So how's this:

1. Three grant applications for three separate projects due in the next three weeks
2. One grant application due for Victoria Law Foundation in one week
3. Three weeks worth of film festival films to be watched, starting tomorrow
4. Under half the films actually booked on account of booking system being worst in universe
5. House out the back being sold, so people "inspecting" via side entrance, next to our house
6. Some "interested home buyers" have since broken our fence, stolen housemate's new bike
7. Housemate has flu
8. Housemate possibly not able to claim on expensive insurance policy
9. Freezing cold day
10. Heater suddenly and inexplicably broken
11. Attempts at turning on heater makes whole house smell like fire
12. Landlord coming over
13. Landlord possibly not as keen on weeds in front garden as we are
14. Kim Beazley is the leader of a political party
15. My grandma is in hospital
16. Plays, film scripts, and grant applications do not, apparently, write themselves.

Spewbags, as they say in the classics.

I wonder if the people next door have some kind of surveillance system set up outside my house. It wouldn't be difficult, because the (empty) house next door towers over my living room (which is also my office) and there must be someone there with a camera, or at the very least a pair of binoculars, waiting for me to stop doing the "other" jobs on my list, pour myself a cup of tea, and settle down to write.

That must be what happens. Otherwise, how would they know the exact moment to turn on their noise making machine to the EXTREMELY LOUD setting and then shout over the top of it to each other in angry voices for hours on end about exactly what to do next?

Coldest morning since 2002 or something this morning. They reported in the paper that it was particularly chilly in a place called Coldstream. Well, honestly.

Up to part five of Crime and Punishment . Thought last night that in books such as this one there should be encouragements along the way ("nearly there!" and "the ending is worth it!" etc). Perhaps a graded system ("you are now 80% more likely to say something clever at a dinner party", or "congratulations, you are now 20 pages further into this book than most people").

I am going to be so smug when I finish this book.

Another story they will probably base a film on here. Actually, a film about being arrested for procrastinating is very firmly in the realm of horror for me. Or biography.

Anyway, Lord it's cold. I'm going to bed to finish this Crime and Punishment caper. Or, you know, to finish the next billion pages and still not be anywhere near the end.

I know he's a genius and all but he would never get funding in this country - I can imagine the notes. "Where's this going exactly? What's the "message"? Describe the "arc". Also, "what's the market, exactly?"

"We suggest you get an editor".

I'm thinking I should move to one of those European countries where they pay you A WAGE to write, no matter what they think of your writing. Sure, I'll have to learn another language and work out how to write eloquently in it, but surely that's the sort of thing you just pick up, right?

Dear all my friends,

I miss you. I really do. Sometimes, I'll be making myself a procrastinatorial cup of tea and I'll think of something you said once and I'll laugh. Just me and the kettle. Laughing and thinking about the good times.

I haven't spoken to you in ages. I feel bad about that, both because I hope you don't think I don't like you, and also because I would really quite like to be having a fabulous time somewhere in a warm bar with you and your nearest and dearest friends, with a glass of something or a cup of something in my hand.

But I know you will forgive me, because you have forgiven me before. I have done this before. I do this all the time. This is a pattern. An abusive, selfish pattern. I am just like those men who promise their girlfriends they are definitely leaving their wives just as soon as the time is right.

Except that I'm not. I adore my friends. There is no disloyalty here. It's just like Gloria Steinem said, though, "Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else".

Yes, once again I have used a quote I found on the internet to back up my morally questionable behaviour. But what else do I have? I don't go outside, I don't speak to anyone. My current best friend is the guy at the corner of my street who makes me coffee and asks me where I'm up to in Crime and Punishment (we're having a race).

But, sadly, Gloria Steinem offers me as good an explanation as any. When I try to write something, which I'm trying to do at the moment, I am lost. I am lost to the world of fashion (hence my faux-velvet pants with the fake drawstring and what can only be described as a ladder over the right bum cheek), I am lost to the world of nightlife (movies and books are as exciting as my evenings get) and I am lost to the world of you, my friends.

Probably what I'm writing is terrible. Probably I will emerge around the end of the film festival with a flu and a desperate desire to have a conversation about something other than my work. Probably I will wonder why I disappeared for so long.

You, meanwhile, are (in no particular order) about to have a baby, about to get married, about to go overseas, just back from overseas, overseas, newly single, annoyingly in love, freshly employed, hating work, moving house, starring in a movie, having a sex-toy party, having a birthday party, having a going-away party, moving to New York (smartarse - you'd better send me prizes), and (I can only presume) saving up lots of money for my birthday on August the eleventh.

Just saying.

Love,

Lorin.

I just purchased a full pass to the Melbourne International Film Festival. This may well prove to be a very foolish financial decision, in the manner of what my friend Finn calls "gym donations". I have donated to many inner-city gyms, generously bequeathing them money without burdening them with my presence for months at a time.

The MIFF pass entitles me to go to absolutely everything with the exception of the opening and closing night films (pah!) which means that in order to justify it to myself I will pretty much be living in dark cinemas for three weeks. This raises many questions. Is it okay to stop writing films because you're watching them? Is it okay to spend three hundred dollars on a film festival when you refuse to buy dinner in the city because twenty dollars for a pasta is personally insulting? How do you judge a film from a programme guide? Is popcorn a food group?

Some of these questions will be answered, I suppose, and I will be attempting to document the highlights and lowlights here, for my own sanity if nothing else. Last year's MIFF was really fantastic and James Hewison is directing it for the last time this year, which means I'm not taking any chances and waiting until I can afford a pass. I want one now!

Last year, I saw only one film I didn't like. Even that, when I think about it now, was interesting enough for me recall, exactly a year later, almost frame-by frame. There was one that made me want to be sick (physically repuslive. I had to put my hands over my face) but that was actually quite a brilliant bit of cinema so even that I would say was good. And the other ones were all - to varying degrees - brilliant. In fact, in terms of getting an education in film, you couldn't really do much better.

So now the task is to get a whole lot of things done now, before the festival starts. Yikes.

Any recommendations, let me know.

I didn't write anything here yesterday because I was trying to capitalise on the sudden inspiration I had for writing the next Standing There Productions script.

I proved yet again for myself, in other words, that William Faulkner was right when he said, "The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with". So true, Willie, so true. See, last night, I was robbed. During the night someone broke into my house and changed yesterday's brilliant writing into turgid, repetitive, pointless tripe. It was such a mess when I got in here this morning. They totally trashed the place. I hate it when those guys break in. It's happened before. You feel so... violated.

Anyway, while I was looking up the Faulkner quote, which I had of course remembered incorrectly, I found the following quote: "I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write." - P. G. Wodehouse.

That depresses me, because it's kind of true. And it's kind of not. The idea of a writer as an obsessive is, I hope, an overly-romanticised "mad artist" stereotype. But there is some truth to the fact that sometimes, even if you're going to a very close friend's wedding or something... you look up at the time and you realise it's half an hour before you're supposed to be there and you're still in your pyjamas but you're seriously getting somewhere with this script - you've rediscovered what it should actually be about - and suddenly it really weighs on you that you have to go to this DUMB WEDDING of your DUMB FRIEND (who is among your favourite people in the world the rest of the time but who now symbolises a selfish and demanding distraction). You're furious. You're late. You throw down your pen and swear at the computer when it takes too long to shut down. You can't find your shoes. You wonder why shoes were even invented. What is the point of shoes? Cavemen didn't need them, and now we have footpaths and everything so why are people so silly? Why do I have to stop writing just so I can go to see a ceremony celebrating some weird social union of two people who live together anyway, with two high-heeled leather bits strapped to the soles of my feet? It's just so bizarre.

The world turns really nasty for that small interval between enjoying writing and being sociable. I always have fun when I get to these things, and more often than not I am late to or absent from things I regret not attending. But it's a battle between the part of me that wants a social life and adores the people in my life and the part of me that wants to be locked in a quiet room with an endless supply of tea and recycled paper and maybe ocassionally a newspaper.

By the way, in case you're trying to find significance that isn't there, the above is a hypothetical situation. I have been to three weddings, and none of them has engendered in me the response described above, which is why I used that example. So shut up please.

In other news, I'm up to part two of Crime and Punishment , which really is somewhat of a corker. Dostoevsky apparently wrote quickly and obsessively but perhaps not just in a fervour of creativity. He was a serious gambler, which adds another urgency when you're writing for money (I imagine).

In fact, I would like to nominate Dostoevsky as the perfect contestant to spice up a reality TV show like Big Brother. Most banal TV show in the world, present sexual assault aside, but if you put someone on it whose father was apparently killed by his own servants, whose membership of the socialist party resulted in him being sentenced to death but then they said "Ha! Tricked you!" after the "mock execution" and shipped him off to do hard labour for four years in Siberia... I bet Channel Ten would get better ratings. He had an affair with his dead friend's wife and then married her, everyone in his life died at once leaving him with their debts and he was addicted to gambling and kind of a bit loony and Russian and cold and depressed. Perfect!

Put him in the Big Brother House. Go on. Maybe him with that pope who turned out to be a woman. Oh. Just looked that up on the internet and apparently that's very possibly not true. Bummer. It worked so well in Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. And it would make for much better television than, you know, drunken fratboy sexual assault.

I've been writing, which means everything else in my life is in disarray.

I did manage to get to the theatre on the weekend to see a play that reminded me why I never go and see mainstream theatre. Thirtysomething dollars to see a tortured metaphor and some heavy symbolism flogged to death on a very expensive and very contrived set. I don't like saying bad things about theatre, but my Lordy, that show I saw at Black Lung for ten bucks a few months back (which is what inspired me to get out more to see shows) really was the best theatre I've seen in ages. They have a new show on at the moment. Check it out here. Miles more interesting than anything you'll be overcharged for in the CBD.

Anyway then I checked out an exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, which I couldn't hear any of because the acoustics were so bad. Seriously. You can stand as close as like to the little TV screens and all you hear is screaming and wailing from the other room. So you think, "I might go into the other room", and you go into the other room and all you hear is talking and shouting from the exhibition you just came from because you couldn't hear it. Generally, though, it looked like it was probably quite good. I like the more political art that's out there at the moment. It's a good sign. Or, well, it's a sign. What it means for the future of the depressing things it's critiquing, I'm not sure. But at least someone is noticing.

Speaking of depressing things and critiquing, I'm also five chapters into Crime and Punishment , which is like saying you're a hundred metres into a marathon, but I'm enjoying it very much. Which is a good thing because I also purchased another book on the weekend. John Banville's The Sea , which he read from at the Sydney Writers' Festival and which was lovely, or maybe his accent was lovely and he was reading Spot Goes To School , I probably wouldn't have noticed. The task is not to start it before I finish the Russian. Yeesh.

And last night I saw the film version of Everything is Illuminated , by Jonathan Safran Foer, one of my faves. I enjoyed the film, actually, more than I thought I would. It must be hard to make a film from such a beatifully constructed first person narrative that relies so heavily on the voice of the person - or people - telling the story. If you get it on DVD, check out the deleted scenes. Sometimes I think the DVD menu should divide the deleted scenes into "DELETED FOR A REASON" and "OUT FOR REASONS OF LENGTH, DEBATE WITH PRODUCERS, RESULT OF AUDIENCE POLLS ETC". Most of the deleted scenes on DVDs would fall squarely into the first of these categories. I would go so far as to say that most of them would fall into the WHAT WERE WE THINKING menu as well, but that's unfair. I'm being a bit unfair today.

Perhaps this is why. On my way to gym this morning, a sign on the side of a Church. You know those ones with the messages? The well-considered, often topical, questions of faith they put up outside Churches?

Go past the one in North Fitzroy and witness the following blunt threat:

GOD EXISTS. OTHERWISE EXISTENCE IS MEANINGLESS.

Er... okay.