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andy:   did you dream about alec baldwin?
me:   i did dream about him, but i don't remember it.
andy:   You know what that means, right?
me:   i'm gay?
andy:   Not just gay
    really gay
    crazy gay
    dreaming about alec baldwin is the only thing that is actually gayer than full on gay sex.
me:   well, all i remember is being told ( Read more... )

A SINGLE FRATBOY drives up to a stop light. At the same corner a group of four or so DRUNK PUNK-BANSHEES stand around talking.

Single fratboy: Fuck you!
Group of drunk punk-banshees: FUCK YOU!
Single fratboy: You fuckin' bitch!
Group of drunk punk-banshees: NO FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! You fucker! Fuck you!
Single fratboy's car drives away as the ( Read more... )

You know, I can work on a story for ten years, work up a complicated, sprawling, ridiculous plot with all sorts of conceits, themes, Big Ideas, the works. A friggin' decade on a single story, bloating and trimming and bloating and trimming, and I still can't answer the most basic of writer's questions:

What does the protagonist want?

• Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (1978)
• The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution (1979)
• The Joy of Chickens (1980)
• Last Chance at Love - Terminal Romances (1981)
• Population and Other Problems: Family Planning, Housing 1,000 million, Labour Employment (1982)

Just as I was posting, the following text-message exchange took place:CASSIE: Can we shoot a spy movie on the 26th??!!??
TRAVIS: ??!? Tell you what, pitch me yr idea tomorrow!
CASSIE: It needs 2 be funny and clever with refrences to our current times and a non traditional strong female role.
CASSIE: And it should be slick... Can u write something ( Read more... )

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By first believing in Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy, Rant Casey was recognizing that those myths are more than pretty stories and traditions to delight children. Or to modify behavior. Each of those three traditions asks a child to believe in the impossible in exchange for a reward. These are stepped-up tests to build ( Read more... )

I'm a big dumb idiot, an emotionally-driven animal with no especially keen self-awareness of his deeper workings, who has mastered the skill of intellectualizing and rationalizing his actions later on. At best, I'd say I'm reasonably good at recognizing my own motivation, after the fact. Sometimes it takes years, though, to really understand ( Read more... )