Body count: 6

Addendum: I was so excited to be done with the first draft. I thought I'd watch a IPL match--there was no fucking signal. I didn't get to watch a movie: HBO was showing "Fool's Gold" for the sixteenth time, so I watched "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" instead. For learning the tricks of the trade, the Lucas-Spielberg union is pretty good. A silly movie, really.

But now I don't know what I am supposed to do. I do have another project I should dig into... way late on that already, as it is, but today was supposed to be a day for celebrations.

Listening to June Carter's tomboyish, guttural laugh in the "Love Oh Crazy Love" track. The lady must have been a hoot.
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I finished the first draft of a rom-com/action; Nepali masala. I dilly-dallied for the longest time, letting the story constipate within, seeking escape. Literally, to be honest. I showed up for a story meeting with my bag packed, from there I took a night bus to Birgunj. The writing process started with an escape that lasted 10 days. Upon returning, I wrote a scene and half, and sat on it for almost three weeks. Then I started pounding Red Bull and wrote the rest in about 8 days. Which isn't all that great: it comes at around 15 pages a day, but these are 15 bad pages.

The turning point for me was reading at johnaugust.com that Mr August, wise dispenser of all advice screen-writer-ly, has a somewhat similar approach. Not the month-long constipation, but the "volume" approach: just push the damn first draft out of the way by writing as much as 17 pages a day, then give it at least three re-writes.

I was a lot behind schedule-- the draft was due on the 8th, and I just emailed it today, so I was a good week behind. That is going to push the final draft further back. I want to be done with this one, and the other one, and take a long walk, think hard about a few things that are shaping my life in one direction or another at the moment, make decisions.

Because, right now, Life is a Bitch, then we Die.

Also waiting for bootleg copies of Inglourious Basterds. I might have misspelled that, but should I even apologize? When does the movie even release? What was the reaction to "Up" like? What is the difference between IPL and Cannes, if I live in Kathmandu, without electricity, a significant lag between event and analysis?

In other news: BJP sucked massive balls in the Indian elections. Yachuri was made a bitch by a news presenter on CNN-IBN. Yachuri was smarting because of the election results: Communalism and Communism both were politely buggered by the average Indian voter. Dr. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi seem poised to create and leave a substantial political legacy to the Republic of India. West Bengal elected Trinamul and Congress: does this mean the "Red India" is turning away from "establishment communists" of Kolkata? or does this mean communism appeals far less to the average India than the idea of prosperity and opportunity?

Is the Light winning against the Darkness, to use Arvind Adiga's allegories from The White Tiger?

How are the various violent [revolutionary, if you are so inclined... to me a bullet is a bullet, and a pint of blood deserves neither glory nor denigration... that sounds lame, perhaps I'll articulate it better elsewhere] Maoist movements in India going to fare now?