ANITA LOOS_YOU CAN'T KEEP A BAD GHOST DOWN_ GHOST OF A CHANCE Interlude

{"Like cheap booze, you can't keep a bad ghost down."
- Anita Loos, ghost.}

All your glowing comments about my article I posted on the anniversary of my death made this down ghost feel up.

And let me tell you :

that's the first time this girl has been felt up by strangers in a long time.

No howls from the feminists, please. The trouble with the Women's Liberationists is that they keep getting up on soapboxes

and proclaiming women are brighter than men.

Which is true,

but it should be kept quiet, or it ruins the whole racket.

But I am pleased by VR's comment that she, too, has the same frame of mind as I do about our last names.

My brother, Clifford, would painstakingly correct anyone who mispronounced our name. I never cared what people called me.

So my brother was always Dr. 'Lohse' while I became Miss 'Loose.'

Which was fitting since to survive in the madness that was Hollywood in the 1920's, I had to play it fast and loose.

Hollywood was insane then. To place in the limelight a great number of people who ordinarily would be chambermaids and chauffeurs,

and give them unlimited power and wealth, was bound to produce lively results.

But Fate keeps on happening. And insanity has apparently become the norm in Hollywood.

Still and all, this is Roland's blog, and he likes to help out his fellow writers. Luckily for you, I do, too.

In fact, I'm going to give you a way never to be stuck for what to write next ever again.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? And here I am not even running for political office.

It relates to a trick I learned to lose weight : you always leave the table hungry.

You may not know this, but it takes a bite of food a half hour to make it down all those intestinal highways and byways to your stomach.

Eat til you feel full, and 30 minutes later, you'll feel over-stuffed -- because that is what you are.

In like manner, when you're writing and going good,

when you know what's going to happen next,

Stop.

If you do that every day when you're writing your masterpiece, you will never be stuck.

Don't think or worry about the next scene. This way your subconscious will work out all sorts of nifty details as you go about the rest of your day's activities.

Consciously think about what you will write next, and you'll be tired before you start.

It's like staring at the brooding, silent phone, willing it to ring, thinking about that damn man who won't call.

By the time he does call, you're so tired of waiting and out of sorts, you haven't the wit or the patience to put him down like the sick dog he is.

Now, this trick won't make you rich, but wanting to be rich is all too human and all too useless.

There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants --

more than anything else --

to become rich.

As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile goal.

Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are --

Like enjoying each breath you breathe, the taste of that luscious strawberry, each light caress of your lover's fingertips on your cheek --

all those things I took for granted,

until I died.

Don't you be like me, girls. Please.

Well, maybe just a little bit. "Naughty" can have its own rewards.
***
Speaking of naughty ...

take a peek into the world in which I grew up :