Molly O'Keefe's Blog, page 6

David Cronenberg on Genre

I didn’t get into Cronenberg’s films until The History of Violence. (Which is probably on my top, um 25?, films of all time.) That’s a lie. I did see Crash. And I probably saw bits of The Fly. And I saw The Dead Zone on TV, but didn’t connect it with Cronenberg. To me, he was known for horror and pushing the limits in a gazillion ways that I wasn’t particularly interested in. Horror was not my thing.

Back in the 80′s I mostly knew of Cronenberg because of the controversy he was causing in Canadian politics… All of his early films were funded in part by taxpayer money and it became a huge “thing” that taxpayers were funding “pornography”. And his work, especially the early stuff, really does cross some creepy lines between horror and eroticism.

Anyway… the Toronto Film Festival has had an exhibit on the director (closed last weekend) and I figured I’d finally check it out. Wow. I was kind of blown away. It was a really well put together exhibit with tons of cool artifacts and it made me curious to see all his films from the 80′s that I was too scared to see at the time.

In fact, the same night I went to the exhibit, they were showing Videodrome — a film from 1983, starring James Woods and Debbie Harry. (Yes, Blondie — although she’s a brunette in this film.)

Anyway, even after seeing the exhibit, I was scared to go to the movie. But I’m really glad that I went. Most of the really hard-to-watch stuff, I’d already seen photos or clips of in the exhibit, and the movie actually had some interesting ideas. It was eerily prescient about the ever increasing influence of video images — especially pornographic ones — on society.

And that brings me to the thought that inspired this post. In a clip of an interview shown in the exhibit, Cronenberg is talking about The Fly. I’m paraphrasing, but he basically says:

The Fly is about a couple who fall in love. He contracts a disease and she helps him commit suicide. That’s what the story is about. And if it were pitched that way, no one would make it. It’s too dark. But wrapped up in genre it’s more palatable, because those dark elements are acceptable, even desirable in the genres of horror and sci-fi, so genre allows me to tell the story I want to tell.

Wow.  That summed up who I want to be as a writer.

Almost

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Well, I always read a lot. I doubt you’ll find many writers out there that don’t. We we were all readers first and are still readers foremost. Since I’m reading for school now, I don’t always have total say over what I’m reading and if I don’t like something, I can’t just shut the book and return it to the library. I have to stick with it.

As a result, I’ve read quite a few things lately that I ALMOST like. I’m often reading a particular book for a reason. There’s something in the way it’s written or its subject matter (please let me have done the it’s/its thing right in that sentence) that my mentor thought would be instructive for me and my current WIP.

For instance, both The Basic Eight (Daniel Handler) and Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl) start out telling the reader that someone has been killed. The Basic Eight tells who was murdered and by whom as well. You would think that would kill the suspense. You’d be wrong. Both were masterful examples of how the “why” of a mystery is so much more interesting than the who or the how or the when.

Neither thrilled me completely, though. It’s hard to talk about The Basic Eight without spoilers, but let me just say that the ending really did not hold up for me and there were some gaps in the story that I didn’t buy (WHERE WERE HER PARENTS???!!!!). There were no gaps that I could see in Special Topics. The plotting of that was nothing short of magnificent. The style of the writing is incredible. The lives of the characters were so fully imagined that it was stunning. I didn’t think I needed to know all of it, though. It was impressive, but by the middle of the book I felt bogged down by it and if I hadn’t needed to finish it, I wouldn’t have.

So when you almost like a book, do you still recommend it to people? Or do you put it on your DNR list?

What happened to different?

I’ve been on a reading kick lately and I’ve lucked into some really tremendous books. I’m most of the way through Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone, which is terrific, fantastic world building, really compelling characters and a plot that continues to surprise me all the way through. It’s a fantasy YA, and after this I’m thinking of reading The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, which is an alternate reality YA with vampires. Before that I read Eleanor and Park, a spectacular YA romance set in the 80′s. (Maureen can correct me on this, as I almost missed it in the first reading)

In addition, I picked up an older book, The Raider by Jude Deveraux, plotting issues aside, a really fun adventure romance set in 1700 America.

My point with all of this is, we need a little more variety within romance. As brilliant as some romance authors are with creating sympathetic, compelling characters, the same settings, and time periods are feeling really stale to me. Same with contemporary romance set in a small, quirky town, and paranormals with the angst ridden vampire/Werewolf/hybrid something or other, or the angst ridden early twenty something trying to come to terms with loving the bad boy.

I was really thrilled to get in my hands a romance featuring a lizard man (seriously, just for something different written with skill) and I also understand this isn’t a fault of romance writers, or publishers, or readers. It’s something that’s been created because of the massive success of regency set historicals, and small town contemporarys. Writers want to write books that sell, and publishers need to publish stories that make a profit.

End of story, so I guess it starts with the reader. But I miss the days when one author would write books set in regency England, and then another world, and follow that up with a Viking romance, something Johanna Lindsey managed to do in the 80′s and 90′s.

I’m still looking for a little diffferent and the only place I seem to be finding that is YA and I really want to start reading adult books again. Can anyone help a reader out? Any suggestions?

 

 

 

 

 

Remember me?

I used to blog here. On Thursdays. Then life happened and I went away, but now I’m back! But I thought I would share the story of how life can just be so… lifey.

Nearly a year ago I decided I was ready for a new home. I had been in my condo for 15 years and I was ready to make the leap to my “big” home… which is really just a townhouse. The place where hopefully I’ll live forever or certainly until some sad little nursing home takes me in. It was new construction so I put down a deposit and was told I would be ready to move in June.

Awesome! Yeah me.

Then at work we scored a big client and I was tasked with a major project with a January 2014 deadline.

Awesome! Yeah work.

Then my house deadline got pushed, then pushed again. I wasn’t too worried. I mean there was no way in heck they would be delayed so long that the house settlement and work project would actually collide right?

And that’s when you know of course it is going to. Of course all of the stress of buying a home is going to happen the exact week you’ve got this major project at work happening. To turn this all back into writing – it really made me see why we have to “throw our characters into the dumpster”. Because life is all about being thrown into the dumpster!

Then climbing out of it.

The client went live, settlement happened, I move in a few weeks and I didn’t collapse or die. I did drink a ridiculous amount of wine – but the world didn’t end and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Now I’m back and ready to blog again! What did I miss while I was away?

 

Best Movies of 2013

With the Oscar nominations coming out tomorrow, I’ve started to do a tiny bit of thinking about my best of list for 2013.

I’m not great at best of lists… I inevitably forget something I loved. But here are the ones I can think of right now.

Maureen’s Best of 2013 List (Draft)
American Hustle

I want to see it again. Mostly to see whether or not I can figure out everything that’s going on by watching Christian Bale more carefully. But I don’t think I will see the twist coming. His performance and the writing are too good. His “distraction noodle” nerves were perfect — there were enough things we knew about for him to be nervous about, that we didn’t even guess that there might be something else, until there was. And then, for me, anyway, I started to think that all the nerves was his character acting… Distraction noodle! (Sorry, if that reference doesn’t work for people outside Canada. I’m assuming that distraction noodle KD ad is just shown up here?)

If you haven’t yet seen American Hustle. Go. If for no other reason that it solves (or at least gives some major clues to) the mystery of Donald Trump’s combover.

Also, Jennifer Lawrence’s performance. And Amy Adams’. And Christian Bale’s. And Louis CK. Yup, you heard that right. He was perfect in this.

12 Years a Slave

I think I’ve seen all of Steve McQueen’s movies and they are all both brutal and beautiful at once. He has a background in fine art, and it shows on the screen. This story is beyond powerful, the truth of it beyond brutal, and the performances are all strong.

And back to J. Law in American Hustle. She blew me away. She really did. I think because it was a role very different from ones I’d seen her do before and I totally believed her. BUT… I’m sort of hoping that her Golden Globes win for best supporting actress doesn’t translate into another Oscar. Nominate her, sure. But Lupita Nyong’o deserves to win. (Or June Squibb for Nebraska… I almost listed Nebraska here, but didn’t.) Anyway, back to 12 Years:  Nyong’o's performance was stellar. I 100% believed her heartbreaking performance, and read in an interview that she’d spent a lot of time working on that character and gave her the corn-doll making hobby. And because it was Steve McQueen, I assumed that detail had been his, because some of the more aesthetically beautiful scenes in the film were watching her make those dolls, in such contrast to the brutality of her existence.  I’ve just realized that I added a similar detail like that to my next book… But now wish I’d made more of it.

Prisoners

This was definitely my top TIFF experience this year. Even though my top TIFF experience usually involves star spotting and I saw the second screening of this one, sans actor appearances. But I really loved this movie. Long, but tightly told. Very well developed characters. Believable-if-scary situations. And it has stayed with me, making me wonder what I or people I know would do in the same situation.

Frances Ha

I saw this movie early in the year and almost forgot it was in 2013 until its lead actor, Greta Gerwig, was nominated for best actress in a musical or comedy. This is one well worth watching. It’s kind of hard to describe. But for me, it was kind of like what the TV show Girls would be like, if any of the characters were nicer or easier to like… Frances is of a similar age and similarly childish, self-absorbed and aimless–but she’s also utterly hopeful and endearing.

Catching Fire

I flat out loved this movie. Even better than the book. Even better than the first film. Loved.

This is the End

Okay, if Catching Fire isn’t likely to get any Oscar attention, This is the End definitely won’t. But I have to say, it was one of my more enjoyable 90 minutes in a theatre seat this year. Laughed my ass off. Blogged about it here. And I also thought it was clever and a tightly told story. Not just silliness. (Although FULL of silliness)

Blue Jasmine

I often don’t want to like Woody Allen movies. But I often do. And I REALLY like this one. Wow. Cate Blanchett definitely deserves an Oscar for this one. And everyone else is good, too. Especially Bobby Canavale and Sally Hawkins. This film is proof that Woody’s still a talented writer, even if we might not like him in real life.

Short Term 12

Just lovely and heartbreaking and unexpected. Highly recommend.

Gravity

Gripping throughout. It was pretty amazing to me how both Sandra Bullock and the director (and probably the cinematographer and editor) were able to tell such a technical, visual story without letting the audience get confused about what was going on. And this gets my award for one of the best uses of 3D ever.

In a World

I talked about this one before, too… Just a great, smart, feminist story. What a revelation Lake Bell was for me. This movie is also very funny.

Movies a lot of people think were great but I didn’t love:
Wolf of Wall Street

This movie captured the asshole, entitled, unethical behavior of many (most?) in the financial industry in that era (the entitlement issues remain to this day, even if some of the excessive behavior has been curbed or morphed into buying ridiculously expensive toys instead of snorting all the profits.) But this movie was too long for me. Way too long. And very few scenes were absolutely necessary to the story. We get it. He did bad things. Could have used some major trimming.

Inside Llewyn Davis

Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood the day I saw this. An interesting character study. Some fun secondary characters. But I wanted something to tie it together. This film also felt long for me. I read a critic saying something like, this is a movie to be admired, if not adored. And I agree with that. I did admire it. But meh.

What are your favorite films of the year???

Half the Sky

Tonight I went to hear Nicholas Kristof, author of Half the Sky, speak here in Davis. If you haven’t heard of it, Kristof book’s subtitle describes it better than I can: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. He’s started an organization and he and his wife are writing a follow up book to guide people in how they can help.

To say his book and his talk were inspirational isn’t sufficient. The suffering he describes is almost overwhelming, yet he finds a thread of hope that made me feel like there are solutions and that we can make a difference. Kristof feels that the treatment of women is and will be the central moral struggle of our century as slavery was the moral struggle of the 19th century and totalitarianism was the moral struggle of the 20th century. The statistics he lists pretty much made all the blood rush from my head. His estimates of how many girls and women have died due to lack of nutrition and health care are astounding.

Still, he managed to sound a message of hope. I’m not sure what I can do to help beyond contribute to the efforts he suggests, but maybe letting other people know about his message will help.

So go, read the book. Watch the movie. Go to his website. Women and girls matter. We hold up half the sky. Or we will if we’re allowed to.

Oma’s 100th Birthday Party

My grandmother turned 100 this weekend and my son and I traveled to Pittsburgh for the party. My family has always owned this big house on a hill outside of Pittsburgh that overlooks a steel mill – which is perfect, really. The house smells like the fires that have burned in the back room for over a hundred years. There are nooks and crannies that three generations of Fader’s have explored and claimed and been terrified of.  It was magic as a kid and I’m thrilled that it still is.

Oma and I spent many years being particularly fond of each other. She had all these stories. And her wealth and courage gave her the opportunity to do SO MANY THINGS. Opa built a plane once, and they flew to their friend’s weddings in it! They climbed a mountain in Greece to find a monastery where an ancient bible printed in silver on purple paper was kept in total darkness. She and I and my Aunt Connie traveled around Great Britain when I was in college and when we pulled up to Stonehenge Oma on a blustery cold day chose to stay in the car.

“I’ve seen it five times before, Molly. The rocks don’t move.”

When STONEHENGE is boring, you know you’ve lived a full life. We talked books and went to see plays together. We planned trips and went to cocktail parties. We held hands a lot, which is a funny thing to remember. But we did.

She doesn’t remember that trip, or those conversations – or, most of the time, the events that created those stories. She doesn’t remember me. At the party she was confused, most of the family there were strangers to her.  But she put on a good show, pretended to be affronted when we introduced ourselves to her.

“I’m Molly, your grand-daughter.”

“Well, of course you are!”

Oma was a snob – there’s no other way to put it. And she could be disapproving and stiff. All of the in-laws shared stories of her mixed reactions upon introduction. All the Grand kids, raised in less formal homes, told horror stories about their first formal dinner in Pittsburgh. There is a family story that is widely contested and argued over and no one ever gets tired of hearing about my father and aunt being put in an orphanage and contracting chicken pox while Oma and Opa traveled to Russia.

When the very large extended family gathered in Pittsburgh this weekend – I could see the varying threads and avenues of all of her legacies. The way her family grew up around her, in the shadows and sunlight.  My father, the storyteller, the square peg who would not be pushed into a round hole. My Aunt, the artist who leads with her chin and her heart. My Uncle who has taken over the big house and sits with such grace at the head of that big table now. My cousins who live lives of unbelievable adventure and faith.  Our children whom we’re so glad got to meet her, despite there being no way she can possibly keep them straight. Or, frankly, be interested in.

I don’t think it’s pretty living to be a hundred. It’s scary, really. And lonely, I imagine, despite being surrounded by friends and family. Those memories, unreliable phantoms, gone from one minute to the next.

I wanted to tell her that we have them now – my cousins, my aunts and uncles, the great grandchildren in their footed pajamas. They will be cared for – those memories. We will gather again and again to tell those stories.  She is a hundred years old but she will live on for a long long time.

 

 

 

Golden Globes

The Golden globes are this weekend, and I’ll be watching. I care who wins, I have opinions on who should win, even if I haven’t seen the movie, or show, and I enjoy seeing the dresses and general award show craziness. It’s like discussing sports on a monday morning, those that are into football care and want to dissect the specifics of the game, and if you don’t watch football, it has no interest. Award shows are like that, some people make an effort to watch the oscars, but those of us who really are into who wins best award for dramatic movie want to talk about why it won and if it deserved to.

I’ve also grown into a love for Will Ferrell. I think there’s a gateway movie for him, because I sat through Old School and did not see the appeal, watched Talledaga nights and yawned through it. He was mildly charming for me in Elf, but then I watched The Other Guys and totally understood the appeal. That man in funny, and now, everything he does is hysterical to me. I even re-watched Anchorman and found it funnier and just started the Spoils of Babylon and he is amazing in it. His part is small, but hilarious.

Has this happened for anyone else? Is it strange that I find Ferrell kind of sexy?

 

 

Divided Attention

The other day, Molly and I were talking about whether it’s possible to work on more than one project at a time, and while I’ve always thought I could and wanted to do this, all evidence points to the contrary.

That said… I do think it’s possible. Do I think I can be writing the first draft of two books at the same time? Probably not. Do I think I can do an involved, detailed revision of two books at one time? Not likely. But what I’m aiming for is more balance in my life/job as an author.

As authors we have (at least) two jobs. The first and most important is to write the books. But we also run our own businesses. We are in charge of everything else, too. Especially until we are making enough money to afford to pay others to run pieces of our business for us. I don’t. And my do-one-thing-at-a-time–intensely, modus operandi includes those things too–at least based on past behavior.

So, for example, I drop everything else to work on a new website (or blog) for a while, and all the other stuff all falls behind, or I don’t do any bookkeeping/record keeping for months (years?) and then it takes weeks to catch up, or I feel so overwhelmed by the idea of gathering up a list of target bloggers to send review copies to, that I never get past the adding-a-few-new-names to my list stage. Back (4 years ago! how is that possible?) when I was writing the Twisted Tales books on a super-short deadline, I set aside EVERYTHING else in my life (cleaning, opening mail, talking to family and friends) and I’m still paying for that decision now. (I just realized it was 4 years ago, because I was missing the Vancouver Olympics… It feels like last week.)

And this all-or-nothing behavior is dumb. It must change. I must not get so overwhelmed by one current BIG GOAL that I forget all the little ones.

But that leads to what I was actually thinking about when I put my fingers to the keyboard this morning… how to pick the next BIG GOAL.

The good news these days is that we have more choices. In the past, few authors ever jumped out of the box their publisher put them in, unless they were told they couldn’t play in that sandbox any longer. I remember when I first started, hearing a few popular authors say things like, “I’d love to write genre X, or my own genre with more Z, but my publisher only wants more of what I’ve been doing.” It was the curse of the success. Back in the early days, when I discussed what to work on next with my more successful friends and acquaintances, they’d ask me, “Can you see yourself writing ten more just like that one?”. It was an important question.

These days, with self-publishing as an option, authors can play in whatever and as many sandboxes as they want. As many as they have time/energy for. But the bad news is that we have so many choices.

If I have any resolution for the new year (beyond the perennial weight-related ones) it’s that I want to focus less on the decision-making and more on the doing.

Do, do, do.

This will be me this year. Getting it all done.

*drops mic*

 

Not Reacting Right: Viral Videos, Disneyland, and Fifty Shades of Grey

I am feeling particularly out of step these days. My reactions to things don’t seem to be like those of the vast majority of people around me. I’m used to being a little out of step all the time. I think that’s common to a lot of authors. It’s getting extreme these days.

Not too long ago a youtube video of a preschool dance performance was making the rounds on Facebook and other social media sites. Everyone thought that it was hysterical and that the little girl who starts doing her own wild thing was adorable. People made fun of the little girl next to her who keeps trying to do the routine.

Well, I don’t think that little girl is adorable. I think she’s kind of a . . . well, a jerk. And I don’t think it’s nice to make fun of the other little girls who clearly practiced really hard to try to do a nice recital. I’m apparently on my own with that one.

I’m also on my own with feeling that Disneyland and Disneyworld are creepy in the way they manipulate people even if they’re manipulating us to be happy.

I’m more impressed with the bravery of some of the women I know who have had to have double mastectomies than I am with Angelina Jolie doing it and being on the cover of a magazine.

And now we get to Fifty Shades of Grey. I finally read it. I’m writing a paper for school and I kept referring to it and it seemed I should actually read it if I was going to write about it. (Go ahead. Put all your “yeah, sure, Eileen, you’re reading it for school” comments here.) I didn’t expect to like it. I hated Twilight, after all. I’d also heard that the writing was not so great. “Holy cow” and “wow,” was that ever true!

I did expect it to be sexy, though. I expected it to be hot. Even if my particular kinks don’t run to BDSM, I thought it would be titillating. I found it chilling instead.

As Christian bullied and isolated and badgered Ana, I felt a cold pit of dread forming in my stomach. It never stopped. It grew until I actually began to feel physically ill and put the book down. I don’t usually react that viscerally to a book. I’m too analytical when I read these days.

So apparently women all over the world found this book to be sexually arousing and I’m left screaming “Don’t touch me” if someone so much as bumps into me. What the hell?

I know why I didn’t like the book. I know why I didn’t think the video of the little girl was funny. I know why Disneyland gives me the heebie jeebies. I don’t know why I seem to be alone in all this.