You Can’t Handle the Truth.

I’m doing it, baby. I’m writing dialogue. And boy is it fresh……… Or ripe. Or raw .

Or whatever you call dialogue that may possibly jump off the page.

It’s probably awful.  Or worse, it’s just kind of meh.

I guess I won’t really know until someone reads it.

If anybody reads it.

But even if I’m the only one who ever reads it, I am saying it now: writing dialogue is really fun.

And I am totally fantasizing already about writing dialogue with other people. There must be a writers’ camp out there where I pay money to sit in a damp moldy cabin with other writers and we write something really funny but crappy while we eat cheese crackers.

Or maybe I just have the makings of a nerdy party game. I can invite people over to write a script. We eat, drink, write a script, submit it a few places and split the prayers equally.

For now though, it’s just me talking to myself and the keyboard.

I basically have a little conversation in my head – but whispered out loud.

I whisper so as not to wake up the other voices.

I play two roles. I am one person and the other person too.

Then I say both sides. Because of course I know what both sides would say.

Because of course.

And honestly, the activity of writing dialogue is just SO SATISFYING.

I’m now thinking screenwriters must be some of the happiest people alive.  They get to say whatever they want to say. They get to get it all out of their system.

I’ve spent my entire career as a lawyer writing words that other people want to say. Or hear. Or get out of their system.  But screenwriters can write EVERYTHING they want to to get out of their system.

And they can do it all day long, conceivably.

And unlike certain stuffy and dry, formulaic legal documents, writing written for the screen should dial up the gut-wrenching, raw and nasty stuff. The more the better, assuming it’s well-edited.

Yes, screenwriting is proving to be a really nice activity for my new, non-suicidal brain. Or maybe it’s an un-suicidal brain.

Whichever way you say it, my brain is learning how to spend its time in a way that does not involve digging my grave or figuring out how to.  And it’s nice. It’s really nice.

So I guess I don’t need to find a new therapist to replace the one who just up and left.  I can just give up therapy for screenwriting.

Hopefully I’ll write something I can get paid for. If not, I’ll just be busy, satisfied and happy. I can live with that.

Now THERE is a good book title: I Can Live With That.

Okay. Here’s a taste of great dialogue:

 I love you.

 So what.

 So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!

[tearfully] No. People don’t belong to people.

Of course they do!

I’ll never let anybody put me in a cage.

I don’t want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!

That’s my favorite dialogue from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  I left out the end of that dialogues so you are hopefully inspired to go read it again or watch it again or, if you’re really lucky, experience it for the first time.

My love for Henry Mancini began with Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Swoon. Swoon.

Okay, back to writing dialogue for me.

As for you, there is still time tonight to do something different. And of course you have the whole weekend to do something different.

Remember to pick something easy and enjoyable. Something you’ll enjoy enough that you’ll actually do it.

Remember that doing something different isn’t about punishment. It’s about you making a change to make your life better!

It’s about making a change to make your day better.

Because making our days better is the goal.

In the meantime,  “I’ve got to do something about the way I look. I mean a girl just can’t go to Sing Sing with a green face.”

That’s Holly Golightly. : )

Happy Friday. I hope this weekend is kind to you, especially those of who might be sad, mad or in a bad way.

xoxo, d (and bella)

🤎🤎🤎