Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/30/17

Chapter 13 has a lot of that conflict they tell you all drama has to have. Things really start to fall apart for some of the characters. It's wonderfully heartbreaking.

It also forced me to look up pepper spray. I typed the word “mace” and immediately wondered if anyone actually uses mace. As it turns out, mace is alarmingly poisonous, so most people and police departments use pepper spray. When the police in their riot gear cheerfully spray something in a protester's face, it's always pepper spray.

Remember this guy?
A court gave him money for psychological pain and suffering.
He got more money than the students he sprayed.

This crowd obviously needed to be contained.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/29/17

One of the characters has to go to Rome. I tried to avoid it, but it's inevitable. The more I want to keep everything in Los Angeles, the more everyone travels around.

I have been to Rome, but I don't want to get into any detailed descriptions of the city. This is not a travel guide.

Then I found out where Bernardo Bertolucci lives. It's kind of scary how easy it was to find. Hopefully, that is a former house and he moved. We don't have to go to his house, and I would never give the address, whether he still lives there or not, but I like the neighborhood. It's a pretty good place to live, which makes sense.

Knowing all of this, and being a firm believer in privacy, I mapped out a route in my head from the Palazzo Navona Hotel to his house. Then I checked a map to see how accurate I was. As it turns out, I made a few serious bad turns along the way. So I might keep my route. If anyone actually follows it, they will never get to his house. The streets and sights are real, but they don't lead to Bertolucci.

Not that it really matters, but I chose the Palazzo Navona Hotel at random. I have never been there, but it is in a great location.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/28/17

Does any man in this day and age refer to breasts as “jugs”? I don't know, but the character in question is a jerk, so I'm keeping it. That sounds like something a jerk would say. Jugs, hooters, bazooms.

Obviously, breast is the real word, so a lot of people don't use it. We humans are embarrassed by our own bodies. How many people can't say “breast”, “vagina” or “penis”? We teach our children weird slang words like boobie, hoohoo, peepee, winkie. Humans are strange.

Chapter 12 starts out with a scene that is a callback to chapter 10. They might be too close together. I might want to space them out more, but for now, they are where they are.

In standup comedy, a good callback usually comes at the end of the routine. But they can certainly come in the middle, or anywhere else.

Eddie Murphy's Raw was on HBO the other night. That was unusual in itself. HBO Asia almost never shows any of HBO's standup programming. Constant dialogue is a lot harder to translate and most of the jokes make little sense to a Chinese audience. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld are completely lost in translation. In Raw, Eddie Murphy actually mentions people who don't speak English and how they react to his shows.

But Eddie had a lot of callbacks only a few minutes after the setup. And the show ends on a really strange note, at least by today's standards. Maybe it made more sense at the time.

It's also surprisingly sexist, but probably did not seem that way at the time. Eddie's comedy sexism certainly does not seem nearly as hateful as today's internet misogynists.

The funniest thing about Raw today is the opening scene. In it is an unknown Samuel Jackson. He is even in a movie that is 90% standup comedy. He really is in everything.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/27/17

I wrote what just might be the most awkward scene I have ever written. I wrote it, read it, said nope and rewrote it. Just for my own reference, it's the cottage scene at the end of chapter 11, or what is chapter 11 at this point.

It's awkward for a couple of reasons. It is supposed to be awkward for the characters, but it got really awkward for me to write. I think I slipped into some kind of Lee Strasberg method of writing for a second, which is funny because I have always been in the Meisner camp.

The best thing about writing, in my opinion, is that you can do anything you want. With acting, you get to play different people, but there are always limits. You usually can't play every character on stage and you probably have to stick to the script. If you are playing Desdemona, you can't tell Othello to stop being so gullible. But when you write, you can play every character, at least in your head. And they can do absolutely anything, as long as it works within the story.

I think I resolved my own awkwardness in the cottage scene, while still keeping it awkward for the characters. I will leave it as is for now and get back to it later.

The Woodford Cottage
Things happen here.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/26/17

A bouchon is a type of French restaurant that specializes in heavy, fatty foods. Even by French standards. It's more about ambiance than fine dining, like a tavern. You go for the crowd, not the cuisine.

There is a restaurant in Santa Barbara called Bouchon. I think it's more of a trendy place that serves all the right wines rather than a traditional bouchon. They advertise a lot of local ingredients, so I'm not sure how French it is.

There is also a restaurant in Los Angeles called Bouchon. It's definitely for the hip people who want to be seen. Their cobb salad does not seem very French to me.

The funny thing is, a genuine bouchon would never be popular in California. You don't go to a bouchon if you are on a diet or big on tofu. You are not going to find any bean sprout and walnut pizza at a bouchon.

Looking at restaurants in Santa Barbara, I found a little taco stand on Haley Street. I don't know anything about it, but it's on Haley Street. How can I ignore that? Hailey Street would be better, of course, but none of the city planners bothered to consult with me before naming their streets.

Looking around Santa Barbara, virtually, I came across the Cheshire Cat Inn, a Victorian B&B on a quiet little street close to the main road that runs through downtown. I mainly chose it because it's an easy walk to Bouchon. The restaurant will be important later on. There are plenty of hotels in the neighborhood, but this one looks nice and has different styles and sizes of rooms.

I have never been to this hotel, or even to Santa Barbara, so I can't recommend it, but the more I look into it, the more I want to actually go there. Their website is a little annoying. It's probably designed more for phones than computers. But it looks like a nice place to spend a quiet weekend.

Cheshire Cat Inn
Santa Barbara, California

See if you can spot the French versus California versions.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/25/17

I want one of the characters to have a weekend getaway. The story takes place almost entirely in Los Angeles, but I want her to go out of town for a while.

This presents a bit of a problem. There are plenty of places near Los Angeles for weekend trips, but I have never been to any of them. It's not impossible to write about places you have never been. I'm sure Robert Heinlein never went to Mars or the Moon, and I doubt Douglas Adams got anywhere close to the end of the universe. But science fiction is different. I like to think I know a little bit about the places I write and that, just maybe, some of that knowledge comes through sometimes.

I specifically made one of the characters from San Francisco. I was thinking that she might take the weekend getaway. I have been to San Francisco. I'm hardly an expert, but I know what the city feels like. When it became obvious that a different character had to go away, I either had to change the location or change which character is from San Francisco.

So I went with Santa Barbara. I don't know anything about Santa Barbara, other than its proximity to Los Angeles and Steve Martin likes going there. That does not leave me a lot to work with.

I just finished a scene that is mostly dialogue. I like the idea of writing a book that is nothing but dialogue, cover to cover. The reader is told the story through the characters telling the story. There would be no omniscient narrator, unreliable narrator or any kind of narrator at all. I suppose it would read like a play, but structured like a book, with chapters instead of scenes and acts. But that is not happening this time.

The narrator in this book is mostly omniscient, with a little bit of subjective third person thrown in the mix. I doubt it will confuse anyone who has ever read a book. It has been done a million times before, so it's not like I'm revolutionizing the written word here. Hopefully, the narrative voice changes are subtle enough that most people will not even think about it.

I don't know what movie this is from.
This poor bridge gets hit in most of them.

If you read the book, this will make sense.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/24/17

I was reading an article the other day about sex scenes in movies. The article went out of its way to point out that all sex on screen is simulated. It mentioned Game of Thrones several times. I thought that was strange. Does anyone think the actors are actually having sex?

Then I remembered Bertolucci. He is a very minor character in this book, but his history is relevant to the point at hand. When Last Tango in Paris came out, a lot of people freaked out, especially over the butter scene. The film was censored in more than a few countries, and Bertolucci faced legal problems in Italy. People argued and debated the graphic nature of the film. Even today, there are segments of the internet that still think the sex in that scene was real, though it looks less graphic thanks to HBO.

Maria Schneider had a lot to say about it after the fact. I can see her point of view, but I think she used public ignorance to her advantage. She knew that all of the sex was simulated, of course, but she hated the butter scene. By insinuating that it was unsimulated, she could get people to accuse Brando, and mostly Bertolucci, of horrible crimes. And that's not right. Bertolucci humiliated her, on purpose, but Brando's penis never went anywhere it should not be.

I suppose it's good that people think sex scenes are real. That means the filmmakers are doing a good job. If the audience knew just how unerotic shooting a sex scene was, they would never get excited about what the characters are doing.

But then you have to wonder, do people think fight scenes are real? When Sean Bean dies onscreen, he does not really die. He is very much alive.

Not really doing it.

They're not either.

Maybe.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/23/17

What are the odds that a film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci would be canceled just before or during principal photography? It might seem unlikely, considering how much clout he has, but I bet it could happen.

Stanley Kubrick was relatively powerful, but his Napoleon film was canceled for budget reasons.

Ridley Scott wanted to direct an Alien sequel written by James Cameron, but it was canceled so 20th Century Fox could make a bunch of Alien vs Predator movies. That sounds insane, but it really happened.

Robert Zemeckis was never as powerful, but he had cartoon hits with The Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. Disney canceled his remake of Yellow Submarine anyway.

I don't think it has ever happened, but theoretically, Bertolucci could get canceled.

Malibu Lagoon State Beach

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/22/17

We all know what an unreliable narrator is, right? The more time I spend online, the more I worry about how ineffective subtlety can be. In an age where people get their news from Twitter and entertainment from reality TV, sometimes it takes a baseball bat to make a point.

I'm bringing this up because I just wrote a scene that a 10-year-old might completely misunderstand. They might think the character is crazy. But this is not a children's book. Anyone who has read an adult book or two should get it, but I have been told that I overestimate the public too often. Personally, I think people are smarter than the publishers, studio executives and networks are giving them credit for, but Twitter and reality TV are working overtime to prove me wrong.

I was also thinking about titles for the fictional Bernardo Bertolucci film, and I wondered what he would call a film about Émile Armand. But I don't know Bertolucci at all. I have seen his movies and heard some gossip. That tells me nothing about what might be in the man's head.

I could come up with a few titles for a movie about a French anarchist who sleeps around a lot. But it seems to me that Bertolucci might be the kind of filmmaker who uses working titles.

Studios and producers love to keep their movies secret with working titles. Back to the Future was Spaceman From Pluto at one point. Return of the Jedi was called Blue Harvest to keep people in the dark. Annie Hall was famously called Anhedonia.

Woody Allen often uses generic working titles like Woody Allen Spring Project. So I'm calling the fictional Bertolucci film Untitled Bernardo Bertolucci Production. I think it adds a little something to the overall sense of confusion that a real title would lack.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Directed by Steven Spielberg
© 1982 Universal Pictures

Return of the Jedi
Directed by Richard Marquand
© 1983 Lucasfilm Ltd

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/21/17

I finished chapter 9 in record time. I was pretty surprised by how quickly I punched it out. I was almost ready to pat myself on the back. Then I checked the word count. It's currently at 1,891 words. That is incredibly short for a chapter.

Obviously, a lot will change. This is only the first draft, and everything will either get longer or shorter when I get back to it. Some chapters are supposed to be longer than others, but I know from experience that the first draft will look nothing like the final print.

Chapter 10 starts with the scene that gave me the idea for the entire book. I almost started the story here, but it's better if you know the characters a little. It would be more shocking to start here, which makes publishers happy and probably helps sales, but I think there is more of an impact if you know the people involved.

It's like a jump scare in a horror movie versus something that is actually scary. Jump scares sell more tickets at the box office, but the truly scary moments are far more memorable.

This book is not a horror story, by the way. That was just an example. I'm sure I don't have to point that out, but this is the internet, after all.

The Exorcist
Directed by William Friedkin
© 1973 Warner Brothers

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/20/17

Émile Armand was a French anarchist/pacifist who wrote magazine articles and books about communes and anarchy, mostly between 1900-1930. He was also a big fan of free love, and had some radically liberal views on human sexuality. Even today, some of his ideas would shock a lot of people, especially Americans.

The fictional Bertolucci film in my book is about Émile Armand. He seems like the kind of guy Bertolucci might make a film about. Émile Armand hated the establishment, was a raging atheist, loved the ladies and was a bit of a voyeur. Bertolucci could easily make a controversial film about him with sweeping French countrysides and plenty of wall to wall nudity.

I have made MGM the distributor. Mainly because MGM is all but destitute. I'm going to say some unflattering things about whoever produces the Bertolucci film, so I thought maybe it should be a studio that can't crush me like a grape.

I love the great MGM musicals. I think it's sad how far that studio has fallen. They were the biggest studio in the world, putting out all the best Gene Kelly, Judy Garland and Fred Astaire movies. Now they don't produce anything without another studio helping out.

I also hate the way studio executives treated people like Judy Garland. Some of the abuse she suffered is germane to this story. MGM is an appropriate choice.

I probably should not admit this, but I thought their office was in Santa Monica, which works within my story. It turns out they were in Santa Monica for a few years, but then moved to Beverly Hills, which has nothing to do with the story. Oh, well.

Émile Armand

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/19/17

I have dragged Bernardo Bertolucci into this. In the story, one of the characters auditions for an acting part in a movie. I could have created fictional directors and producers, but I decided to use Bertolucci because of his reputation. He is generally considered a great filmmaker and a royal pain in the butt to work with.

If I created a director character, it would have been a Bertolucci type. Since the real Bertolucci is mostly a recluse, why not use him? I highly doubt he will sue me, for several reasons, and I don't have to worry about personally offending him since he will never know this book exists. I can pretty much guarantee that we will never meet.

Something I only just considered is that Bertolucci is not exactly a spring chicken. His health has been going downhill since he had a series of botched spinal surgeries. He is in a wheelchair now and rarely leaves his houses in Rome and London. If he dies while I'm writing this, I will have to change it. Obviously, his death, whenever it occurs, will have far greater consequences than any rewrites I have to make. I know how insensitive that sounds. But he has lived a pretty full life. Whenever he leaves, I think we can all be comforted by the great films he has given us.

In the meantime, I will use him for my own selfish gain.

The Conformist
© 1970 Paramount Pictures

The Sheltering Sky
© 1990 Warner Brothers

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/18/17

I have finished another chapter. It's pretty short and mostly dialogue, so there will be some changes later.

Dialogue is both the easiest and hardest part to write. As an actress, I'm supposed to know how to read a character and say things the way they would say it. I have played characters who suffered from crippling insecurity, depression, insanity, alcoholism and a wide range of problems I know nothing about. If you are going to act, you have to play characters that are nothing like yourself.

Reading dialogue in another voice is easy. If I know who the character is, I can imagine how they would say it. The trick is deciding what they should say. Acting does not prepare you for that. You can't improvise Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams. Writing dialogue is nothing like reading it.

I have been told that I write good dialogue. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but it's worth noting that I usually think the dialogue is the worst part of any book I have ever written. People sometimes tell me it's the best part. The main compliment I usually get is that the dialogue fits the character, especially foreign accents. And that's exactly where I think I have failed the most.

The good news is that I will keep trying to do a better job. The bad news is that there are no foreign characters in this book.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/17/17

Ikea opened a store in Burbank, California a long time ago. That location was surrounded by hotels, a shopping mall and a freeway. So when they wanted to expand, they moved the store a few blocks south, opening the largest Ikea in the United States.

This is the kind of thing I'm learning while researching this book. It's not about Ikea and Ikea does not play any significant role, but when I mentioned it in passing, I wondered if there really was an Ikea in the neighborhood. According to Google maps, there were two next to each other. That seemed strange to me, so I looked around and read some articles about how terrible the parking was when the new store opened. It may be the largest Ikea in the country, but apparently, the parking lot can only be accessed by a single side street. On an average day, it will probably never matter. But during that opening weekend, people were really freaking out.

Memorial Day
Santa Monica Beach


All the Things She Said
tATu

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/16/17

Writing, writing and more writing. At this point, I'm concentrating on three characters, but there are more that come and go. Someone somewhere is bound to complain.

Who is the main character? Does there have to be one?

I'm hardly an expert on writing, or much of anything, for that matter, but I know one of the cardinal rules of doing anything artistic. Someone somewhere is going to complain no matter what you do. Sometimes, that is how you know you have succeeded.

I have also introduced the members of a new, completely fictional, band. Their names are Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Beth plays keyboards, of course. I'm a little worried about those names, for obvious reasons. I don't think it's particularly clever, but they are minor characters. They are women, though I never mention their heights. They have to be called something.

Palos Verdes, California


Queen Bitch
David Bowie

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/15/17

I did a local TV commercial when I was in high school. It's not on my resume because it's stupid. And it was a long time ago.

I have used that experience for a scene in this book. Everything is different, from the ages of the people involved, to the product being advertised, but that tedious feeling of shooting a TV commercial is there. The end result might be 30 seconds of non-stop shaky cam and jump cuts, but it takes days of sitting around and waiting for a lot of people to get those 30 seconds.

Someone once asked a filmmaker who just made a movie about making movies, it might have been Robert Altman and The Player, why they did not show what it was realistically like to make a movie. Altman, or whoever it was, answered that it would bore the hell out of the audience. From the actor's point of view, most of the time on set is downtime. Being in front of a camera is anything but glamorous. Hopefully, I have shown some of that effectively.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/14/17

The next chapter starts out with a story that is based entirely too much on a story a friend told me after an unsuccessful audition several years ago. It's kind of a funny story after time passes and you can laugh about rejection. But I have to change it because it's too close to the truth.

What is wrong with the truth? Absolutely nothing. But it's someone else's story. I don't have the right to tell it. If I want to write something autobiographical, that's ok because those are my stories. If I want to write fiction, that's ok, too. As long as those are also my stories. It's not a copyright issue. It's common courtesy.

Remember Dreamgirls, the movie and musical? Diana Ross is still upset about that. And with good reason. If she ever wants to tell her life story, everyone will accuse her of ripping off Dreamgirls.



And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going
Jennifer Holliday



I'm Coming Out
Diana Ross

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/13/17

I did some research on vibrators. That's something I don't say every day. This is far from an erotic novel, but there are a couple of scenes that might not be suitable for small children.

Vibrators, as it turns out, are a lot like songs. People who love them really love them, and everyone has their own idea about which are great and which are a total waste of time. And just like with music, there are some real snobs out there.

Something I found interesting was that every article I read had testimonials from sexual health experts about how vibrators are a healthy component to a fulfilling relationship with another person. Every article wanted to convince the reader that vibrators are not sinful, dirty or perverted, or anything to get choked up about. Unless you use them the wrong way. I thought it was interesting because obviously there are a lot of people who must think vibrators are sinful, dirty and perverted. Otherwise, there would be no testimonials from sexual health experts.

The characters in this book are in Los Angeles which, it turns out, has more than a few sex shops. I would assume that most people buy their sex toys online these days, but if you like to hold things before you buy them, Los Angeles has you covered.

Hong Kong, on the other hand, I have no idea about. Prostitution is legal and there are all kinds of massage parlors and dance bars in the various red light districts, but most of that is aimed at men, if not all of it. Satisfying women does not seem to be big business around here.

Then again, China is an amazingly repressed culture. Europeans say that Americans are uptight, which is true, but Americans are all raging hedonists compared to the typical Chinese. In China, you can buy porn at some of the few places that still sell DVDs, but even the porn is censored in China. And, of course, we have HBO. That's practically porn. Except in China. HBO Asia is heavily censored. Have you ever watched an episode of Game of Thrones without any sex, violence or nudity? It's kind of pointless.

Speaking of things that threaten some men and repulse some women, there is a scene in the book that is not nearly as graphic as I'm about to make it sound.

If the story takes place today, then it's only reasonable that some of the women would be as bald as Fred Flintstone's tires. But if it takes place in the late 1990s, everyone might be a little warmer on a windy day. Personal hygiene has changed a lot over the years. That is something to consider that I honestly had no idea I would ever have to think about when I started writing this.

It also brings up an interesting point. When future generations watch movies with lines like “does the carpet match the drapes”, will they have any idea what that person is talking about?

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/12/17

The Gates was a controversial art instillation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Central Park for two weeks in 2005. They put thousands of nylon torii gates along walking paths throughout the park.

In typical New York fashion, everyone either loved it or hated it. Millions of people visited the piece while local news and talk show hosts ridiculed it.

I have seen real torii gates in Japan. Nylon fabric hanging on posts is not nearly as impressive. But I would not have objected had I lived there. It was only for two weeks. If it was permanent, I could understand people going nuts.

The Gates
Central Park, New York
By Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/11/17

During a camping trip, one of the characters is the stranger in a strange land. She is a city girl with no experience in camping or spending much time in the great outdoors.

Fortunately for me, I have some experience with camping. I have never gone camping in the Santa Susana Mountains, and would never in a million years have the adventure they are having in the hills, but I know how to pitch a tent and start a fire. I'm never going to go on one of those reality TV survival shows where everyone is naked in the wilderness, but I can safely spend the night outdoors without freezing or getting eaten by bears.

This camping trip is very different from anything we used to do when we went up to Land O'Lakes or St Croix.

Matilda Joslyn Gage

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/9/17

I have opened chapter 6 with what sounds like foreshadowing of some big moment to come later. But what the reader might assume is going to happen is not. I certainly don't want it to, and I think I have some say in the matter.

It is false foreshadowing, I suppose, but it's not a plot twist or a red herring. I'm not saying that what is not going to happen is going to happen. I'm simply doing nothing to stop people who like to jump to conclusions. Is that cruel? I don't know. But this is not a mystery. There is no reason to look for any clues.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/8/17

I have not settled on a time period yet, but one of the characters seems to be into late '90s music. I could see the story taking place then, but I would have to change a few things first.



I Don't Want To Wait
Paula Cole



Sunny Came Home
Shawn Colvin



Stupid
Sarah McLachlan

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/7/17

The beach scene is finished. It took a while. And with it, so is chapter 5. For now.

I know I'm going to go back to chapter 5 sooner or later. For one thing, it's four times longer than any of the other chapters. I'm a firm believer that a chapter should be however long it is. They should not all be the same size. But when you have one that is four times longer than the others, it really stands out. If that is what the story needs, so be it. But it's not in this case.

Let's take Harmony On Spring Hill as an example. Mostly because I have the information in front of me. The shortest chapter is 3,736 words. The longest is 8,181. They are clearly not all the same. But that was never intentional.

Then there is Weekends In China. The average chapter is 5,500 words. The shortest is 4,100. The longest is 6,690. They are all relatively the same length. But that was not intentional either.

It's too soon to say how this one will work out in the end.

From Here to Eternity
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
© 1953 Columbia Pictures

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/6/17

Another day, another beach. Or the same beach. I really need to narrow it down. I'm still working on it.

Beaches are great places for atmosphere, but my problem, or at least one of my problems, is that I can focus too much on the atmosphere. In this scene, it really does not matter. The smell of the salt air, the sound of waves crashing against rocks or how the sand feels between their toes has nothing to do with anything. They are at the beach for a specific reason, so I need to concentrate on that.

La Jolla Avenue
West Hollywood

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/4/17 – Tel Aviv Edition

I wanted some of the characters to go to the beach, but which beach? Los Angeles has more than one. They live in the San Fernando Valley, which is close to none of them.

I'm familiar with Santa Monica, but I want an empty beach, almost deserted. Santa Monica and Venice are anything but deserted. Farther south you have Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. That's a nice, long stretch of sand, but the exact opposite of isolated.

In the opposite direction is a long stretch of beaches just south of the Santa Monica Mountains. That is where the surfers and movie stars go, but Point Dume and Malibu Lagoon look pretty good. I'm currently leaning toward Point Dume.

Even if you have never been to California, you know what Point Dume looks like.

Planet of the Apes
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
© 1968 20th Century Fox

Malibu Lagoon

Hailey's Novel Diary – 6/3/17 – Tel Aviv Edition

I'm doing a little writing in Tel Aviv, but not as much as I would at home. There are too many other things to do here. I can't say if this environment is affecting what or how I write. I doubt it. The story takes place in Los Angeles, which is nothing like Tel Aviv, other than the beaches.

I wrote a saucy little oral sex scene yesterday. It contrasts last week's rape scene nicely. One is a horrible act of violence and cowardice. The other is a consensual little slap and tickle. They work well together, I think. But there is a 50/50 chance I will cut out the rape scene. I can give the oral sex scene 3 to 1 odds.

And then I wrote my first lesbian sex scene. I don't know what's going on around here.

This is not an erotic novel by any stretch of the imagination. It has to have sex. That's just the way it goes. But it does not have to have any graphic scenes.

The lesbian aspect is fascinating to me because I don't know the first thing about being a lesbian. It's like asking me what it's like to be a midget. I have no idea. I can make all kinds of assumptions. I suppose some things are just common sense. But I really don't know.

If I start writing a lesbian midget scene, I swear I'm taking a vacation.

The Children's Hour
Directed by William Wyler
© 1961 United Artists

Casablanca
Directed by Michael Curtiz
© 1942 Warner Brothers

Shavuot

I have experienced my first Shavuot in Israel, or anywhere else. I still don't know what it's about.

Shavuot is one of the big pilgrimage festivals, when people were supposed to go to the Temple. Since the Temple was destroyed by the Romans, and rebuilding it would start World War III, no one is expected to go anymore. But it's still a major holiday.

From what I can tell, Shavuot is about God giving Israel the torah on Mount Sinai. Part of my confusion is because everyone I spoke to had their own interpretation of the holiday. Every other holiday seems to have a long list of laws and rules that they are supposed to follow, while Shavuot is more traditional than scriptural. Most of the day, like a lot of holidays, is about eating and praying.

A unique tradition on Shavuot is to stay awake all night reading the torah. That makes sense, since the holiday is about the torah, but the reason for staying awake all night depends on whom you ask. Some say it's because the Israelis were up all night partying before Moses came down from Mount Sinai. Some say it's because sunrises were especially beautiful at the Temple. The Temple was long gone when I went there, but I know how great all that old Jerusalem stone looks at sunset. The Old City glows gold and orange when the sun goes down. Direct sunlight at sunrise is blocked by the Mount of Olives. At least it is in this century.

Whatever the reason, it's nice to see people out and about after midnight. Jerusalem usually shuts down pretty early. If you like to eat late, Tel Aviv is a better choice.