I've started a new category called "Human Behavior Lessons." Follow it to discover amazing things about humans! Better understand humans and you will write better characters. Write better characters and you will write better screenplays.

I hope I haven't left you hanging too long, dear readers, but I've had to spend the last day and a half trying to repair my email system and address book due to a corrupted email synchronization, due to a computer intrusion.^[1] The repair failed so I had to restore my hard drive from a backup. Lost a day and a half of work.

Now, today's lesson: How To Prevent People From Telling You the Truth:

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So in Part One I went to Maine, and in Part Two I went to Canada and got blown up at.

In Part Three I return to Maine and have a terrific week with Fancy Pants, FPS (Fancy Pants' Sister), and their assortment of very large dogs. I really like those girls. They're smart and goofy and kind of ruthless; they're full of odd personality combinations. They love the outdoors and have cynical senses of humor. They love their dogs.

We left Canada and headed back over the border. At the border checkpoint, I sat in the passenger seat. Both times. Both times I passed my identification over, and both times the border guard–up in a booth on the driver's side–examined it and waved us through without looking at my face. I could have handed them some other dude's ID while smoking a joint wearing a turban and they'd have given me a gift basket.

Marshmallow Fields Forever

The thing that surprised me most this trip was that in Maine they grow marshmallows on farms. They're lined up in rows, in field after field, each one the size of a cow.

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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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