she does. Here's how she copes. (I can't tell you yet because I need to write it first...there is another date with my intuition still to come.)

Clear away the waste, access the intuition, find the truth. What a glorious process. And then I usually spend half a page thanking God, thanking the Creator, thanking this delicious intuitive force that has guided me to the truth. Gratitude is important. More on that later.

Now, something must be said about the challenge of forming a habit like Morning Pages. It took me a full month of resisting, forgetting, minimizing, and a whole host of other 'reasons not to' until I understood the power of this simple exercise. It is a healing exercise. It is a joyful one. It is a habit that must be formed over time.

It's like exercise. It is so good for us. It makes us healthy. It is actually joyful, once you drag your ass outside to do it. But we resist it. We find a gazillion reasons why not. I'm busy. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I'm working. Blah blah blah. Exercise takes 30 minutes. So do Morning Pages. If you can't carve out 30 minutes in a day to nurture yourself and make yourself healthy...you've got bigger problems.

It's about self-worth. Valuing yourself enough to be healthy and whole. All those other things – the things that are more important than exercise or Morning Pages – by choosing them over yourself, you are making a fairly bold statement about where you fit in your own life. Everything else and everyone else is more important than me. Wow.

I'm not saying that we should all shirk responsibilities like jobs and kids and calling the plumber. Those things need your attention. But somewhere along the line, those things become more important than you, your needs, your dreams, your health. And the people in your life who see you putting everything else ahead of yourself...well, they get used to that. They start to count on it – they're only human, after all. And then those reasons become excuses – they can't survive without me – and the cycle continues.

Half an hour, People! It's so, so, so worth it.

And if you are still gunning for Martyr of the Year, check this out: nurturing yourself makes you better at nurturing others. You will have more patience, more compassion, more joy and more love to give because you are taking time for yourself.

The good stuff: love, joy, compassion, gratitude...is infinite. You can't "use up" your love quota. The gratitude bank account is never empty. The joy store is always having a red tag sale. And if you are in a scarcity mindset – a 'I can't give to them because I don't have enough myself' – that's because you aren't giving it to yourself! If you feel depleted it's because you are. And the only person who can solve that issue is you.

Give yourself love, respect, romance, compassion, appreciation – all those things you want from others. Give yourself time – this thing everyone else wants from you.

This post is really about habits. Morning Pages is a habit. Loving and giving to yourself is a habit. Giving to everyone but yourself is a habit. It's not a permanent state. You are not trapped. This is not 'just the way it is' or 'as good as it gets'. See those kinds of thoughts as resistance. Make a new habit.

Does forming a habit happen overnight? No. You didn't just wake up one morning a slave to the needs of your family, boss, friends. It happened over time due to choices that you made. Make new choices. And keep making new choices. And eventually, you will have new habits. Ones that, I hope, include things like Morning Pages and sunrise walks and telling yourself 'I love you'.

It takes 21 repetitions to form a habit. Twenty-one days to a new you. Think about that. Three weeks...a month if you fall off the wagon a little. What would you change? Take one thing. Morning Pages. Exercise. Saying no to people who take advantage of you. Carving out 30 minutes of nonnegotiable Mommy-Alone-Time.

I hope you try it. And if you do try it, I hope that every time you succeed – every day that you actually sit and write your Pages, or take your 30 minutes – that you thank yourself. Congratulate yourself. Add positive energy to what you are doing. Don't sit there and sulk about how you 'should have had this all along'. Your choices got you here and your choices can get you someplace better. So do it with joy and love and gratitude. Do everything with joy and love and gratitude, in fact.

How you do one thing is how you do everything, my friend Cathy says. How are you doing your everything?

Falling in Love in Paris

Everybody said if I came to Paris, I'd fall in love. And I didn't believe them. I resisted the whole idea, thinking it clichéd crapola. Well, dear friends, you were right. I am totally head over heels in love. With my characters. I love these people! (That's not me necking in the photo by the way...)

We're spending a lot of time together, getting to know each other's quirks and idiosyncrasies. Well, I'm getting to know them. I don't think they give a Paris sewer rat's ass about me. But that's okay. I love them for that, too.

This post is kind of about plot. And how plot, to me, at the moment, isn't about "what happens." Plot is about what circumstances you put your characters into and how (if) they get themselves out.

What if a tough-guy undertaker falls in love with a bird? What if an old man tries to keep his dead wife nearby by wearing her clothing? These circumstances are a little bit strange, it's true, but what better way to see who a person truly is that by putting them up Shit Creek without a paddle?

You'd find out who you were, pretty damn quick. Would you be the type to sit down and cry until a helicopter saved you? Or are you more of a MacGyver, building shelter out of pine boughs and tin foil? Or maybe you are more of a bumbling sort, who would wander aimlessly into the bush, hoping for the best, but meeting many tragic/comic turns with things like waterfalls and quicksand.

My screenplay follows four people through a certain set of circumstances. My screenplay is about the things I think life is about: love, connection, living with purpose and authenticity during your time here on Earth. It's about the importance of vulnerability. When we are vulnerable, we are open. We are able and willing to connect.

But "what happens" in this little movie in my head is that a few people bumble through the forest, trying to get home. They each have their own brand of bumbling and that's what makes them who they are. What would you do if your wife died? If you couldn't and wouldn't accept the idea that she is just plain gone from your life and empty from your days. What would happen next?

I have rendered two of my characters. And I love them so dearly. These are people in my heart now, and they exist only in my imagination and on my pages. I feel lucky for that...like you feel lucky whenever you fall in love. I feel grateful for their frailty and honesty and vulnerability. I feel lucky to have been able to watch them struggle and suffer and work it all out. I feel lucky that I have two more characters to fall in love with tomorrow.

And I'm also a little sad.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through this script and The End is looming. The moment when I type the final scene, press Save and close up the file. I know it's only the first draft and there's more to come. I know that these characters are in my imagination and therefore I can, I suppose, visit whenever I like...but. It's all bittersweet. How exciting that I'm almost there. And how tragic.

Nose, Meet Grindstone

Grindstone, meet nose. Ladies and Gentlemen, time is a-tickin'. And eventually, it's time to quit mooning about and produce! I am working towards an aggressive deadline of this Sunday for a first draft of my screenplay.

But Mel, you'll say, you've only been there two weeks, aren't you supposed to take your time? But Mel, you'll also say, shouldn't you be going by 'feel', writing whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like? But Mel, you will less likely be saying, are you going to try and make one of the living statues by Notre Dame laugh and fall off the little box they balance on?

Well friends, gather 'round. It's tough love day.

Living a dream and mucking about in the woo woo is fun. Navel gazing is fun. Woolgathering is also fun. But there comes a time when you need to put down the self-help book and pick up the pace. Sometimes introspection is good, sometimes it's a time-wasting, suck-hole.

We are now entering Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is zone. It's time to stop thinking and start writing...a ton. So, that is what I am doing.

Monday morning was the technical beginning of what my triathlon coach Ross would call Peak Week – the week of the most intense training (and in this case, production). This is the week that tires you out, but makes you stronger. This is the week you work your ass off, and do your best to stay in the moment, because tomorrow is even harder. This is the week where you push yourself harder than you think you can go, only to discover you can go there...and further. Yes, Princess. You'll be rewarded with some rest, but that's a long, long...LONG way off.

On Monday morning, I was at a crossroads and a standstill. As I scrolled through the document, I realized that I had a whole bunch of scenes, 40 pages of scenes, but no story. I didn't even know whether this movie was a comedy or not. Which, if you ask me, is a pretty important thing to know.

As far as "feel" went, I had two films pulling at me as inspiration: Juno and Away From Her. The smart-ass humour of Juno. The poetic beauty of Away From Her. For those who haven't seen these two films, they are about as similar as a ballpark wiener and a creme brulée.

What. The. Fork.

I went for a walk to clear the static. I tried hard to listen. I tried too hard. I stopped trying.

Humour and pathos. Are they really two ends of a spectrum? Does it have to be one or the other? One thing I know about myself is that laughing, to me, is critical. It is how I communicate. How I connect. It is how I have endured some sad, sad times. And, as I learned from my one-woman show, it has the ability to take people by the hand, tell them 'It's okay' and lead them gently into the deeper places where pathos lives. Where things resonate with meaning if you are brave enough to open your heart. Laughing opens your heart.

Half of my pages were written as a comedy. Half my pages were not. I put them all together into one document and I rewrote it as a comedy 'with heart'. That is, a comedy that takes you places.

I sat in my cafe and cut and pasted and tried to figure out how someone's wife dying could be funny, even just a little. As I wrote, barely taking the time to sip from my quickly cooling coffee, a little person walked into the cafe. Little person as in man with dwarfism...as in midget. He sidled up to the bar and swung himself up onto a high bar stool with shocking ease and lightness. I was impressed for three seconds. And then I kept writing.

This morning, I woke up and stared at my screen. Lots of scenes. No story. I have a semi-suicidal nurse. I have an old man whose wife just died. I have someone who gets diagnosed with cancer, who happens to be the daughter of the man whose wife just died. And I have this minor, minor character called The Undertaker. (He's an undertaker.)

The Undertaker is there because the old man's wife died. And I had written him as a total cliché: tall, gloomy, pale, black suit. But this morning. Suddenly. Miraculously. Irrationally. Wonderfully. He became a midget.

He's tough. He's all business. He's raking in the cash, hand over fist. He's sexy. He drives a Porsche. He runs a funeral home. And he's a midget. I see him so clearly. I even know who I want to play the role. It's Peter Dinklage.

The little person from the cafe must have lodged himself into my subconscious and burst forth into life this morning as The Undertaker. And I love him. He is the most delicious character that has ever emerged from my brain/heart/soul/fingers. I thought about him all day and I'll dream about him all night. I'm in love with a midget undertaker from my imagination.

This, by the grace of God, was the tipping point.

Suddenly, themes of waiting, living, dying, loving, connection, isolation and purpose all coalesced. I rendered storylines and outlines for each of my four main characters. The Undertaker, a bit part in the first incarnation, became a major player. His is a sweet, sweet love story with a bird.

And now my story has...a story. It has a backbone. It has energy. It has drive. It has direction. It has an undertaker midget with a Porsche. Oh, Great Creator....

What. The. Fork.

On Bike Races and Impromptu Adventures

When I was recently divorced and just entering what I can now call the Audrey Hepburn Phase, I developed a (probably drunken) theory. It's called the Theory of Fabulousness. Only you have to say 'Fabulous' with a kind of wacky mid-Western American accent. So, more like Fyabulous or Fiabulous. Try it, you'll like it.

I developed this theory while visiting my youngest sister Kim on a work term in Huntington Beach, California, where we stayed in her apartment for four glorious, soul-filling days. That trip was so good that we've tried to recreate it again and again with little trips here and there, but nothing has ever quite compared to having a freaking condo in California. The trip began with cheap champagne and James Brown and it ended with cheap champagne and James Brown.

And in between, we went into L.A. and hung out with a lady named Julia, who really was from the midwest and really did say 'fyabulous' and said it a whole lot, in fact. Everything was 'fyabulous.' Everything. Could have had something to do with her taking Zyban to quit smoking and enjoying its antidepressant effects, who knows? Regardless, the whole thing was fyabulous.

One night we ended up at this cheesy lounge right out of the late 60s called The Dresden. I believe it was featured in the movie 'Swingers' and played host to two of the most gloriously tacky lounge singers I could ever imagine. Marty and Elaine have been crooning their honey-dripping stylings since the 60s and have never updated...their act or their look. The result is spectacular. Marty does, however, take the time to wash that grey right out of his hair. With mixed results and shocking black hair dye.

I digress.

The Theory of Fabulousness (Copyright 2001) has new relevance, I'm happy to say. The theory simply assumes that fabulousness begets fabulousness. One is therefore obligated to 'take the road more fabulous' as I've been known to say, at each of the hundred crossroads of decision one finds themselves faced with on a daily basis. Should I get up now, or press snooze interminably, lingering in pseudo-satisfying half-sleep for an hour? Should I go to one of the most prestigious cycling races in the world or should I stay in my 350 sq. ft. Paris apartment?

Most times the answers are obvious. Although it should be said that self-destruction in the name of Fabulousness won't truck with me. Is staying up 'til two, swilling martinis with a handsome stranger fabulous? I'll leave that up to you. But, put it this way, it's fabulous if it's not "yet another" martini-swilling weekend with "yet another" handsome stranger. If you catch my drift. Fabulousness is anything that moves you into a different and exciting realm of new possibility. It is not an excuse to stay stuck. Ahem. End of sermon.

What, you may be asking yourself as you wonder whether I was referring to YOU and YOUR martini problem, does this all have to do with bike races and following one's dreams?

Well friends, to trot out an old chestnut, you only regret the things you didn't do. And while I can't really call myself a cyclist anymore, if I ever could, yesterday I chose to take the train an hour away (and a tram another half hour) and spend the day waiting for the cycling world's biggest stars to whizz by me in a blur of shaved legs and large egos. (I suppose I was a cyclist when I was a triathlete. Only I think of myself more as the 'Why did the runner get on her bike? To get to T2' kind of a cyclist. Although, I have my bike to thank for introducing me to the hawks, so... ) More digression. Case of the Mondays. Here we go.

Weird and wonderful adventures, large and small, present themselves. From 'Hey, want to come to my little cousin's city final hockey game?' to 'Hey, we're taking a sushi class...in Osaka....wanna come?' And yes, staying home is more comfortable, in both the comfort zone and cushy couch sense of things, but if you are the author of the story of your life, would it not be a lot more interesting if, say, you went to the midget hockey game and five minutes before the end of the game, a kid got body-checked rather badly and spent the rest of the game lying on the ice waiting for the paramedics while clock ran down and the winning team tried to subtly celebrate their victory with as much respect as any unruly gaggle of 10- to 12-year-old boys could?

Now, that's a story. Sitting on the couch watching home renovation shows? Not a story.

Have I given the 'you are the author of your own life story' speech before? High time I did. And here it is: You. Are. The. Author. Of. Your. Life. Story. Write it well! Write with flair! Write with weird little adventures down the side streets of life where you never know who you'll meet or to what you'll bear witness. I mean, don't be stupid. Tripping gaily down the alleyways of Compton with a basket of goodies for Grandma will likely get you killed. But spending a day and a hundred bucks in a weird little town that lives and breathes for the Paris-Roubaix...that's worthwhile. Spending an afternoon with aging harmonicists...also worthwhile. Travelling to Paris/Bangkok/Sao Paulo to write/paint/sing/hike just because you love it and you've dreamed it and you're drawn there? Worth it beyond words.

But adventures of the epic sort are not every day occurrences. Small adventures, microadventures, however, are. (Sentence with most commas award.) Cultivate adventure in your life on any and every scale. Take the road more fabulous, which is the road less traveled and the road that leads (however gently) away from your comfort zone. Expand yourself and your life story. Make it fat and rich with image and experience.

Say yes to weird offers, even if they sound boring. International Conference of Actuarial Science? Uh, okay. Who knows? There could be a mysterious woman in a red dress and sunglasses and you follow her to the lunch buffet one day and catch her pocketing the butter pats. There's world of possibility!

Cultivate curiosity. A sense of adventure in all things. (That's it, I'm going to the Tim Hortons on the OTHER side of the street today!) Who knows what adventures and tiny sub-plots await you. Don't arrive at the end of your life and realize that every day was the same. No. Bore the shit out of your ungrateful grandchildren with tales of your Subarctic adventure and the domino tournament in Prague that almost turned deadly!