John Cusack as Bender ...

"Nicolas Cage was considered for the role of John Bender.  Bender was the last role to be cast and it was between John Cusack and Judd Nelson.  Hughes eventually cast Cusack to play John Bender, but Hughes decided to replace Cusack with Nelson before shooting began because Cusack didn't look threatening enough for the role."

~Wikipedia, The Breakfast Club

Say Anything ...

As already stated in the first John Cusack post, Lloyd Dobler came in at Number 72 of all time greatest characters  beating out both Darth Vader at Number 84 and Captain Jack Sparrow at Number 87.

Tagline: "A noble underachiever and a beautiful valedictorian fall in love the summer before she goes off to college."

This is a little bit of a problem as Lloyd's plans for the future are a little less clear.

Say's Lloyd: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career.  I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed or process anything sold, bought or processed or repair anything bought, or processed.  You know, as a career. I don't want to do that."

He has a nervous talking thing, as his best friend Corey points out.

Lloyd Dobler isn't a "guy".  He doesn't hang around with the "guys" at the corner market on a Saturday night bashing the women they could never get in the first place.  Lloyd's best friends are girls.  He can talk to them, understands them and that is what makes Diane Court fall in love with him.

"The world is full of guys," says Corey.  "Be a man.  Don't be a guy."

A young Cary Grant - sans accent -- could have played Lloyd   Or maybe David Niven. Some old time Hollywood personality who would bring to the stage the same qualities that the young, still getting his bearings, Cusack has brought.

Because John Cusack nailed it in this part.  A love them then loose them, only to love them again situation and he nailed it with all the finesse of a Hollywood Star.  He created a hero that, to this day, is a role model for the hopeless romantic.

.

NaNo: I couldn't resist ...

I've been doing it so many years.  The NaNoWriMo, I mean.  This wild, month long chase of a 50,000 word rough draft novel.  I can't even tell you when I started.  But this year, this year was going to be different.  I swore I wasn't going to participate.

I didn't have a real reason why except I was tired of the challenge, there were other things to do. A NaNo can be real disruptive to the household if it's not managed right and then there is always that feeling you get in your gut if you get behind.

So I was out of it this year. For sure.  No way.

Right.

I signed up two weeks before the kick off, now so excited about the story that having to wait to start typing until today was a cruel fate.  I read No Plot, No Problem - twice.  Read Ready, Set, Novel but opted not to use it; and I got my handy dandy NaNo kit with everything inside to keep me going.

And I bought the purse.  Um huh, You read that right. Every year I buy a purse that I really like and I have it shipped to me. Then I sit the box where I can see it from my work station.  If I pass the 50,000 word mark on time, I get to keep the purse.  If not, I have to give it away.

In my opinion the NaNo is a lot like this.  It's a month long game with yourself to see how far you can push to get the words out. Some days they come easy, flowing onto the page like a gift.  Other days it's like wrestling live chickens with too much noise and a mess all around.  Happily you can find yourself somewhere in the middle. Little treats help.  Little surprises.  "If I just get five hundred more words done I can have that latte from Starbucks."  Add a thousand to that and toss in a scone.

The NaNo is hard.  Very hard.  But as I have come to learn it's ingrained in my brain.  It's fall.  The Halloween decorations are up and it's time for me to start typing.