AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 31 — Jules Feiffer's screenplay for Carnal Knowlege is almost all dialog with very few stage directions and even fewer directions to the actors as to body language.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 28 — I have a theory that what works, for me, in writing or film, is the 'not entirely unexpected.' Example of the expected: seeing squirrels in the neighborhood. Example of the not entirely unexpected: seeing peacocks near Mayfield park (where they live); seeing a possum or a raccoon in your headlights at night. Example of the entirely unexpected: seeing an elephant walking down the street. This middle ground of the 'not entirely unexpected' keeps things fresh. When we travel we don't know quite what to expect, what animals will be about (baboons on the road in the Cape of South Africa, a moose in Maine), how people will behave and dress. So things are intense and highlighted but still believable.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 24— A seventy-something couple was on the tour at the Blanton. They wore matching T-Shirts that said "Pot makes ordinary food taste good" and "Just Say Maybe." He looked enervated by the long winding stairs to the second floor.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 20— I'm thinking more and more that I will just write a screenplay to see how it's done. Yeah, right.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 15-17— Hearing screenwriters talk about writing, I'm itching to do some. But, oddly, just the journal will probably scratch that itch. That and reading some books about writing.

A few quotes from the film festival panels:
"You are writing for the reading impaired." Bill Broyles.
"You really need two different scripts: one for the studio and one for the creative people." Bill Witliff (The studio script is the 'coyote' script, I believe he said.)
"Switch the dialog between the characters. If it works, you have a problem." Bill Broyles
"Nothing is sacred; nothing is lost." Bill Witliff
"You have to love your work but you can't fall in love with it. You want to keep thinking 'this sucks.'" Bill Witliff
"Writers operate out of insecurity. You want to say something that matters." Bill Witliff unless it was Bill Broyles
"Get real characters to talk to you." Bill Broyles
"I'm a big believer in stealing from real life." Bill Witliff
"It ends up being a collaboration between what you know and what you didn't know you knew." Bill Witliff
"Whatever you are looking for, it is looking for you." Bill Witliff
"Screenplays are much closer to poetry than to novels or short stories. They operate on the space between the lines." Bill Witliff
"Experiment with removing all the dialog from scenes." Bill Broyles
"I had to give each wave an inner life." Bill Witliff in re The Perfect Storm
"The key to writing is coffee." Anne Rapp
"They don't know what they want until they see it." Elisa Bell on the decision makers
"I'm my own nagging voice." Les Bohem

Random overheard dialog:
"Wherebouts in LA?"
"Laurel Canyon."

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 1-14 — I did some minimal scribbling in a small notebook. Nothing much.