Laura Occasionally Blogs

So on the very day I publicly denounce The L Word for being "too boring", I go to HMV and purchase season 1. Look, the next two episodes on the zip disc were more compelling than the pilot, okay? Strangely compelling.

I still haven't warmed, though, to the plot thread which was the A story in the pilot, about the girl who is a Very Deep Important Writer. It's not just that I have no sympathy for her situation--the way, instead of ending things with either her very nice boyfriend and the sexy, sexy woman she's cheating on him with, she just angsts and blinks her big eyes and alternately/simultaneously congratulates herself and throws herself lonely pity parties. And occasionally faints dead away.

No, mainly it's the way, every time my head explodes from her level of pretentiousness (she titled her opus "Thus Spake Sara Schuster") she goes and one-ups herself (use of the word "Abraxas").

It's not just her. She is simply a vehicle for the TVland's common conceptions of Legitimate Writers.



1. All writers ever do is write thinly veiled mostly-autobiographical short stories (sometimes poems). If any character or event in your story does not have a direct real-life counterpart, you're doing it wrong!

2. A story's quality is directly related to its angst content (this is called "being honest"). Therefore, writers produce their best work when they are depressed (see #1). If your story has a happy or uplifting message, pencils down, you're out!

3. A story's quality is directly related to its use of rhyme, alliteration, and vocabulary out of "The Superior Person's Book of Words." Remember, if the words used attract less attention than the concept being described, you'll never make it in the Barnes & Noble circuit! Maybe you should just go and write for TV.