Kings of Leon broke on to the scene a couple years ago with a quirky honky-tonk meets indie folk music vibe and a lead singer who slurs and mumbles more than Bruce Springsteen.

Being the only white person on the 720 Express does not feel awkward or strange. In fact I feel uncomfortable when whitey's show up cause they look either mad (crazy and/or upset) or like a tourist. Being among minorities also lets helps me gain more attention from the lovely Latino, Asian and Negro ladies. No joke, there are some really gorgeous women who ride the bus. It's hard to believe, but the ratio is quite high; like 1 hottie for every 7 or 9 lumpies. All it takes is the bus to hit one bump and I can chivalrously reach out and steady the closest woman.

She turns and discovers a boyish white person with an abnormally good looks. The curves of his cycling helmet accentuate his bushy sideburns.

Anyways I did see something beautiful today on the bus. It did involve a pretty lady but that's besides the point. On the bus if an senior citizen gets on you give up your seat, its just common courtesy. Now sometimes because there are so many people on you can't see who is three feet away from you and the elderly have to stand. So I'm bobbing up and down keeping my balance listening to Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath and I notice a heart warming display of the human connection. A lady in her 30's is sitting peacefully and notices a woman in her mid 50's wearily holding on the the rail after a long days work. Not a word was spoken but the conversation went exactly like this...

Lady:Mam, here have my seat
Woman: No, no it's ok you sit you've had a long day
Lady: So have you sister, come and sit I'll be fine my stop is just in a little bit
Woman: Are you sure? I don't want to impose
Lady: Please I insist
Woman: Thank you dear

70-90% of what we say in communicated non-verbally. Seeing a symphony of eyebrows, cheeks, lips, eyes, forehead and hands gesturing and flowing was captivating.

~

Keeping that in mind as a writer you have to watch in your minds eye to see an actor play out the witty dialogue that your writing. If you don't you end up being heavy handed and including too many parentheticals that piss off directors and makes you look like you can't handle criticism. Playing the scene out in your head takes place a hundred times while your writing and can be overwhelming for most writers. Stopping is not an option cause if you stop then you may lose your train of thought. Losing your momentum is a scary proposition for any writer.

~

Music of the Day is Sigur Ros. Sigur Ros is a band best enjoyed with headphones after dinner. I love the song Glosoli http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doc1eqstMQQ if you can watch and listen to this without getting goosebumps you don't have any creativity. Show of the week is Mad Men on AMC. Check it.

I don't know about you but I'm voting for Paris Hilton '08

Writing is one thing, but character development is another. Stories come easily to me, but likable characters either don't come easily or i don't yet know how to articulate the character in my head onto paper.

So I was listening to the Fugees trying to open up my creative muse onto my notebook. Facebook is a large distraction and my new drug, Rome: Total War beckons from it's desktop icon.

You have to know everything about the main characters. Parents, home life, religion, first kiss, schooling, fav food, fav TV show, first crush, worst fear, biggest pet peeve etc, etc, etc,. All the aspects of any persons personality must be present in the characters you want the audience to love or hate. If these attributes and facets are not perfectly in place then the character is either "unbelievable" or "flat". While that works for C.S.I " Insert Big City" it doesn't work for me.

After you've come up with this dossier you must set up what the character cares about, and how this character would (if he/she is the protagonist) get the story moving. The "inciting incident" must be significant enough that it would cause the character to move and take action but believable enough for the audience to stay in touch and not be pulled out of the story thinking now that guy would never do anything like that. Take for instance Lost. Well on second thought don't because no one really knows what the heck is going on in that show anyways. Take for instance one of the best shows in TV. Showtime's Dexter is basically about a serial killer. He kills people in pretty gruesome ways AND he is the hero of the show. Ok so what, a guy goes around killing people. What if the serial killer works in homicide at the Miami PD, hmm. What if his sister also works in Miami PD, getting warmer. What if he's been doing this killing for a long time and is a pro at it by now and leads a double life as a mild mannered blood spatter expert with a doe-eyed girlfriend but ritualistically tortures people wrapped in plastic wrap on the evenings and weekends, ok that sounds interesting.

It's interesting but so far it's just a cool character. Nothing to get attached to because on the surface he looks like an anti-hero and is just someone you sick people like to watch.

Now I'm going to leave some other details about Dexter because I want you to watch the show. But to wrap up my point I'll divulge the inciting incident for the first season. Dexter goes to a crime scene: normal. Dexter sees a corpse: normal. The corpse has been "prepared" in such a way that it's obviously a serial killer: normal. The details of the corpse give Dexter clues about the killer and his next crimes, something only a serial killer could pick up on: whoa. Does Dexter pursue the criminal to bring him to justice? Or does he find the mastermind to learn from him and become his pupil?: WHAT THE HECK!!!

Music of the day is The Cars. Show of the week has been The Boondocks. Lowpoint of the day was seeing a lumpy woman wearing "crack jeans" (tight jeans made to show the top of a woman's butt crack). Highpoint of the day was watching her try to walk in her stupid shoes and tight pants only to fall over on the sidewalk.