As you know, I am working on a six-month screenwriting course online, with short (24-hour) inexorable deadlines. It seems to have taken over my life and my time and I have missed my daily blog frequently because I have been too caught up in thinking and writing - not a bad thing but I'm behind in my general thinking and response to my life.

But an assignment this week caused me more than my usual angst and mediation. Are you ready? Brace yourself. In order to put more character into my dialogue I had to consider - nay, define - the following distinguishing characteristics in my (fictional) cast:

World View

Life Metaphor(s?)

Rules and Strategies

Justifications

Consideration of these areas will enable - empower - me to write more profound dialogue. Hell, I had to consider my own World View first, and deal with my Life Metaphor. I had a lot to think about when I swam. It shook me. Not only did I confront my own World View and LIfe Metaphor, I analyzed my (late) husband's and learned more about him than I knew. Well, I knew it, but I hadn't recognized it as such. I also went on to consider the legacy he passed on to our elder son. I have some more work to do there. Writing, I mean (not for the course, but for me and my son).

In the meantime, I had this new scene to write. I didn't write it. Instead, I rewrote an existing scene, one I had already written, with, obviously, inadequate thinking on my part.

This is turning out to be psychoanalysis.

I finished my assignment today about four minutes before the new assignment came sailing in. But I have to sit on it like an egg and it will hatch in the morning. So I puttered around the internet. I really hate those prurient comments and come-ons that lead you into a thicket of ads. Better to follow your own quirks and fancies. Well!!

I found an item about blogs, the fifty most popular blogs on the planet, for the moment. And oh my, so popular! The mind boggles. Tens of thousands of followers, astronomical hits per day, so demanding that one poor little blogger (I didn't read the details about all of them) employed 10 to 14 people to keep her audience supplied - with information, titillation, recreation, whatever. I am so grateful to my loyal group of three.

It made me feel, of course, very humble, but also quite light-hearted, -footed, and -headed. I guess I won't worry if I miss a day or two, being busy with other things, because I am assured that blogging will survive, will assuredly go on without me.

Anon, anon.