My Life as a Movie

In honor of the Oscars last night . . . (go Cohen brothers!) . . . If my life was a movie, it would kind of look like Cheaper by the Dozen, less a half-dozen or so of those kids. But Demon Baby (who turns THREE TODAY!) is like six children rolled into one ball of hyperactive dynamite, so . . . it all works out that yes, it would be like that movie. There are side-splitting moments of chaos. Punctuated by long bouts of stress. There's drama. Tension. Pathos. Laughter. And just like the Bonnie Hunt character, I am a writer.

BUT . . . the writing part? I don't know. It doesn't translate to film. I just look a little crazy when I write. I sometimes move my lips to "say," silently, bits of dialogue. I am vaguely aware that I am raising my eyebrows sometimes, or cocking my head, to sort of ponder things. My desk is a mess. I have gone back to the Dark Side since November of drinking coffee instead of green tea (I had one kid with rheumatic fever, two with strep, I had strep, add one Demon Baby and one sick dad . . . and six people with the stomach flu, plus an incredible bout of Demon Baby/Mommy tandem insomina, and I went crawling back to coffee like an obsessed lover . . . I have to kick it all over again . . . hello acupuncturist). Yes, my writing life . . . is . . . mildly cinematic. I get dark circles under my eyes from deadlines . . . they could do that with makeup on screen.

But no . . . ON-SCREEN writers just . . . are hysterically UNTRUE. I have never seen an on-screen writer depicted anything CLOSE to how I and any of my writers pals write. Here are what I personally see as the most ridiculous on-screen writerly depictions:

1. That writers, even with the advent of the Mac and every gadget known to mankind, still prefer the typewriter. WTF?!?!?!?! I don't know ANY writer who isn't friends with cut and paste.
2. That writers have their agents and editors VISIT them to cajole a book out of them. Now, my agent, much as I adore him, has been known to harangue me over the phone. To nag me. He takes me out for fabulous dinners when I visit NYC. My editor takes me out for fabulous lunches. She has indeed visited me when I lived in Florida. But none of that is to cajole a book out of me. They're too busy. I'm too much of a professional.
3. All writers have writer's block. Often. And go to absurd lengths to cure themselves. I have NEVER had writer's block. And I have friend who HAVE had it. And none of them did anything weird, took any strange writer's block trips, or locked themselves in a cabin. None of it. They sort of waited until it passed.
4. That writers all go to glittering parties with other writers. I play poker with other writers on occasion. I do attend "writer-ish" parties. But they don't look like the ones in the movies.
5. That writers write the Great American Novel and the first editor who reads it buys it for an absurd amount. In fact, writers in the movies are often VERY, VERY rich and live in apartments in Manhattan that would rent for about $30,000/month. With a great view. A wonderful doorman. Where ARE these apartments? And where ARE these advances?

So . . . any other writer cliches in the movies? Things that resemble your writer life? Things that don't?