There's a certain trend I'm not enjoying at the moment, when it comes to writing. I'm not enjoying the fashionable films or books we're supposed to find "important" because they're about people who fail to communicate.

During the Melbourne International Film Festival, maybe two thirds of the films I saw were about husbands failing to communicate with wives, parents failing to communicate with children, murderers throttling people because of secrets unuttered.

Then I decided maybe the problem was that this trend is permeating film. I bought a few books. I read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and "We Need To Talk About Kevin", the first of which is about a family whose lack of truthful communication makes them numb and angry strangers, and the second of which is about a family whose lack of truthful communication makes them numb and angry strangers.

Reading each book, watching every film, I was always hanging out for the ending. There has to be a pay-off, I thought. There has to be a reason for all this repressed miscommunication being rammed down our throats. Surely the interesting thing isn't the lack of communication itself? Surely there's more to this writing than "people shouldn't keep secrets" or "people don't talk to each other anymore in this soulless society" or some similar indictment on the contemporary world?

But apparently emotionally stunted repression with predictably dichotomous results is so hot right now.

I'm bored by it. Bring on the talking. Bring on Aaron Sorkin's novel-writing career. Dickens Does Post 9/11. Somebody SAY SOMETHING, for crying out loud.

Whenever I log into The New Yorker website, my heart does skip a beat when Anthony Lane's name appears under "Current Cinema". Here he is on Bond. I don't care what he's writing about. He can take a seat around my fantasy dinner party table any time he likes.

Another: Caryl Churchill. Check out her CV and ask yourself what the hell you've been doing with your time. I bet she doesn't get distracted by articles in the weekend paper or driven crazy by sudokus.

And the two troublemakers Alan Bennett and Tom Stoppard are up there too, as is our Mister Winton. I am declaring my writing crushes now because they have been there for me during my broken wrist debacle. I therefore also extend my thanks to the writer of Press Gang and to Aaron Sorkin. As Rita says: "wind beneath wings etc".

It's interesting to me how human beings (by which I mean me) rationalise what happens to them. It's also interesting that other people offer their own spin on things.

This is what random people have said to me over the last three weeks of having a broken wrist (answers in brackets):

"Well at least it wasn't your leg" (Okaaaay, but see, If it was my leg, I would be in pain and discomfort with my feet up and two good hands to type with. That suits me better than pain, discomfort, and inability to do anything at all that I enjoy or am usually paid for).

"What happened to the other guy? huhuhugahahaaasnort" (You want me to show you?)

"I guess someone must be telling you to have a break" (Really? Who? What a jerk!)

"Can I sign your arm?" (have we met?)

...etc...

Anyway, as you can see, I am fast running out of ways to see this arm-in-a-sling thing as an advantage and I now hope that somehow the plaster cast will come off and the bones will heal and I will have a very well-funded idea for an ongoing pay TV series, will win a trip to hang out on set with the cast and crew of Studio 60, or will marry into money. Immediately please.

Having a broken arm is like having a giant claw. I'm not exactly loving it.

Although I can't go out to social events without slumping down into the corner after half an hour, I have been slowly reacquainting myself with my friends over cups of tea. My diary for the past week looks something like this:

Tea: earl grey, lady grey, chai, english breakfast, white wine, mangoes.

Friends: an artist, a singer/songwriter, a filmmaker, someone I went to primary school with, someone I went to High School with, and an official Christmas elf.

Random purchases that probably never would have happened if my wrist wasn't broken: car wash ($12), new mobile phone (minimum $30 per month, phone "free"), $20 worth of raffle tickets for diabetes institute (first ever response to telemarketing), visits to hairdressers ($20 for a wash and blow dry), enormous amounts of codeine.

Things I've watched: Fast Food Nation, lots of Aaron Sorkin, Australian Story (and anything else where people come up against greater odds than mine and win), Scrubs, and half of an accidentally hilarious sports movie called Youngblood, the central charracter in which is actually called Dean Youngblood. Somewhere, there are producers still kicking themselves that they got Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Keanu Reeves into a film, and it is immortalised thus.

Most annoying incidental things about broken wrist: can't tie shoe laces, or use credit card due to inability to sign name.

Biggest incidental joy brought about by broken wrist: actual hands-in-the-air-not-my-fault inability to dress in anything other than trackie dacks or to cook.

Little thing it makes me think: "Plaster and water wrapped around an essential limb? That's the solution here? Come ON."

Big thing it makes me think: be nicer to old people. Being slow and relying on other people makes me want to scratch my skin off.

Amount of time it took me to write this, in comparison to how long it normally takes: 4:1

Weeks left in cast: five.

Degree of sympathy for own self: extreme to overbearing.

Today, in my Day Job, I was asked to tell the people printing my business cards what I would like my title to be. My title. On my business card. Under my name. I was asked to tell them what I would "like" my title to be. Over the phone.

I was thinking, I could say anything, and they would print maybe five hundred or a thousand business cards reading "bad dancer" or "poo liason officer" or "Madam Lady President" or whatever and I could claim that it was a bad phone line, right?

Meanwhile, I haven't made it to the Melbourne Festival again because working for someone else requires, you know, working until you're exhausted and want to go home and watch episodes of things Aaron Sorkin wrote and that you wish you could have the time to write but you can't because you're watching Aaron Sorkin.

So I admit to being a bit of an Aaron Sorkin nerd, and I am currently watching The West Wing, Sportsnight, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip concurrently (alternating episodes).

Seriously though, you absolutely have to watch this (scroll down to watch the clips).

It's a show about making television, which of course makes me squeal like a pig at a child's birthday party, and it's been reviewed here. For the more nerdy among us (pick me! pick me!) there is also a blog. Oh yes there is.

If you're wondering why all the talk about TV, it's because life has consisted mostly of staring at a computer screen this weekend. Went to the beach and wrote a whole lot of stuff that I've since deleted. Yay for progress.

Aaaanyway, I have now returned home to play with my friends, most of whom are called Tim.

None of them is this Tim, though, which is something I'm hoping to change. One can never have too many Tims at a dinner party, I find. So, more Tims and also I find there are insufficient people called Snuffy in my life at the present time as well. Let's everyone see what we can do about that.

I'm skipping town this evening. Cramming a big heap of comfortable tracksuit pants into the back of the car and going away to write.

Obviously I will take a laptop, but I will not take series one through to seven of The West Wing.

I will not take Scrubs. Or Sports Night. Or Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. I will not take Press Gang series one through to four.

I will take possibly a nice fountain pen and a diary and a laptop and tracksuit pants. And possibly some books, but nothing too interesting. Boring books. I will take boring books.

I will be going for strictly regimented walks along the beach, and I will be drinking cups of tea only when I am two paragraphs into whatever it is I am writing (the prospect that I might write two paragraphs is almost unbearably delicious). Anthony Lane can do it, so can I.

Meanwhile, if anyone is remotely as jaded as I am about the state of the media at the moment, keep your eye on this. The idea is, it's people-driven journalism. We tell them what to write about. It's actual democracy!