The First Day of the Last Month of the Year

It's the first day of the last month of 2007. As the year winds down to a close, I'm taking stock of what I accomplished this year, writing-wise, and what I hope to accomplish next year.

November was a mixed bag for me. On the one hand I did submit my longest piece yet, a 25,000 word novella and last night I submitted a 4,000 word short story.

On the other hand I had to drop out of NaNo and, as a result of a new temporary work assignment, the early morning writing schedule I had established (which had also proved my most productive writing time) was thrown out of wack due to having to go in earlier and a longer early morning commute.

So I didn't write nearly as much in November as I had done in September and October. I still have yet to find a way to write early in the mornings which does not require me having to get up at 3:30 a.m. That's not to say I can't get up that earlier but I also can't say what use I'll be during the day if I do.

However, it' s December 1st and I'm eager to at least wind up the year having achieved a bit more productivity than I did this past month.

I have three projects I'll be working on, two of which have submission deadline dates this month. The two short stories are due this month; the novella I'm working on is one I want to submit whenever it's done.

We're going to have our first major snow storm today. I'm just glad it's happening on a weekend instead of during the week. Last episode of Torchwood tonight so I'm eager to see that. And I'm going to take a look at Tin Man on Sci-Fi Channel tomorrow although so far the reviews have not been that great.

I got the book Rhett Butler's People from the library, which is an authorized sequel to Gone With the Wind that focuses on Rhett. I always liked Rhett. Personally, I didn't think Scarlett deserved him.

Watched the 1949 version of Madame Bovary last night with Jennifer Jones, Van Hefflin and James Mason. What a great movie! And the costumes! Absolutely gorgeous. If you get a chance, check it out.

Ciao!

Sweating Again....

I've signed up for the Seventy Days of Sweat, which starts today. When I saw that suggestions were being offered for those of us doing NaNoWrimo, and since I'm already writing on average 1,499 words a day anyway as a result of the 1,000 Words/Day List, I thought, what the heck? Why not?

Sounds like it will be fun. I tried to sweat with Sven the first time around but was unable to. But this time I'm ready!

Oh, as for Elizabeth: The Golden Age?

The critics were right this time. At least for me, it was a disappointment. All it did was make me want to watch the HBO DVD starring Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I. Highly recommend that instead of going to see this version.

Now, off to start sweating. I mean writing.

Movies and Writing

I love movies. Have loved them since I was a kid. Along with books, of course. And, when I write, although the books I've read have been a big influence, movies have proven just as big an influence.

I think writers can learn a lot from movies. In a movie, unless you have voice-over, everything about a character has to be revealed through action and dialogue.

And the way movies are paced, the fast cut, which, actually, is a technique that wasn't used much before the 60s. In movies prior to the 60s you might show a character saying he's going to the office.

You'd see him walk out the door, get into his car, drive through the streets, arrive at the office, get on the elevator, greet the receptionist and go to his office. Now, it's a fast cut from his home to him sitting in his office. Unless, of course, something happened to him on the way to work.

The fast cut can be a valuable technique for fiction writers. I've read some stories where I was pratically yawning because the writer felt he/she had to detail every single thing the character did.

No, you don't have to do that. Unless, of course, it has some significance. I mean, you can do it. You can do anything you want. But you risk boring the reader. Elmore Leonard has a famous quote. He says that when he edits he cuts out all the stuff the reader will skip.

Film editors do the same thing. They cut out the stuff that might cause the audience to start shifting in their seats or rattling their buckets of popcorn out of boredom.

As for my writing I'm doing good. The 1000 Words a Day group is also doing great. Everyone is writing and making progress on their projects. I'm done with the draft of a short-short, am ready to start drafting my 30,000 word novella and have finished the character sketch for my heroine/sleuth for my NaNo novel.

Until my next post.

Another Movie Opening this Week

Clive Owen has a new movie also opening this week. It's called Shoot 'Em Up

To be honest, I'm not sure what the plot is, but who cares? I'm there!

It's got both Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti, another one of my favorite actors.

Now, as much as I LOVE Daniel Craig as Bond, I still think Clive would have made a great one. He's got that brooding, smoldering, darkness in him. And he's great doing action stuff.

Ever seen hin in Sin City? He's very dark, but heroic. Badass but kinda sweet, in his own dark, tormented way. And, oh yeah, he's also very easy on the eyes!

Anyway, Shoot 'Em Up is also starting this Friday!

Fall Movies

Looks like there's a banquet of movies coming out this fall that I want to see. Another reason to welcome fall.

To be honest, this summer was pretty much a disappoinment movie-wise. At least for me. Harry Potter was about the only movie I really enjoyed. The rest were pretty disappointing.

The first fall movie I want to see is 3:10 to Yuma which stars Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

It's a western but I've been on a western kick for quite some time so I'm there for this one!

I'll be highlighting other upcoming fall movies I want to see, so stay tuned!

Summer's Nearly Gone! Yay!

Another image of a woman writer that I like. I'm not sure where it's from. Found among the ruins of Pompei?

Anyway, it's the middle of the three day weekend. I managed to make a little progress on my story that I want to submit this week.

I'm also getting ready to start two stories that I want to submit by the end of September.

I'm so glad it's September. I love the fall. I love the colors, the cooler weather, the holidays, the whole back to school thingy, even if I'm no longer in school!

My favorite time of the year! I've also noticed that lots of good books get released in the fall and it looks like there's a slate of excellent movies coming out this fall.

The sequel to Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett is coming out. Viggo Mortensen, Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Christian Bale and Clive Owen all have new movies coming out this fall. Yum!

So, yeah, I may be one of the few people who's not sorry to see summer almost on it's way out.

Ciao!

Duel

How would you like to see that in your rear-view mirror, closing fast at 90 miles an hour? Well that's what Dennis Weaver is faced with in the movie Duel.

Duel is the movie Steven Speilberg made a couple of years before he hit it big with Jaws. It was a made-for-tv movie that came out in the seventies, so it's a bit dated but not in its classic tale of David and Goliath.

Dennis Weaver is a businessman taking a normal business trip in his car. He happens to pass a huge semi and whoa, do things get nasty after that!

The rest of the movie is a thrill ride of Weaver trying his best to stay alive as the trucker is hell-bent on making sure he doesn't.

I watched this over the weekend and I never cease to enjoy it. If you get a chance, check it out!

Just a Book

At 12:01 tonight, the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released.

And one thing I've heard over and over is "it's just a book."

And I agree. It is just a book. So it does seem rather silly all the security measures being taken, the frantic efforts of its American publisher, Scholastic, to take legal action against those who, having received a copy of the book early, have posted reviews or, in one case, scanned all the pages of the book and put it up on the Internet.

They fear, as does J.K. Rowling, that people having already posted the book on the Web takes away some of the magic of people having the chance to read the book at (or near, taking into account time differences, of course) the same time.

But, what I find amazing is the fact that a book, a book, for goodness sake, is generating such a reaction.

In a world of cell phones, Ipods, video games, the World Wide Web, high-def, wide-screen TVs, DVDs, CDs, laptop computers, digital cameras, and so on and so forth, a simple thing as a book, with clothbound covers and paper pages, can still get so many people so excited.

Now, I've read that sales of Harry Potter books these past ten years have not exactly generated higher sales for other books. Don't know if that's true or not. But there's been a slew of YA fantasy books published during those ten years. And those authors don't exactly seem to be hurting.

Personally, book-lover that I am, I think it's fantastic that people, especially young people, can still get excited over a book. My brother is buying two copies so that he and his two young daughters and wife can read the books at the same time.

Now, will this ever happen again? I doubt it. At least not in my lifetime. But it won't soon be forgotten that a book (which, of course, has spilled over into oodles of merchandising and into a very successful movie franchise, and has spawned video games and hundres of websites devoted to Harry Potter and the Wizarding World) was able to garner this much attention, excitement and devotion.

Just a book? Yeah, just a book. And that's what so amazing.

Happy Reading!

P.S. I came across this while reading an article about J. K. Rowling. A couple of quotes from her that I think are of particluar concern to us aspiring writers. She's talking about possible future writing projects.

"I'll do exactly what I did with Harry — I'll write what I really want to write, and if it's something similar, that's OK, and if it's something very different, that's OK.

"I just really want to fall in love with an idea again, and go with that."

Fall in love with an idea. That's the key isn't it? And, of course, hope that lots of readers fall in love with the idea, the world and the characters too. *wink*

The Order of the Phoenix

Things are a little better on the homefront. Not a-okay and certainly not perfect, but somewhat better. Or at least I hope it will be. I didn't want to give the impression it was something dire. It was just one of those you-never-stop-being-someone's-mother-no-matter-how-old-you-or-your-children-get kind of things.

Since I must get to my writing ASAP, just a brief post to relay the above news and to say that I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and it's very good. Actually, I'd venture to say it's better than the book. The movie is leaner than the book by far and, yes, they did change a few things, but those were things that had to be changed in order to make the movie run tighter.

Movies are not novels. Let me repeat that. Movies are not novels. You cannot take a novel, and certainly not a novel as thick as HP & TOTP and translate it, page by page, into a movie.

Movies, IMHO, are more like short stories than novels. A movie has to get across a lot of information in the span of about two hours. And keep the audience from squirming in their seats while doing so. You can't have afford to have tangents in a movie, or extra characters, or meandering subplots.

I totally understood why the screenwriter and the director chose to make the changes they did. And I had no problems with them.

With each each movie in the series, there's no doubt the storyline has grown darker. But more is at stake now. Not just the wizarding world or the world of the Muggles, but Harry's soul is also in danger. He and Lord Voldermort now have a stronger connection than ever and it's now a question as to whether Harry will be able to defeat Lord Voldermort without becoming another Lord Voldermort.

Yes, secondary characters are given short shrift in the movie but the focus is where is should be. On Harry. And Daniel Radcliffe does a wonderful job portraying Harry's roller coaster ride of emotions.

I highly recommend it.

As for writing, goal is to get my submission out for my 13,000 word story today and to start on my 70 Days of Sweat project.

Happy writing!

The Finish Line

It's done. I finished my 13,000 word story. Okay, actually it's about 84 words over 13,000 but since I still have to go through and do my last major edit I can get rid of those 84 words fairly easy.

I'm just glad it's finished. It was, as usual, the last scene between the hero and heroine that was giving me the willies. But, as with anything, at some point you just have to stop knawing your fingernails and just get in there and write that darn scene or scenes.

So just some final cosmetic editing and I'll submit it sometime this weekend. I'm also doing my rather hurried prep-work for my project for the 70 Days, which I will officially start on Friday the 13th.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is out today! My son saw it yesterday at an employee's showing and he said it's pretty good. I plan to see it sometime later today.

Speaking of I heard that J.K. Rowling has hinted that she may return to the world of Hogwarts, after stating she had no intention of writing any more Harry Potter books. Or at least to the wizarding world that Hogwarts is part of

I'm not surprised.

I couldn't imagine that she wouldn't want to keep writing in that amazing universe she's created. And I'm sure----not to sound mercenary or anything----that she's had quite a lot of money dangled in front of her (as if she really needs it because last I heard she's worth more than $450 million dollars) to keep writing the HP books.

Just to give you some perspective on her suceess. The print run for the first Harry Potter book was 50,000 copies. The print run for the last book that is coming out next week is 12 million copies.

12 million copies! Mind-boggling, isn't it.

Movie Monday

I'm not sure if I'm going to designate Mondays, Movie Mondays as the weekends seems to be the time when I watch movies and I thought Monday would be a good day to talk about them.

But, truthfully, I'm not working right now, so I'm posting more often that I would if I were working.

But, we'll see.

This week, at least, it's Movie Monday.

I watched two movies over the weekend. The Last King of Scotland starring Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy (and an almost unrecognizable Gillan Anderson of X-Files fame) and Notes on a Scandal starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy (who is fast becoming one of my favorite actors.)

Both movies were what I would describe as psychological thrillers in that Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal, and McAvoy in The Last King of Scotland, are two naive, vulnearble and rather flawed individuals who find themselves under the sway of someone who is not only more powerful in the sense of being older than they are, but are also in positions of authority. In Dench's case, her having taught for years at the school where Blanchett is a novice teacher, and in the case of Whitaker, his being the president of Uganda and McAvoy a young Scottish doctor who comes to Uganda to, as he says, "make a difference."

McAvoy and Blanchett in the beginnings of their relationships with Whitaker and Dench, respectively, are drawn, like moths to the flame, to their more powerful, and ultimately, dangerous mentors. Soon, however, both relationships---as much through the fault of both McAvoy and Blanchett---turn poisonous and, even in McAvoy's case, deadly.

I would recoomend both movies as excellent studies for not only how to go about writing flawed characters but for also creating that dizzying pas de deux of attraction and repulsion between two people that can be so fascinating to read in a novel. Or, in this case, to see in a movie.

I should mention that both books are based on novels and that may account for their psychological richness. Also, Whitaker, McAvoy, Dench and Blanchett are incredible actors. It was like dining on a gourmet meal watching both of these movies with these particular actors.

One interesting thing about Dench and Blanchett is that both women have played Elizabeth I. Dench in Shakespeare in Love and Blanchett in Elizabeth, which I believe she's filmed a sequel to.

Now, if only someone would come up with a movie that would star Dench, Blanchett and Helen Mirren, who recently played both Elizabeth I on HBO and the Queen of England in The Queen.

Now, that would be something to see!

Inside Man and Something New

Still on a Clive Owen roll here. The cable company has been offering HBO/Cinemax free until Wednesday so watched a few movies yesterday when I was done with my writing.

Now, I used to have HBO/Cinemax but had to drop them when the price got too steep.

Anyway, last night I watched Inside Man, which stars Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster.

A stellar cast and a great plot. Very much enjoyed it. And, finally, a New York city that looks like New York city is supposed to look like. Meaning ethinically diverse.

My only complaint was that Clive Owen spent most of his on-screen time with a mask over his face. Major bummer!

I also caught the last act of a movie I'd like to see in its entirety.

It's called Something New. It's a romantic dramedy about a young, professional African-American woman who, like so many young, profesional women, black or white, is looking for her ideal man. The problem is, when she finds him, he's white and her family and friends are not down with that at all.

As I said, I saw the last act so I know how it ends but I was impressed with the acting, particulary that of Sanna Lathan who plays Kenya, the heroine, and Simon Baker, her hunky love interest. Enough that I want to see the entire movie. So I went to the local library website, saw they had some copies and put a hold on it.

As for the non-movie viewing aspects of my life, I'm writing, writing, writing. My current ETA (Evil Temp Assignment) ended rather abruptly last Thursday so it looks like I'm going to have the upcoming week off. No pay for it, of course, but I'm going to do my best to write as much as I can while I have this free time. Hopefully I'll be back to work soon.

Writing-wise, I'm currently drafting a novel (half-way through it), working on a fantasy short story (a non-erotic one---yes, really! *grin*) and doing world-building for an upcoming urban fantasy suspense something or other.

So, till the next post, ciao!

Children of Men

Children of Men comes out on DVD Tuesday, March 27th.

I saw it the other night.

See this movie.

This week, next week, whenever you can.

Just see it.

The Tudors and William S. Burroughs

I'm going to be busy writing all weekend as I've gotten a bit behind on my WIP.

So, for my blog post for the weekend, just a reminder that if you have Showtime, the mini-series The Tudors starts on Sunday, April 1st.

But, if you can't wait until Sunday, April 1st, you can catch, I'm asuming, an edited version of the first two episodes at the link below.

The Tudors

I say edited, because I saw the first episode last night and there are some pretty risque sex scenes in it.

Lovely risque sex scenes, but risque nonetheless.

But that Henry, he was a lusty bloke, after all.

If you don't have Showtime, and you want to see The Tudors, don't worry, it will soon enough be on DVD, I'm sure.

As for William S. Burroughs, I happened across this quote of his.

"I don't care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it."

I'm not assuming anyone hates my guts. Maybe they do. *shrug* I don't think any of us are so lovable that someone doesn't hate something about us.

Just though it was an interesting quote.

300. Again

Monday night I got a chance to see a free midnight test screening of the movie 300 on our local IMAX theater. Wound up not getting home until 3:00 a.m. and then getting up to go to work at 6:00 a.m. But that's okay.

I survived. :-)

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie! It was like watching a dream. Historically accurate? Nope. Deep plot? Nope.

A visual feast and pulse-pounding action? You bet!

Words on a Page

I'm breaking with my usual posting on the weekends to say that I watched the Oscars last night, as I always do, and then find myself regretting having stayed up so late.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I loved the way they announced the nominees for best original and adapted screenplays.

For those who did not watch the Oscars, what they did is have the presenters read the names of the nominees and then they read aloud snippets from their scripts, superimposing the words of the script over the actual scene of the movie.

I thought it was a wonderful idea for I think, or at least I hoped, it reminded the audience that before there's ever a director, a cast, an art director, a cinematographer, a costume designer, a composer, etc. there's the screenwriter, alone in his or her house, apartment or wherever, putting black words on a white page.

Kudos to whoever's idea that was.

300

Okay, I'll admit it.

I'm totally psyched for this movie. It's called 300 and it's based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. It's a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, wherein 300 Spartans (and 700 Thespian volunteers) helped to secure the retreat of their fellow Greeks by holding out against the massive Persian army of Xerxes I.

Miller said he based the book on the movie The 300 Spartans which he had seen as a kid. So had I. That movie was the first time I'd ever heard of the Battle of Thermopylae.

The movie is going to be shown in the IMAX format, which is how I plan to see it. Opening day is Friday, March 9th.

From the few reviews I've read so far, it looks to be a orgiastic frenzy of blood, sweat and guts.

Hard-bodied, half-naked, sweaty Greeks, shouting, bellowing, and fighting.

Beta males need not apply.

I am so there.

A Space of Uncertainity

As part of it's 31 Days of Oscar, TNT has been showing movies that won or were nominated for Oscars. On Saturday they showed 2001 A Space Odyssey which won an Oscar for Best Special Effects.

I've seen this movie a number of times and always come away from it with something different. As the Wikipedia article linked above states, this movie consistenly makes the lists of best movies ever made. And, yet, there's no dobut this is a difficult film in that it doesn't do something that I believe more and more movies, books and televison shows are doing.

It doesn't explain every single thing. It doesn't solve every mystery. It doesn't give answers to every question.

If you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I mean. In the article it says that Stanley Kubrick, the film's director, refused to give an explanation of what the movie was about.

He wanted viewers to discover their own interpretations. Therefore, we have no idea what the huge, black monolith that first appears on earth to a trible of pre-historic man-apes and then is found again on the moon in the 21st century is. We don't know who built it or why.

We have no idea what happens to Astronaut Bowman when he comes upon another monolith in orbit around Jupiter, leaves his larger spacecraft in a smaller shuttle to encounter it and is, we assume, transported through both time and space and comes out the other side of his galactic journey, transformed and transcended into a gigantic cosmic fetus which slowly approaches the Earth, while Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra swells and pounds in the background.

It's a total mystery, this movie, and it bravely leaves it up to the viewer to determine just what in the heck it all means and why.

One of the things that seems to be almost a given in writing fiction is that the author must, at some point, provide explanations or answers for whatever dilemmas or mysteries she presents in her work. By the end of the story all the loose ends must either be tied up or snipped off so that the reader can close the book with a sense of order having been restored.

But is it always necessary to explain everything? Is there room in a piece of fiction for the open spaces of uncertainity? Isn't that one way of making the reader a part of the reading experience? Leaving those empty rooms, so to speak, where the reader can wander in and decorate it themselves and thereby make their own meaning or create their own interpretations without the author leading him or her by the hand?

I wonder.

TNT and Lord of the Rings

I would have posted this on Saturday but I've been sick as a dog for the past week with a nasty cold, so I spent all yesterday resting. Really don't feel that much better today, but I have to go back to work tomorrow so, among other things I must do today, I also have to finish editing a short story for submission tomorrow.

Anywho, today, Sunday, TNT, is showing all three Lord of the Lord Rings movies, starting at 11:30 Central Time, so for anyone who doesn't have the DVDs or has them but just doesn't feel like sticking them in the DVD player, you can watch all three in a row today on TNT.

Of course, you'll have to deal with commercials breaks, which I tend to mute until they're over, but it'll be a chance to see the entire trilogy in one day.

I still remember mid-December of 2001, 2002 and 2003, when I, and a host of others to be sure, was eagerly anticipating the release of a new Lord of the Rings movie. It really added a bit of excitment to doldrums of winter.

Pan's Labyrinth

I'm not sure how wide a release this movie will get but it's one I would very much like to see.

Pan's Labyrinth, although it looks like a fairy tale for children, is definitely not for children. It's described as a fairy tale for adults and, from what I saw in the trailer, it looks like the kind of dark fantasy movie I've been wanting to see for quite some time.

A brief synopsis: Set in 1940s Spain against the postwar repression of Franco's Spain, a fairy tale that centers on Ofelia, a lonely and dreamy child living with her mother and adoptive father, who is a military officer tasked with 'ridding the area' of rebels. In her loneliness, Ofelia creates a world filled with fantastical creatures and secret destinies. With Fascism at its height, Ofelia must come to terms with her world through a fable of her own creation.

As I said, it's definitely not for young children as the movie is rated R but it looks incredibly imaginative and original and, trust me, imginative and original is something that I can't resist in a movie.

If, for some reason it's not released here, I will definitely look for it on DVD.