There is no story or book that is as scary as the act of attaching a file of your story or book and hitting ‘send.’

This is possibly one of the best descriptions ever of the process of writing a novel. It’s from Roger Cohen’s interview with Amos Oz (today’s NYT).

“It is like reconstructing the whole of Paris from Lego bricks. It’s about three-quarters-of-a-million small decisions. It’s not about who will live and who will die and who will go to bed with whom. Those are the easy ones. It’s about choosing adjectives and adverbs and punctuation. These are molecular decisions that you have to take and nobody will appreciate, for the same reason that nobody ever pays attention to a single note in a symphony in a concert hall, except when the note is false. So you have to work very hard in order for your readers not to note a single false note. That is the business of three-quarters-of-a-million decisions.”

Another fifty pages and finished experience. The author has carefully chosen one each Jewish and smart, Black and smart, gay and smart and Asian and smart protagonists, who immediately tell you that they are Jewish, Black, gay and Asian (individually, natch) and what it’s like to be a member of his/her minority, plus everything else personal you need to know about them, short of the boxers vs. briefs type info. Maybe something fascinating will happen on page 51. Won’t be finding out. Life is too short.

As I prepare for a wonderful NYE celebration dinner with 12 even more wonderful friends, and a New Year’s Day of joyous celebrations at other wonderful friends’ homes, I am filled with a wonderful feeling: Damn, I won’t have any time to write for three days and I have to submit a completed manuscript Monday.

Last night I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel for inspiration as it is based on the writings of a wonderful author, Stefan Zweig. He had an incredible imagination which leads me to believe that he totally made up the name of his first wife, Friderike Maria Burger von Winternitz.

Had the chance to speak to a successful YA author yesterday. Wanted to know about his process. “How did you get the idea for this novel?” “I was asked to write it.” And he has a three book deal, and they’re making a movie out of it. What a great idea! That’s what I’m going to do next, after my first novel 1. Finds and agent. 2. Finds a publisher and 3. Makes the NYT Best Seller list.

The premise of Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children is SPOILER ALERT that a bunch of kids, each with a strange special power, may team up and save the world. The premise of next book I read, Shatter, SPOILER ALERT: is that a bunch of people, each with a strange special power, can team up and save the world. I thought, “I should introduce these two authors. They might like each other.” Ha ha ha ha. They’re already married.

*Do not add ‘instead of a writer.’ It will make me sad.

Two days ago I read a a YA romance novel. “I can right better than that,” I said to myself, feeling very happy, as the author has sold 7,000,000 books (no, honestly). Then I started reading Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I could never write better than that. I am sad again.

I’m in print, on paper, in a literary review that I can actually set out on my coffee table, where, if anyone spills something on it, I will kill them.*

*Not literally, you silly. I am a veritable Ghandi. Also I couldn’t win an arm wrestling match with a 4 year-old.

This is what happens when you decide you want to spend your creative energy on writing, not acting/directing. A client books a program that is going to require tons of creative energy and someone from Marriott hands you a card and says his boss would like the troupe to join forces with them in some yet unknown, but undoubtedly creative energy-demanding, project. The only way to deal with this is to decide to focus on acting/directing, and then… I know. It doesn’t work that way.