Goodbye, Judith.

I play EverQuest. Okay? Get the snickering out of the way, because I need your serious attention for this next part.

One of the people I play with sometimes, a woman in her early 40s named Judith, died in a fire today. I was online and heard people talking about the fact that someone in the community had died, and my first thought was, "Probably no one I know."

Then I heard that it was someone from the community I'm most closely involved with in EQ. Then I thought, "Oh no, either PersonX or PersonY finally succumbed to her cancer." But I was wrong on both counts.

A day ago Judith was alive and perfectly healthy, and now she's gone. Completely random and tragic enough to make her local news. Everyone is in shock. Weeping real tears, not virtual ones. Because despite what people who don't "do the online thing" may believe, "computer friends" are not "computer friends." They're just friends. We chat with them every day about whatever. Some of them get on our nerves. Some of them are cruel and petty. Some of them, like Judith, are strong-willed and opinionated and yet somehow never manage to say anything bad about another person.

I remember her as being eccentric, well-spoken, and endlessly friendly. She was one of the people who always accepted me, always treated me as a friend even though I wasn't in her closest circle. Online socializing works much like real-life socializing. There are cliques, rivalries, hurt feelings, miscommunications, and varying levels of trust. Some of the community I play with had met her in person; most of us had not. But we are all in agreement that we've suffered a real loss.

I'm not one to sentimentally ascribe perfect virtue to people just on account of their being dead. Judith was no saint, but saints aren't interesting. Judith was a real person, with quirks and ideas and odd habits. But she was a good person. A friendly person. And now she's gone.

I just hope she knows, somehow, how many people out there genuinely miss her, even if they hever got to hear her reportedly amazing laugh or give her a hug that wasn't surrounded by asterisks.

Stop slandering my city!!

So funny, on the heels of my last entry, that I should suddenly feel a surge of almost ferocious optimism. Maybe it's because my 5-day headache has finally let up. But I noticed that one of my friends, who is forced to move out here to L.A. for job-related reasons, was being besieged by well-meaning(?) "friends" who decided to tell her how awful L.A. is, how she should move anywhere but there, some even with colorful anecdotes to back up their prejudices.

So I wrote a little rant to her, which I will post here, somewhat edited.

Dear Friend:

There is always more than one way to look at something. Why SO MANY people persistently choose the more glum, depressing, terrifying way... I just don't even know. Our outlook is our choice. Sure, some things it's hard to see the blessing in, like cancer... but even that, many people can take a positive spin on (and their survival rate goes up drastically, by all accounts). But this? How on earth can so many people see a move to L.A. as a horrible thing to complain and wring their hands about???

Los Angeles. The city of angels. The birthplace of cinema. Home of celebrities and year-round sunshine.

If something is coming to this country, and is only going to happen in TWO places, it comes here, and it comes to New York City. Period. No argument.

Now, New York City has its own charms, which I won't list here, but for a person such as myself who is prone to depression and/or anxiety, looking at the two undisputed metropolitan hubs in this nation, Los Angeles is the hands-down choice. L.A. is sunny, balmy, laid-back, friendly, and can even put me at ease. Me.

Yeah, there are certain disadvantages to living in a big city. People complain about traffic, crowds, smog, blah blah. Well first of all, there are ways to deal with those so they're not so stress-inducing, if you're smart. Second of all, who gives a rat's ass? I'd gladly pay the price of crowds and traffic to get the kind of astonishing cultural, educational, and entertainment opportunities that L.A. offers, second only to New York in some respects and second to none in others. You can have anything you want in L.A. An amazing zoo. A jaw-dropping library. Not into that kind of stuff? Prefer to go out dancing? Or go to rock concerts? Attend political protest rallies? Volunteer at a charity? Sit peacefully in a setting of unsurpassed natural beauty? Stay at home and read a book? You can do ALL of those things in L.A. You can do damn near anything you want in L.A. except ski, and even that's within driving distance.

Like you say, L.A. probably won't be your final stop on the road of life. All the more reason that you should get the most out of it you possibly can. All the more reason why you should stop to fully appreciate what L.A. has to offer. There is quite literally no other place like it. It has been written about, sung about, and filmed ad infinitum.

Take the opportunity to learn more than you ever wanted to know about movies and their amazing history. Spend time at the beach, see the Chinese Theater. And yeah, see homeless people and traffic jams and smog. Why does everything have to be perfect? Where's the beauty in that? "To live is to be marked, to acquire the words of a story." Or so says Barbara Kingsolver, and I agree wholeheartedly. What more fascinating chapter could a life possibly have than one set against the same backdrop as Charlie Chaplin and Steve Martin and Walt Disney?

Life is what you make of it. Don't let your "friends" build fences around your experience and tell you what L.A. is going to be for you. Hell, don't even let ME do that. Make L.A. yours. It's a multifaceted gem; you can turn whatever face you want toward you and ignore the rest. All life is like that, really, but honestly, L.A. more so than most. To paraphrase Steve Martin, it was a vast barren desert that people filled with their dreams.

Now it's your turn.

It does rain in L.A.

I have noticed I have a tendency only to write when I'm feeling great, everything's peachy, the sun is shining, blah blah blah. But I don't want my blog just to become the "Christmas newsletter" of blogs. If you're reading this it's either because you care about me or you care about writing, and it's only fair to show you the reality of both.

It's been raining for several days, off and on, providing a perfect backdrop for my current case of the blues. I have had a headache for quite literally four days now, and it's really getting old, especially since it's accompanied by nausea and loss of appetite. Too brain-dead for writing most of the time, I've been trying to make up for this lack of productivity by checking out likely agents, catching up on the latest hot authors of historical/heroic fantasy, etc. But today, even though the sun has begun to peek out from behind the clouds in a literal sense, I'm still feeling pretty down.

The more I look at any story I try to write, the more I realize it's completely stupid, illogical, full of holes, badly written, and beyond saving. I suppose I should stop looking and just keep writing, but the feeling of futility is pretty overwhelming. I have a hard time working on something unless I have hope for it, and right now, both of my projects look like they may have flaws so profound I don't know how to fix them.

So do I leave them unfinished like I always do? Or do I stick with them, keep writing, keep working, even though right now I'd rather punch a hole in my hand with a ball point pen?

End with the beginning in mind.

Writing is going well. Working on two projects simultaneously: a fantasy novel as well as a romantic comedy/fantasy screenplay for this year's Nicholl competition. I have deprioritized the fantasy novel for the moment, as it does not come with a deadline. It does, however make a handy (and productive!) procrastination tool when I don't feel like working on my screenplay.

For the screenplay, I'm starting with the ending. Endings are so important to a movie's success. Sure, you do have to have a great first ten pages to get the script represented or sold in the first place, but beginnings (for me at least) are much easier to write. Endings are not only a thousand times harder (for me), but they are the thing that makes the film either a box office success or dooms it to bounce briefly off theaters on its way to video. If the first 75% of your movie is great and the ending is blah, your movie will die fairly quickly due to lackluster word of mouth. If the first 75% of your movie is so-so (but good enough to keep people remotely interested) and the ending is great, you will actually get a surprising amount of good buzz, because those last 10-20 minutes are what people leave the theater talking and thinking about. It's best if the first 75% is good and the last 25% is GREAT, and that's what I'm shooting for.

I have now officially nailed down what happens in the climax of my screenplay, and I have to say, it's going to be a great deal of fun. Going to spend tomorrow perfecting it and then start laying the groundwork for everything that leads up to it.