Dear Beth:

In my effort to get ideas (which is what you asked for), it often helps me to re-write the information I am reading. In the process of re-writing it, information sinks in and gets processed. Let’s see if it happens here: you are 45, single, living with two pets. Divorced when you were 31, had a couple of bad relationships since. You are dating a man now whom you believe is not the right man for you.

You own your own home, living just outside the town where you were born, down the street from your mother. Your father passed away when you were 38 and it has been very difficult for you.

You work in sales, which pays less than it used to, and you are doing real estate on the side. You travelled all over the world.  You want to “get (yourself) out of here”.

You mentioned spending a week in LA at a screenwriting class. You wrote “some half written screenplays”, have lots of “beginnings of novels”. And you wrote: “I just can’t seem to take the time to finish any of my writing. It’s very hard to do and still maintain a full time job and a life.

I think I am getting an idea, will develop it as I type: my idea is not that you finish writing those screenplays and novels. A side note: I lived in LA, started screenplays myself, met lots of people who did, some finished their screenplays, short stories and novels. There are so many, many people who write, with the hope of getting published. On very rare occasions, very rare, people get published and read by a significant number of people. Back from my side note: my idea is that you treat your life like the most important screenplay that you will ever write and execute.

Wikipedia’s entry on screenplay reads: “The major components are action”- so will it be in your life, action. Same entry, continued: “and dialogue” (you wrote: “I can talk to anyone. I’m one of those people that sits beside you on a plane and delves right into conversation before take off”).

Continued, same entry: “The action is written in the present tense”- so is your screenplay/life, it is about the present tense. I suppose you do want to leave the past, where you always lived, the job you had for so long, the unsatisfactory relationships… you want a present tense that will be different from the past.

In a screenplay you get to create. I think in your life you need to create. No longer to live as before.

In a screenplay you deliver a message, something that you value very much. I think that you need a message, a value, a meaning for your life. It needs to be more than living the-same-old-same-old way.

How have I processed so far?

anita