I didn't even know how to talk to people, I didn't know how to talk to the press. I was just a jester. And I still feel that way. But, I mean, what haven't I learned? Everything that I know is new information because I was starting with nothing.

People don't have these tidy little redemption arcs in reality the way they do in movies.

I had gone to the bookstore, and while I hadn't bought any books on how to write a screenplay, I'd bought a couple of scripts so I could see how the formatting works. I just needed to know how a Hollywood screenplay looked on the page, which was something I was totally unfamiliar with.

There's something about a roller coaster that triggers strong feelings, maybe because most of us associate them with childhood. They're inherently cinematic; the very shape of a coaster, all hills and valleys and sickening helices, evokes a human emotional response.

Above the stage was a glass-floored second stage, which allowed customers to look up and watch another girl dancing overhead. This multidimensional display of poontang reminded me of the 3-D chessboard on Star Trek, which in turn reminded me that I was a huge nerd.

Honestly, this will never happen because she's so much classier than me, but I would love to work with Sofia Coppola.

Stripping toughened my hide, but exposing myself as a writer has been a lot more brutal.