I've sent off my package. I am now an official applicant for the commissioning grant. As you can tell by the sleepless, starving, sweat-stinking guy on the right making a stupid face, it was stressful to put together. Thanks to everyone who weighed in and pointed out to me that the good fellow was genuinely offering help and I'd be stupid not to accept it. I deferred to your votes and comments; don't ever say I didn't. I let the Internet tell me how to live my life, and I'm proud of it.

There is an incredibly funny sequel to this story, however, and I'll mention it in a later post…

In the meantime, wish me luck. Those of you who believe in Science, pray heartily for glorious triumph!

So where we left off in Part One, I was 1) struggling with whether to make the characters in my screenplay more sympathetic, and 2) in Maine.

After a day in lobsterland, we packed up and continued on into Nova Scotia. In case you were wondering whether they have a different set of values up in the Northeast with regard to their natural environment, the following two pictures are from a highway rest stop along the way:

Every writer needs something different to write their best. I need trees, water, and wildlife. (And the occasional shoulder rub doesn't hurt.)

This was my first view of the Nova Scotia coast:

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When I visited New York City several years ago, I went to the New York Public Library for the first time. I walked up between the giant stone lions, past which the Ghostbusters in the 1980's ran screaming. (photo: Wally Gobetz, used with permission) I hopped up an old staircase and found myself in a room filled with glass cases. In one of them was a small hardbound book, with yellowish-white pages, opened to the title page printed in that distinctive, spread-out all-caps old-timey typeface (you know what I mean)–it was Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Just under the title and author was a small note, written in pencil. I don't remember the exact wording, but basically it said, "To my dear friend Ralph Waldo Emerson" and was signed "Henry David Thoreau."

What I remember most was the fact that it was written in pencil. I don't think Henry was giving much thought to how it would endure in museum displays; he was just writing a note to his buddy Ralph, who was more famous than he was.

But that's not an interesting story, so feel free to go back in time and not read it. The point is that I was thinking about Walden the last couple of weeks. Henry David Thoreau stepped into the New England woods and came out with one of the great beloved books in American history. Every writer is different, of course–some can write brilliantly in the middle of subway trains, NASCAR races, and leafblower conventions. Most of the ones I've met, though, are a little more like Thoreau and need their space. We can go anywhere to read Walden, but Thoreau had to go to the woods to write it.

So when I was invited to go to Maine and Nova Scotia for two and half weeks, I emailed all my web design clients, called a few friends to cancel plans, and left within three days. A dear friend got frustrated with me and said, "You don't have to leave to write! You can do it anywhere." We are no longer on speaking terms.

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