Downright messy. They are full of arrogance, pride, hurt, bitter, love, hope, offense, delight... Just plain messy.

Messy people are currently glaring at each other across a non-existent negotiating table, grinding production to a halt, and forcing my career into a stall, just as I had forward momentum again.

Messy people are what make for interesting drama. I'm not sure my 'Pokes folks are messy enough. That throws me into a messy area of insecurity and nailbiting, which only time, reviews and rewrites will fix. Straight drama is messy. It's supposed to be messy.

It's hard for me to write messy people. If I've realized only one thing in writing 'Pokes, it's that one thing. I dearly want to get 'Pokes done and out so that I can go on to a more fun action movie. Action movies need messy people, but they need heroes and action much more. I can do heroes and action. I love heroes. I love action. I can do a little bit of mess for a lot of heart-thumping, nail-biting (in a good way) story.

On the plus side, my little slightly-messy 'Pokes is perfectly suitable for the non-WGA-signatory market, meaning I can get it out and read -- just to the right folks -- without scabbing during the strike. Which is exactly what I'm going to do, once it's mess-ified enough.

As a writer, I have to embrace the messiness of people. It is the bread and butter of what I do. But my next script is going for Bounty-level messy, not mop-level!