Well the holidays are truly here. Today is Christmas eve and the phone at work are as dead as Romney’s political ambitions.
I wish each and everyone one of you the merriest holliday, whatever holiday it is you celebrate. I don;t get hung up on which one myself, it’s good enough to have a day off to spend with my sweetie-wife and think good thoughts.
(Except about the writing where I think bad thoughts for the villian.)
Oh, nothing life threatening to me and anyone I know, but this has been a week of highs and lows.
The lows were a couple of things. On Tuesday night I got a flat rejection from Writer of the Future for my 4th Quarter entry. Not Even an Hm. *le sigh* My arthritis has been acting up and today, thursday, it was particularly bad. No evening writing for me, just letting my fingers rest.
The highs have been fairly nice. Mainly in that my novel, ‘Command and Control’ is less than fifty pages from completion, and I have been very productive. (9 pages on Monday, 8 Tuesday, 8 Wednesday, and today the day of pain 5. That’s a total of 30 pages and my weekly goal is by sunday nights having 29 finished, so I am ahead of quota.)
My idea for a new SF short story is coming along nicely and I know exactly how it ends. That is critical to my writing process. Unless I have a clear ending in mind, I cannot write the story.
Best of all, Saturday morning, 10 am, my sweetie-wife and I are going out to see The Hobbit. yes!
So, continuing my series of comedic films from the 1980’s, last night movie was one of my favorites, Better Off Dead.
Sharing a commonality with last week’s movie, The Sure Thing, Better Off Dead stars John Cussak as Lane Meyers, a young man in high school obsessed with his girlfriend Beth. When Beth dumps Lane for the school jock, Roy Stalin, Lane is sent into a comedic tailspin of depression, suicidal thoughts, and misfortune. Continue reading
Last night was the twice a month meeting of the Mysterious Galaxy Writers Support Group. I think it was because of the impending holidays that we had a fairly small group turn out, which meant even though I read a bit at our last meeting I read again.
I read out a scene that had been problematic for me in the writing and turned out to be problematic in the reading. Even as II read it aloud I could feel the prose falling flat.
The scenes had no life, no purpose and failed in every objective.
I got lots of really good feedback and this is where a person had to listen and not just hear. It can be very difficult to be truly open to your own mistakes. This is as true with writing as it is with anything else people do. I tried my best to keep ego out of the way. (Beating down the little monster with a crowbar and burying him is a hole in the desert.) I think I succeeded. I have a much better idea today why the scene failed, and some idea about how to fix it with a total rewrite.
Writers groups are invaluable, but you have to listen.
Sunday night I was in the mood for light, but not silly fare. The Sure Thing, Rob Reiner second from, made in 1985 perfectly fit my mood and as Christmas feature in the plotline it was even a timely viewing.
This is an early outing my John Cussak, a very talent actor who for that last three decades has been in a wide range of projects from the expansive and inane 2012 to the small and disturbed Being John Malkovich. Continue reading