Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 244
September 12, 2011
More Fun with Sci Fi Channel Movies
I seem to be making more strides in my efforts to get over my singing stage fright. I sang with a quartet Sunday morning, and though it wasn't a solo, it was three men and me (I had Pips!), and the soprano part was the kind that sort of floated high above the other parts, so I wasn't hiding in a choir. People could hear me, and I knew it, and I only had normal levels of nerves instead of my usual panic attack. I think it went really well, I really enjoyed doing it, and I had a couple of people compliment me afterward. If I can keep building these positive experiences, then maybe they'll blot out the times I've had panic attacks and I'll have less fear. It's one thing to be able to tell yourself that it's an irrational fear, but when you've had a time when nerves made you perform poorly, then it's realistic to get even more nervous about doing a bad job the next time, so you do even worse, and the downward spiral begins. Maybe now I have an upward spiral going on.
When I wasn't rehearsing and singing this weekend, I spent some time watching movies (because I had no desire to watch what was consuming television most of the weekend). Sunday night I watched Megamind on HBO OnDemand, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I think I may still like Despicable Me better, since I'm more interested in the mad scientist kind of story than I am in superheroes and supervillains (and while Minion was cool, I think I like the Minions better), but I thought this movie was really sweet and had some good messages about how people live up or down to expectations and how our choices define us. The story is about two infants sent away from disasters on other planets (a la Superman), with one landing in the lap of luxury and the other landing in a prison. They grow up to be arch-nemeses, but when the bad one manages to destroy his foe, he finds that evil isn't as much fun without having good to fight with, so he sets out to create a new hero to fight. I had resisted seeing this because Will Ferrell bugs me. He has this way of playing every role as though he's the Hollywood version of a mentally challenged eight-year-old in an Afterschool Special (the biggest flaw of Stranger than Fiction to me -- repressed and inexperienced in life doesn't have to mean slow and childish). But in this he actually played a rather nuanced character. Why can't he do that in his live-action roles? I'm not a big superhero fan, but I've seen the Christopher Reeve Superman movies enough to get the in-jokes (like Marlon Brando as the "space dad").
Otherwise, the channel formerly known as Sci Fi was showing a lot of their epic fantasy movies on Saturday. In the morning, I caught one from a few years ago, Grendel, their retelling of the Beowolf story, and it was surprisingly not entirely awful. Yeah, the CGI was terrible and it looked like they filmed it off-season at a Renaissance festival site and used costumes borrowed from a high school drama club's wardrobe, but they had a good cast, acting that rose way above the material, and a reasonably interesting story. I don't even have anything major to snark about. Really, take out the CGI and you probably couldn't differentiate it from many of the 1950s big-screen fantasy epics (and it was far less cringeworthy than the infamous "yondah lies da castle of my faddah" type thing).
Then the new movie for the night was Jabberwock, which was inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem. This one was also surprisingly not too bad, aside from the cheesy effects, cheap sets and cheap costumes. I was impressed that the main female character was in a setting-appropriate role but still managed to be strong in her own way instead of the more usual "eep, we need a girl in the cast!" type character who inexplicably is an expert swordswoman who can hold her own against men twice her size (like they just took a male role, cast a woman in it, then also made her a love interest who'd need to be rescued at least once, in spite of her prowess with a sword). The one thing that triggered giggles was that they acted as though the "Jabberwocky" poem was some ancient bit of prophecy and recited it with ominous intonations. For one thing, I found it amusing that a piece of Victorian poetry was being treated as "ancient" in a medieval setting, and for another, my familiarity with that piece comes from the musical version in the Disney Alice in Wonderland film, in which it's given a swingy jazz arrangement (I don't think it's actually in the original film, but it was in the soundtrack album I had as a kid). So every time someone started to intone, "Twas brillig," I found myself singing the jazz version, and then giggling.
After watching these two films, I have a couple of suggestions for improving these epic fantasy films that shouldn't add a dime to the budget but that could make a huge difference:
1) Strive for linguistic consistency.
Almost all of the unintentional humor in these films comes from the jarring juxtaposition of archaic "high fantasy" language and modern casual language. Someone will go right from saying something like "I hereby pledge my sword and my honor to this noble cause" to "Wow! Get a load of that thing!"
I recognize that with an alternative world setting or even a medieval historical setting we can assume that the whole thing has been translated into modern English for our viewing convenience, but a good translator will try to retain the flavor of the original language throughout. That doesn't mean everyone has to talk the same way at all times. Shakespeare had his crude characters speak ordinary prose while everyone else spoke in iambic pentameter, and you'd naturally use different language when addressing a king than you'd use for talking with your peers (unless the king is your peer). But I think it's possible to come up with more "casual" language that still fits the setting. People in a fantasy world shouldn't sound like they've stepped right off the streets of a 21st century city. This is especially important if you're basing your film on a literary work and using bits of the actual text in the script. The rest of the dialogue should fit that style.
2) Pick an accent.
I guess it's a movie trope to assume that everyone in a fantasy world should sound kind of British. I'm actually okay with an American/Canadian accent as long as it's used consistently. People may have different accents, but that should happen for a reason. People who've lived their lives in a remote, isolated village should probably all speak the same way. If someone speaks differently, it should be because they're from a different place or had a different upbringing. That was one thing that worked with Jabberwock. All the characters were from the same village, and they all had similar American/Canadian accents, so the accents never threw me out of the story.
Then there's the Patrick Swayze Memorial Corollary to this suggestion: No one in a fantasy epic, especially not one supposedly set in medieval England, should sound like he's from Houston. I have no problem with a Texas accent, in general. I have one. But if I'm ever cast to play an English noblewoman during the Crusades, I wouldn't expect to talk like I'm from Dallas.
I wonder how one would go about submitting and selling a script to be considered for one of these movies. I had a book idea that my agent thought might be a little too cliched to sell as a fantasy novel in the current market, but I think with some work it would make a perfect SyFy Saturday night movie. I somehow doubt it would be the sort of thing the agent who handles my film stuff would deal with, considering she handles some Oscar winners, but maybe she's got a friend or colleague who embraces the cheese.
When I wasn't rehearsing and singing this weekend, I spent some time watching movies (because I had no desire to watch what was consuming television most of the weekend). Sunday night I watched Megamind on HBO OnDemand, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I think I may still like Despicable Me better, since I'm more interested in the mad scientist kind of story than I am in superheroes and supervillains (and while Minion was cool, I think I like the Minions better), but I thought this movie was really sweet and had some good messages about how people live up or down to expectations and how our choices define us. The story is about two infants sent away from disasters on other planets (a la Superman), with one landing in the lap of luxury and the other landing in a prison. They grow up to be arch-nemeses, but when the bad one manages to destroy his foe, he finds that evil isn't as much fun without having good to fight with, so he sets out to create a new hero to fight. I had resisted seeing this because Will Ferrell bugs me. He has this way of playing every role as though he's the Hollywood version of a mentally challenged eight-year-old in an Afterschool Special (the biggest flaw of Stranger than Fiction to me -- repressed and inexperienced in life doesn't have to mean slow and childish). But in this he actually played a rather nuanced character. Why can't he do that in his live-action roles? I'm not a big superhero fan, but I've seen the Christopher Reeve Superman movies enough to get the in-jokes (like Marlon Brando as the "space dad").
Otherwise, the channel formerly known as Sci Fi was showing a lot of their epic fantasy movies on Saturday. In the morning, I caught one from a few years ago, Grendel, their retelling of the Beowolf story, and it was surprisingly not entirely awful. Yeah, the CGI was terrible and it looked like they filmed it off-season at a Renaissance festival site and used costumes borrowed from a high school drama club's wardrobe, but they had a good cast, acting that rose way above the material, and a reasonably interesting story. I don't even have anything major to snark about. Really, take out the CGI and you probably couldn't differentiate it from many of the 1950s big-screen fantasy epics (and it was far less cringeworthy than the infamous "yondah lies da castle of my faddah" type thing).
Then the new movie for the night was Jabberwock, which was inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem. This one was also surprisingly not too bad, aside from the cheesy effects, cheap sets and cheap costumes. I was impressed that the main female character was in a setting-appropriate role but still managed to be strong in her own way instead of the more usual "eep, we need a girl in the cast!" type character who inexplicably is an expert swordswoman who can hold her own against men twice her size (like they just took a male role, cast a woman in it, then also made her a love interest who'd need to be rescued at least once, in spite of her prowess with a sword). The one thing that triggered giggles was that they acted as though the "Jabberwocky" poem was some ancient bit of prophecy and recited it with ominous intonations. For one thing, I found it amusing that a piece of Victorian poetry was being treated as "ancient" in a medieval setting, and for another, my familiarity with that piece comes from the musical version in the Disney Alice in Wonderland film, in which it's given a swingy jazz arrangement (I don't think it's actually in the original film, but it was in the soundtrack album I had as a kid). So every time someone started to intone, "Twas brillig," I found myself singing the jazz version, and then giggling.
After watching these two films, I have a couple of suggestions for improving these epic fantasy films that shouldn't add a dime to the budget but that could make a huge difference:
1) Strive for linguistic consistency.
Almost all of the unintentional humor in these films comes from the jarring juxtaposition of archaic "high fantasy" language and modern casual language. Someone will go right from saying something like "I hereby pledge my sword and my honor to this noble cause" to "Wow! Get a load of that thing!"
I recognize that with an alternative world setting or even a medieval historical setting we can assume that the whole thing has been translated into modern English for our viewing convenience, but a good translator will try to retain the flavor of the original language throughout. That doesn't mean everyone has to talk the same way at all times. Shakespeare had his crude characters speak ordinary prose while everyone else spoke in iambic pentameter, and you'd naturally use different language when addressing a king than you'd use for talking with your peers (unless the king is your peer). But I think it's possible to come up with more "casual" language that still fits the setting. People in a fantasy world shouldn't sound like they've stepped right off the streets of a 21st century city. This is especially important if you're basing your film on a literary work and using bits of the actual text in the script. The rest of the dialogue should fit that style.
2) Pick an accent.
I guess it's a movie trope to assume that everyone in a fantasy world should sound kind of British. I'm actually okay with an American/Canadian accent as long as it's used consistently. People may have different accents, but that should happen for a reason. People who've lived their lives in a remote, isolated village should probably all speak the same way. If someone speaks differently, it should be because they're from a different place or had a different upbringing. That was one thing that worked with Jabberwock. All the characters were from the same village, and they all had similar American/Canadian accents, so the accents never threw me out of the story.
Then there's the Patrick Swayze Memorial Corollary to this suggestion: No one in a fantasy epic, especially not one supposedly set in medieval England, should sound like he's from Houston. I have no problem with a Texas accent, in general. I have one. But if I'm ever cast to play an English noblewoman during the Crusades, I wouldn't expect to talk like I'm from Dallas.
I wonder how one would go about submitting and selling a script to be considered for one of these movies. I had a book idea that my agent thought might be a little too cliched to sell as a fantasy novel in the current market, but I think with some work it would make a perfect SyFy Saturday night movie. I somehow doubt it would be the sort of thing the agent who handles my film stuff would deal with, considering she handles some Oscar winners, but maybe she's got a friend or colleague who embraces the cheese.
September 9, 2011
Second Book Syndrome
We had a substitute ballet teacher last night, and it was quite a change that I'm feeling this morning. Our usual teacher is pretty laid back and knows we're doing this for fun and exercise, not to become great dancers (but she was out, since she had a baby that morning. What a slacker, huh?), but the sub reminds me of the Strict But Secretly Caring Old-World Ballet Mistress from just about every dance movie or book ever. She corrects even the most minute details, so, being the perfectionist that I am and being the usual target of substitute teacher corrections, for whatever odd reason, I was working overtime to be perfect. Fortunately, there are a couple of people in the class who are entirely new to dance, so she had a lot of work to do with them, and that meant I mostly stayed under the radar, for a change. But this sub is nicer and more gentle with the corrections than the Ballet Nazi we had a few years ago, and she's really slowing things down to focus on precise positioning and technique, which is a good reminder. And that's also why my whole body is a little stiff this morning (though not sore, which is good).
Last night after dance class, I finished reading the second Locke Lamora book by Scott Lynch, Red Sails Under Red Skies, and it seems to be following a trend I've noticed lately for me in fantasy, where I like the second book in the series best. Second books often get a bad rap, for various reasons. Often, the second book is weaker because the author spent years crafting and perfecting the first book, then gets a two-book contract on the basis of that book and has to write the second book in less than a year. Or if it's the middle book of a trilogy, it constitutes the "sagging middle" of the whole story, where it doesn't have the freshness and launching into the story of the first book and doesn't have the climax of the third book.
But in the series I've started following lately, I've generally found myself enjoying the second book more. That doesn't mean the second book is actually better or that other people would agree with me, just that the second books have been more to my taste. They've been more fun. We've made it past the character introductions and set-ups in the first book but we're not quite at the more serious, dark stuff that tends to happen as the story arc really gets going in the third book. The second book is where the characters just get to establish what their lives are going to be like after their world changes due to the events that kicked off the series in the first book. The screenwriting book Save the Cat refers to a section of a movie as being "The Promise of the Premise." This is the part that comes after the story has been kicked off but before the second major turning point where things get serious. It's where the writer gets to play with all the fun "what if" questions that arise out of the scenario of the story -- what are all the things that could happen if you put these people into this situation? I think that's what's going on in these second books I've liked. They're the "promise of the premise" books, where the main series plot arc is mostly lurking in the background as the characters adjust to their new roles or situations.
So, in the KE Mills Rogue Agent series, the first book establishes who our main character is and what he is, and that lands him in the position of being an undercover magical troubleshooter. And meanwhile two of the other characters have gone into business together in a magical agency.The second book is mostly a fun romp in which he's on assignment and they're on a case, and their paths cross. The third book gets more drastic and dark, and it's very layered and deep and complicated, but that second book is probably the one I'll re-read most often. I found the same thing with the Legend of Eli Monpress books by Rachel Aaron. The first book establishes the main character and his antagonist/ally while setting up the overall series conflict and the third book delves deeply into the mythology and one of the more dangerous situations in the premise, but the second book is more of a pure caper.
I don't know what the third book in the Locke Lamora series will be like, but I imagine from the way this one ended that it will go darker. This second book isn't "light" by any means. There's a big cloud hanging over everything and some seriously bad stuff happens, but it still feels more like a caper and less like "our entire world is being destroyed." I do think that the cover copy does the book a disservice because it doesn't really reflect what the book is actually like. It focuses entirely on the initiating action that then becomes something of a subplot while leaving out the main action. The story mentioned in the cover copy is not something that generally appeals to me, and as a result, the start of the book was slow going for me. Then there's a twist that sends the story off in an entirely different direction, and once we got there, I loved it. So if you read the cover copy and think, "So, they're going to scam a casino? Yawn," you should know that due to repercussions from the first book they themselves get kind of conned, and they end up having to pretend to be pirates, so that most of the book takes place on a pirate ship. Yes, we get a fantasy Oceans Eleven taking place on an actual ocean.
There is one element of these books that bothers me, and since it also seems to come up in many of the reviews I've read, I feel like I should warn my readers. The language is rather coarse, and I think gratuitously so. I think the idea is to convey that these characters are tough, hardened criminals. I can see that these characters wouldn't be saying, "Gosh, golly gee whiz, that didn't happen according to plan," but in real life the people I usually hear talk this way aren't so much tough as they are ignorant or even stupid. I don't think that's the impression the author is trying to convey. This language is also used indiscriminately, with almost all the characters and in all situations. Language in a book -- whether four-letter or otherwise -- needs to be precise and specific and used consciously for a particular effect, and when swearing is just scattered around freely it loses any effect. For instance, it keeps the characters from having distinct voices. The main character is a former street kid who joined a gang of thieves at about the age of six because it was better than living on the street, and you'd expect him to have a rougher vocabulary, even though he was later educated and trained well enough that he could blend in among the nobility. But his best friend/sidekick has a totally different background. He was the son of a prosperous merchant who only ended up in the gang of thieves when he was orphaned later. He had a conventional education up to that point. This is an interesting character because he's both the muscle and a nerd. He's a huge guy with a hot temper and a lot of martial arts and weapons training, but he can also do complex calculations in his head, loves to read and has large amounts of what I get the impression is supposed to be this world's version of Shakespeare memorized, so that he can bring out a quote for any occasion. You'd think a character with that much not-Shakespeare in his head would have a different vocabulary than the street kid and use language in a different way, no matter how tough he is. Then there's the fact that these guys use the same level of cursing to complain about something minor as they do for something major. When you're already using language that would make George Carlin cringe to complain about your bathwater being cold, there's nowhere to go when you're in a situation that would make me swear, like having everyone you care about viciously slaughtered.
Or maybe I'm just being a middle-aged church lady here. But if you are a middle-aged church lady (or think like one), this is something to be aware of before you take my recommendation that these books are enjoyable. If very strong language offends you and you can't just tune it out, you may have problems with these books.
Last night after dance class, I finished reading the second Locke Lamora book by Scott Lynch, Red Sails Under Red Skies, and it seems to be following a trend I've noticed lately for me in fantasy, where I like the second book in the series best. Second books often get a bad rap, for various reasons. Often, the second book is weaker because the author spent years crafting and perfecting the first book, then gets a two-book contract on the basis of that book and has to write the second book in less than a year. Or if it's the middle book of a trilogy, it constitutes the "sagging middle" of the whole story, where it doesn't have the freshness and launching into the story of the first book and doesn't have the climax of the third book.
But in the series I've started following lately, I've generally found myself enjoying the second book more. That doesn't mean the second book is actually better or that other people would agree with me, just that the second books have been more to my taste. They've been more fun. We've made it past the character introductions and set-ups in the first book but we're not quite at the more serious, dark stuff that tends to happen as the story arc really gets going in the third book. The second book is where the characters just get to establish what their lives are going to be like after their world changes due to the events that kicked off the series in the first book. The screenwriting book Save the Cat refers to a section of a movie as being "The Promise of the Premise." This is the part that comes after the story has been kicked off but before the second major turning point where things get serious. It's where the writer gets to play with all the fun "what if" questions that arise out of the scenario of the story -- what are all the things that could happen if you put these people into this situation? I think that's what's going on in these second books I've liked. They're the "promise of the premise" books, where the main series plot arc is mostly lurking in the background as the characters adjust to their new roles or situations.
So, in the KE Mills Rogue Agent series, the first book establishes who our main character is and what he is, and that lands him in the position of being an undercover magical troubleshooter. And meanwhile two of the other characters have gone into business together in a magical agency.The second book is mostly a fun romp in which he's on assignment and they're on a case, and their paths cross. The third book gets more drastic and dark, and it's very layered and deep and complicated, but that second book is probably the one I'll re-read most often. I found the same thing with the Legend of Eli Monpress books by Rachel Aaron. The first book establishes the main character and his antagonist/ally while setting up the overall series conflict and the third book delves deeply into the mythology and one of the more dangerous situations in the premise, but the second book is more of a pure caper.
I don't know what the third book in the Locke Lamora series will be like, but I imagine from the way this one ended that it will go darker. This second book isn't "light" by any means. There's a big cloud hanging over everything and some seriously bad stuff happens, but it still feels more like a caper and less like "our entire world is being destroyed." I do think that the cover copy does the book a disservice because it doesn't really reflect what the book is actually like. It focuses entirely on the initiating action that then becomes something of a subplot while leaving out the main action. The story mentioned in the cover copy is not something that generally appeals to me, and as a result, the start of the book was slow going for me. Then there's a twist that sends the story off in an entirely different direction, and once we got there, I loved it. So if you read the cover copy and think, "So, they're going to scam a casino? Yawn," you should know that due to repercussions from the first book they themselves get kind of conned, and they end up having to pretend to be pirates, so that most of the book takes place on a pirate ship. Yes, we get a fantasy Oceans Eleven taking place on an actual ocean.
There is one element of these books that bothers me, and since it also seems to come up in many of the reviews I've read, I feel like I should warn my readers. The language is rather coarse, and I think gratuitously so. I think the idea is to convey that these characters are tough, hardened criminals. I can see that these characters wouldn't be saying, "Gosh, golly gee whiz, that didn't happen according to plan," but in real life the people I usually hear talk this way aren't so much tough as they are ignorant or even stupid. I don't think that's the impression the author is trying to convey. This language is also used indiscriminately, with almost all the characters and in all situations. Language in a book -- whether four-letter or otherwise -- needs to be precise and specific and used consciously for a particular effect, and when swearing is just scattered around freely it loses any effect. For instance, it keeps the characters from having distinct voices. The main character is a former street kid who joined a gang of thieves at about the age of six because it was better than living on the street, and you'd expect him to have a rougher vocabulary, even though he was later educated and trained well enough that he could blend in among the nobility. But his best friend/sidekick has a totally different background. He was the son of a prosperous merchant who only ended up in the gang of thieves when he was orphaned later. He had a conventional education up to that point. This is an interesting character because he's both the muscle and a nerd. He's a huge guy with a hot temper and a lot of martial arts and weapons training, but he can also do complex calculations in his head, loves to read and has large amounts of what I get the impression is supposed to be this world's version of Shakespeare memorized, so that he can bring out a quote for any occasion. You'd think a character with that much not-Shakespeare in his head would have a different vocabulary than the street kid and use language in a different way, no matter how tough he is. Then there's the fact that these guys use the same level of cursing to complain about something minor as they do for something major. When you're already using language that would make George Carlin cringe to complain about your bathwater being cold, there's nowhere to go when you're in a situation that would make me swear, like having everyone you care about viciously slaughtered.
Or maybe I'm just being a middle-aged church lady here. But if you are a middle-aged church lady (or think like one), this is something to be aware of before you take my recommendation that these books are enjoyable. If very strong language offends you and you can't just tune it out, you may have problems with these books.
September 8, 2011
Revisiting Old Dreams
The preschool choir was a lot easier to handle when the parents were out of the room. The room felt a lot less crowded and I didn't have the urge to flee. We have three girls named Caroline in a group of 16, which I think must be a statistical anomaly based on population size and frequency of the name (but if I forget names and need to just shout one, I know there's one I can shout and get the attention of three girls). We had one massive shy attack where a kid hid behind his dad and clung desperately to him, but once the kid was distracted by other kids arriving, the dad was able to slip out of the room without the kid noticing, and that meant there was no drama (I think most of the "separation anxiety" drama is generated by parents making a fuss that then stresses out the kids, not by kids who are truly afraid of being separated from their parents). There was one kid who cried when his mother left him (after she generated some separation drama) and who then hid in the corner during the rest of the time, but he did emerge just before the end and participated in our last activity. The next two weeks should be interesting because my co-teacher will be out and I'll be in charge, with the mom of one of my kids from last year helping out with crowd control. That means I'll need lesson plans and some back-up contingencies (since attention spans seem to be pretty short).
And because I apparently didn't have enough going on this month, I volunteered to sing in a quartet for the early service this weekend. The director was just trying to get a group together, with the only stipulation that he needed at least one soprano, and no sopranos seemed to be volunteering. Supposedly, it was a really easy song that won't require much rehearsal -- except for the soprano part, which has a descant (a kind of counter melody that's generally pretty high). With this piece, although my part stands out I'm never singing alone, so I'm hoping it will be another step in my progression toward curing stage fright and being more comfortable with performance. Meanwhile, the other stuff I have going on is doing revisions on a project that's due October 15, doing public relations for a convention and the convention itself. Plus a concert on Sunday and preparation for a major choral work to be performed in late October.
I normally consider Labor Day weekend to be my "chick lit and chick flick" celebration, but this year I was reading the second Locke Lamora book, and most of my viewing involved Haven, Doctor Who and an Inspector Lewis mystery. But to squeeze in something of a "chick flick" component, one of the HBO channels was showing Broadcast News on Monday night. I was actually kind of afraid to watch it because that movie holds a lot of baggage for me. When it first came out (and when I first saw it), I was a broadcast news major in college, but I hadn't started taking broadcast journalism classes yet and I hadn't yet worked at a TV station. That was still my starry-eyed dream that hadn't yet been tempered with reality. Since my life turned out to be very, very different from that dream, I was a little worried that revisiting it would be depressing. Then there was the fact that the boyfriend I saw the movie with later used the fact that I'd identified a lot with the Holly Hunter character in the movie as one of his red flags that maybe I wasn't a person he wanted to be with when he broke up with me -- more than six months after we saw the movie (which made me wonder if he'd had such serious doubts the entire time he was dating me).
Rewatching it turned out to not have that much of an emotional impact on me. Seeing it after having worked in TV news pointed out a few of the things they got wrong. That was mostly the technology I worked with, and a lot of it was right, but the scene that made me cringe was the one where they went down to the wire editing a story and then Joan Cusack had to run through the obstacle course of the halls to get the tape to the control room in time. One thing they got wrong was laying in the reporter's narration last. That's usually the starting point, and you edit the visuals onto the narration (at least, you did with that technology. With digital it may be different). But the obstacle course really bugged me because I have done that very thing, being the person standing by to grab the tape as soon as it comes out of the editing machine and sprint down the hallway to the control room with seconds to spare, and there is no obstacle course. The moment they know a tape is going to be run, they clear the halls and get everything and everyone out of the way. I guess there's no drama or humor in someone running down a clear hallway, unless it's just the spectacle of an intern in heels and a skirt sprinting while people shout down the hallway to clear the way (and sometimes applaud as you pass). Now they probably just hit a button and the digital story comes up on the control panel.
Anyway, rewatching this made me very glad that I didn't go into that business after college. I would have hated it, and today's news business is even worse than what they were showing as the potential future back in that 1988 movie. The fun domino video used as the example of the vapid wasteland of TV news is nothing compared to supposedly real news programs covering the antics of reality TV stars as though they're news. I still see way too much of myself in the Holly Hunter character. My friends would probably recognize me in that introduction of her as a child, where her father walks into her room and speaks to her while she's typing a letter and she jumps three feet in the air and screams bloody murder. I think I'm mostly a pretty mellow person now, but I do seem to have two speeds, off and on, and when I'm "on" I can be very intense, high-strung and even bitchy and scary, the way that character was. If I'd worked in that field, that's the way I'd probably be most of the time, and I don't like myself that way (we'll see if this convention PR thing starts edging me back in that direction). This time around, though, I also saw a lot of myself in the Albert Brooks character. In most of my jobs and in my various careers, I've tended to be the reliable, competent one who serves as the knowledge resource for everyone else but who somehow is never the person singled out to be a star. That even seems to be what happened to me in publishing -- books that got overwhelmingly favorable reviews and positive fan response and that sell reliably and steadily but that never got the treatment that would allow them to break out as bestsellers. I guess that was my main pang from the movie, realizing that.
It's actually kind of nice to revisit something that once embodied your dreams for your future and realize that you have no regrets about that not being the way your life turned out. Except for the clothes. I recognized a lot of those outfits -- maybe not anything exactly, but that was generally the way I dressed. What was up with those ankle-length, baggy skirts (probably trying to balance the shoulder pads)? I definitely regret having had a closet full of clothes like that. And maybe trying to have a haircut like Holly Hunter's in that movie, which did NOT work with curly hair.
And because I apparently didn't have enough going on this month, I volunteered to sing in a quartet for the early service this weekend. The director was just trying to get a group together, with the only stipulation that he needed at least one soprano, and no sopranos seemed to be volunteering. Supposedly, it was a really easy song that won't require much rehearsal -- except for the soprano part, which has a descant (a kind of counter melody that's generally pretty high). With this piece, although my part stands out I'm never singing alone, so I'm hoping it will be another step in my progression toward curing stage fright and being more comfortable with performance. Meanwhile, the other stuff I have going on is doing revisions on a project that's due October 15, doing public relations for a convention and the convention itself. Plus a concert on Sunday and preparation for a major choral work to be performed in late October.
I normally consider Labor Day weekend to be my "chick lit and chick flick" celebration, but this year I was reading the second Locke Lamora book, and most of my viewing involved Haven, Doctor Who and an Inspector Lewis mystery. But to squeeze in something of a "chick flick" component, one of the HBO channels was showing Broadcast News on Monday night. I was actually kind of afraid to watch it because that movie holds a lot of baggage for me. When it first came out (and when I first saw it), I was a broadcast news major in college, but I hadn't started taking broadcast journalism classes yet and I hadn't yet worked at a TV station. That was still my starry-eyed dream that hadn't yet been tempered with reality. Since my life turned out to be very, very different from that dream, I was a little worried that revisiting it would be depressing. Then there was the fact that the boyfriend I saw the movie with later used the fact that I'd identified a lot with the Holly Hunter character in the movie as one of his red flags that maybe I wasn't a person he wanted to be with when he broke up with me -- more than six months after we saw the movie (which made me wonder if he'd had such serious doubts the entire time he was dating me).
Rewatching it turned out to not have that much of an emotional impact on me. Seeing it after having worked in TV news pointed out a few of the things they got wrong. That was mostly the technology I worked with, and a lot of it was right, but the scene that made me cringe was the one where they went down to the wire editing a story and then Joan Cusack had to run through the obstacle course of the halls to get the tape to the control room in time. One thing they got wrong was laying in the reporter's narration last. That's usually the starting point, and you edit the visuals onto the narration (at least, you did with that technology. With digital it may be different). But the obstacle course really bugged me because I have done that very thing, being the person standing by to grab the tape as soon as it comes out of the editing machine and sprint down the hallway to the control room with seconds to spare, and there is no obstacle course. The moment they know a tape is going to be run, they clear the halls and get everything and everyone out of the way. I guess there's no drama or humor in someone running down a clear hallway, unless it's just the spectacle of an intern in heels and a skirt sprinting while people shout down the hallway to clear the way (and sometimes applaud as you pass). Now they probably just hit a button and the digital story comes up on the control panel.
Anyway, rewatching this made me very glad that I didn't go into that business after college. I would have hated it, and today's news business is even worse than what they were showing as the potential future back in that 1988 movie. The fun domino video used as the example of the vapid wasteland of TV news is nothing compared to supposedly real news programs covering the antics of reality TV stars as though they're news. I still see way too much of myself in the Holly Hunter character. My friends would probably recognize me in that introduction of her as a child, where her father walks into her room and speaks to her while she's typing a letter and she jumps three feet in the air and screams bloody murder. I think I'm mostly a pretty mellow person now, but I do seem to have two speeds, off and on, and when I'm "on" I can be very intense, high-strung and even bitchy and scary, the way that character was. If I'd worked in that field, that's the way I'd probably be most of the time, and I don't like myself that way (we'll see if this convention PR thing starts edging me back in that direction). This time around, though, I also saw a lot of myself in the Albert Brooks character. In most of my jobs and in my various careers, I've tended to be the reliable, competent one who serves as the knowledge resource for everyone else but who somehow is never the person singled out to be a star. That even seems to be what happened to me in publishing -- books that got overwhelmingly favorable reviews and positive fan response and that sell reliably and steadily but that never got the treatment that would allow them to break out as bestsellers. I guess that was my main pang from the movie, realizing that.
It's actually kind of nice to revisit something that once embodied your dreams for your future and realize that you have no regrets about that not being the way your life turned out. Except for the clothes. I recognized a lot of those outfits -- maybe not anything exactly, but that was generally the way I dressed. What was up with those ankle-length, baggy skirts (probably trying to balance the shoulder pads)? I definitely regret having had a closet full of clothes like that. And maybe trying to have a haircut like Holly Hunter's in that movie, which did NOT work with curly hair.
September 7, 2011
What Publishers Do
Yesterday was a pretty productive day. I got some PR work done for the upcoming convention, made my annual batch of strawberry jam, wrote my weekly radio scripts for the medical school and wrote most of a short story. I now have four little jars of jam to have with scones throughout the winter. This batch seemed to make less than usual, and I spilled some while doing something that I thought would be less messy (it wasn't). The really satisfying thing is that all the jars sealed properly. If you've ever done home canning, you'll know the anticipation of waiting for those lids to pop down as they cool, creating the seal. If one doesn't pop, then you have to use that jar right away. But all of mine sealed. I doubt I save a lot of (or any) money making my own jam, but I think it tastes better than store-bought, I know what ingredients are in it (no high-fructose corn syrup -- just strawberries, sugar and fresh lemon juice), and I feel a real sense of accomplishment with my mad pioneer woman skills.
I took a couple of weeks off from writing posts due to travel and the need to have some form of a summer vacation, but now I'm back for the new school year. I haven't had any questions come in, but I'll address something I tend to get asked indirectly. The publishing industry is going through some serious changes right now. It used to be that if you wanted to get paid for your writing, you sold your book to a traditional publisher. Getting published any other way required a large output of money and usually didn't result in much of anything other than boxes of books in your garage, unless you were really good and really lucky. The rise in electronic publishing has changed that dynamic somewhat. The barriers to entry are a lot lower, and you're more likely to make some money without having boxes of books in your garage. It's enough to make you wonder why anyone would bother with a publisher. To be honest, I haven't taken a stand one way or another on this issue. I'm watching events unfold and doing research. But here are some things that have to happen to bring a book to the market, whether you do these things yourself (or hire someone to do them for you) or whether a traditional publisher does them for you.
1) Editing
There's probably a lot less editing done on traditionally published books these days, depending on the editor, because editors don't have the time to mold each book into perfection. They're less likely to buy the imperfectly written books with a great idea and then help the authors get them into publishable form. But there is still some editing going on, even if it's just questions and suggestions to strengthen the story and improve pacing. Removing the "we don't have the resources to deal with this" gatekeepers does mean that some of those imperfect books with a great idea might get published in a non-traditional way, but they still need all that editing to make them ready to sell. This is one of those things that you really can't do for yourself because you need that outside pair of eyes -- someone who didn't write the story who can look at it without having all the information the author has. When editors write books, they get someone else to edit them. If you're not being edited through a traditional publisher, you'll need some kind of outside editing help, and probably more than just your critique partner.
2) Copy Editing
This is different from the editing I'm talking about above. That's about story. Copy editing is the nitty-gritty details. A copy editor is a professional nitpicker. A good copy edit goes beyond just grammar, spelling and punctuation. It also picks up on continuity (Do the characters have the same eye color throughout the book unless there's a story reason for the change? Was there always a door there? What happened to the hat you said he was wearing in the earlier scene?), notes repeated words or phrases, massages sentence structure and even does some fact checking. I have worked as a copy editor (in journalism and public relations writing rather than fiction, but it's still similar skills), and my copy editors have still caught me in errors. This is another case where you need an outside pair of eyes.
3) Formatting
There is actually a plan that goes into the design of the interior of a book -- the selection of font, the minute spacing between lines and letters, the way chapter breaks are handled. In electronic publishing that may not matter as much because readers can set their own type size and style, but then you have all the electronic formatting issues for each bookseller. You're not just posting a Word document to the Internet. I'm still researching this area, and it sounds like something you could learn to do yourself or that you can pay to have done for you.
4) Cover Art
This is one of those things that separates the pros (or the illusion of professionalism) from the amateurs and that can make your book either look cheap or look like any other published book. I have friends who do art for book covers, and they say that a big consideration these days, whether or not a book is traditionally published, is how the cover looks in thumbnail size because that's very often how readers will see it. If you're browsing Amazon, that thumbnail is your first impression of a book. If it's an e-only book, that may be the only impression. Readers may have seen a print book cover at a store, but an e-book doesn't have that advantage. That means the cover has to make sense even when it's tiny, and it has to be an image that catches the eye.
5) Cover Design
A good book cover needs more than art. Part of the cover design involves choosing the art, deciding how to scale or size that art, choosing the font, color, size and positioning of the title and the author's name, and choosing anything else that will be on the cover. All of this has to come together in a way that catches readers' eyes and makes people curious about what's inside. Again, it also has to work in thumbnail size these days.
6) Marketing
This is the things that are done to position the book in the marketplace. It includes things like deciding which genre to fit the book into, when to put it on sale and which readers to target. It also includes things like the descriptive blurb that goes on the cover to tell readers about the book and the endorsement blurbs from other authors or reviewers that go on the cover or in the front matter (the stuff that comes before the book itself starts) within the book.
7) Sales
In traditional publishing, this is about persuading booksellers to stock a book. The buyers for the surviving chains may get a full sales pitch. Independent stores may get a catalog listing available titles. How much of a push depends on the book. Some books get a full-court press, with the author having dinner with the bookseller, swag related to the book, and advance copies for booksellers to read to get them enthused about the book. Some books get mentioned in the catalog. Store placement may include a combination of marketing and sales, as the good spots in a bookstore (those tables near the front or the tower of paperbacks) are paid placements. Online, paid placements may involve positioning on the front page or department page, those "buy this along with this for this price" offers and mention in various newsletters or blogs. There's some give-and-take with this, as the stores don't just automatically give those spots to any publisher willing to pay for them. Stores pick and choose, and there are formulas involving how many copies are ordered, discounts, credit, and the like. This is one area where individuals have a lot less clout. You probably can't do most of these things for yourself, although some of the online retailers are starting to offer packages to independent authors (they know a money machine when they see one).
8) Publicity
The amount of publicity a book gets through a traditional publisher depends on the book. The publisher may send news releases and review copies to various reviewers, both in print and online. They may also arrange booksignings or book tours and pitch media stories. Some may arrange blog tours for the author. These days, authors have to do a lot of these things for themselves. That wouldn't seem like it would make things too different if you go it alone, but there are some publicity barriers to self-published e-books. For one thing, it's hard to do booksignings if the book doesn't exist as a physical entity, and most stores are still leery of self-published books. A lot of review outlets still won't cover self-published books, and self-published books aren't eligible for most major awards. It may be difficult to get news coverage about a self-published book (though, oddly, my local newspaper seems to fawn all over anyone who gets a book "accepted" by PublishAmerica while ignoring most local traditionally published authors).
You can probably see that there are a lot of pros and cons involved in trying to do all this yourself or arrange for it to be done. Doing it right will probably involve some up-front investment, unless you've got a lot of talented and skilled friends willing to edit and design in exchange for babysitting services. On the other hand, traditional publishers are doing less for authors these days, and if you're going to do all the work, you may as well take more of the profit. As I said, I haven't formed a position either way or decided what I want to do, but these are the things I've been thinking about while pondering the future of my career, and they are things to keep in mind when you make your decisions.
I took a couple of weeks off from writing posts due to travel and the need to have some form of a summer vacation, but now I'm back for the new school year. I haven't had any questions come in, but I'll address something I tend to get asked indirectly. The publishing industry is going through some serious changes right now. It used to be that if you wanted to get paid for your writing, you sold your book to a traditional publisher. Getting published any other way required a large output of money and usually didn't result in much of anything other than boxes of books in your garage, unless you were really good and really lucky. The rise in electronic publishing has changed that dynamic somewhat. The barriers to entry are a lot lower, and you're more likely to make some money without having boxes of books in your garage. It's enough to make you wonder why anyone would bother with a publisher. To be honest, I haven't taken a stand one way or another on this issue. I'm watching events unfold and doing research. But here are some things that have to happen to bring a book to the market, whether you do these things yourself (or hire someone to do them for you) or whether a traditional publisher does them for you.
1) Editing
There's probably a lot less editing done on traditionally published books these days, depending on the editor, because editors don't have the time to mold each book into perfection. They're less likely to buy the imperfectly written books with a great idea and then help the authors get them into publishable form. But there is still some editing going on, even if it's just questions and suggestions to strengthen the story and improve pacing. Removing the "we don't have the resources to deal with this" gatekeepers does mean that some of those imperfect books with a great idea might get published in a non-traditional way, but they still need all that editing to make them ready to sell. This is one of those things that you really can't do for yourself because you need that outside pair of eyes -- someone who didn't write the story who can look at it without having all the information the author has. When editors write books, they get someone else to edit them. If you're not being edited through a traditional publisher, you'll need some kind of outside editing help, and probably more than just your critique partner.
2) Copy Editing
This is different from the editing I'm talking about above. That's about story. Copy editing is the nitty-gritty details. A copy editor is a professional nitpicker. A good copy edit goes beyond just grammar, spelling and punctuation. It also picks up on continuity (Do the characters have the same eye color throughout the book unless there's a story reason for the change? Was there always a door there? What happened to the hat you said he was wearing in the earlier scene?), notes repeated words or phrases, massages sentence structure and even does some fact checking. I have worked as a copy editor (in journalism and public relations writing rather than fiction, but it's still similar skills), and my copy editors have still caught me in errors. This is another case where you need an outside pair of eyes.
3) Formatting
There is actually a plan that goes into the design of the interior of a book -- the selection of font, the minute spacing between lines and letters, the way chapter breaks are handled. In electronic publishing that may not matter as much because readers can set their own type size and style, but then you have all the electronic formatting issues for each bookseller. You're not just posting a Word document to the Internet. I'm still researching this area, and it sounds like something you could learn to do yourself or that you can pay to have done for you.
4) Cover Art
This is one of those things that separates the pros (or the illusion of professionalism) from the amateurs and that can make your book either look cheap or look like any other published book. I have friends who do art for book covers, and they say that a big consideration these days, whether or not a book is traditionally published, is how the cover looks in thumbnail size because that's very often how readers will see it. If you're browsing Amazon, that thumbnail is your first impression of a book. If it's an e-only book, that may be the only impression. Readers may have seen a print book cover at a store, but an e-book doesn't have that advantage. That means the cover has to make sense even when it's tiny, and it has to be an image that catches the eye.
5) Cover Design
A good book cover needs more than art. Part of the cover design involves choosing the art, deciding how to scale or size that art, choosing the font, color, size and positioning of the title and the author's name, and choosing anything else that will be on the cover. All of this has to come together in a way that catches readers' eyes and makes people curious about what's inside. Again, it also has to work in thumbnail size these days.
6) Marketing
This is the things that are done to position the book in the marketplace. It includes things like deciding which genre to fit the book into, when to put it on sale and which readers to target. It also includes things like the descriptive blurb that goes on the cover to tell readers about the book and the endorsement blurbs from other authors or reviewers that go on the cover or in the front matter (the stuff that comes before the book itself starts) within the book.
7) Sales
In traditional publishing, this is about persuading booksellers to stock a book. The buyers for the surviving chains may get a full sales pitch. Independent stores may get a catalog listing available titles. How much of a push depends on the book. Some books get a full-court press, with the author having dinner with the bookseller, swag related to the book, and advance copies for booksellers to read to get them enthused about the book. Some books get mentioned in the catalog. Store placement may include a combination of marketing and sales, as the good spots in a bookstore (those tables near the front or the tower of paperbacks) are paid placements. Online, paid placements may involve positioning on the front page or department page, those "buy this along with this for this price" offers and mention in various newsletters or blogs. There's some give-and-take with this, as the stores don't just automatically give those spots to any publisher willing to pay for them. Stores pick and choose, and there are formulas involving how many copies are ordered, discounts, credit, and the like. This is one area where individuals have a lot less clout. You probably can't do most of these things for yourself, although some of the online retailers are starting to offer packages to independent authors (they know a money machine when they see one).
8) Publicity
The amount of publicity a book gets through a traditional publisher depends on the book. The publisher may send news releases and review copies to various reviewers, both in print and online. They may also arrange booksignings or book tours and pitch media stories. Some may arrange blog tours for the author. These days, authors have to do a lot of these things for themselves. That wouldn't seem like it would make things too different if you go it alone, but there are some publicity barriers to self-published e-books. For one thing, it's hard to do booksignings if the book doesn't exist as a physical entity, and most stores are still leery of self-published books. A lot of review outlets still won't cover self-published books, and self-published books aren't eligible for most major awards. It may be difficult to get news coverage about a self-published book (though, oddly, my local newspaper seems to fawn all over anyone who gets a book "accepted" by PublishAmerica while ignoring most local traditionally published authors).
You can probably see that there are a lot of pros and cons involved in trying to do all this yourself or arrange for it to be done. Doing it right will probably involve some up-front investment, unless you've got a lot of talented and skilled friends willing to edit and design in exchange for babysitting services. On the other hand, traditional publishers are doing less for authors these days, and if you're going to do all the work, you may as well take more of the profit. As I said, I haven't formed a position either way or decided what I want to do, but these are the things I've been thinking about while pondering the future of my career, and they are things to keep in mind when you make your decisions.
September 6, 2011
Over the River and Through the Woods
We had a cool morning today -- not just "not hot" but "snuggle under the comforter." After the horrendous summer, I really appreciate it. Now we just need some rain because things are getting pretty dire. Much of the state seems to be on fire.
I spent most of yesterday outdoors, something I haven't been able to do in months. I packed a lunch and a bottle of water and headed out for the park on the hike/bike trails. It turns out they just opened a new leg of the trails, leading from the park by my neighborhood, and this leg runs through some woods alongside the river. This means I can go walking in the woods near running water, and it's walking distance from my home. It's almost as good as when we lived in Germany and our neighborhood was adjacent to a forest full of walking trails. We used to pack lunches in our school backpacks and spend a Saturday just walking. Now that I know this is there, I imagine I'll be spending a lot of time outdoors this fall. I'll have to stock up on Black Forest ham and hard rolls (our staples from those hiking picnics in Germany). Unfortunately, I won't have another free weekend to allow such an outing for about a month. I'm not entirely sure how safe it would be on weekdays. This neighborhood is generally an extremely low crime zone, but it's not entirely smart to be in an isolated area where a person meaning to cause trouble would be the only other person out there. On weekends, it's not crowded at all, but there are enough people around who'd notice something was up or who would be within range of a scream. I don't know how many people would be there on a regular weekday. There is another part of the trail that has some of the better sit-by-the-river spots, and it's a lot more open, running alongside a park that's on a major freeway access road.
The only moderately portable finger-food type fruit I had on hand was cherries, so I'd pitted some cherries and put them in a little refrigerator dish, then held the dish carefully to catch the cherry juice as I ate. It turned out that I hadn't sealed the lid properly, so there was already cherry juice on the side of the container, which meant that holding it to keep juice from dripping off the cherries allowed juice to drip off the container, so I ended up with red blotches on my shirt. I guess it's good that cherry juice dries to a purplish pink instead of looking like blood, or I might have alarmed people I ran into on the trail. Then again, it might have been fun to come out of the woods looking like I was covered in blood, licking my lips and putting a knife away.
The one real downside is that the trailhead park is about a half-hour walk from my house, so I've had a pretty long walk before I even start the trail. Thus, I was out for about three hours yesterday and my hips and knees are not all that happy with me today. It looks like they're building another access point that might be a little closer and more direct. I suppose I could drive to the park and then walk more on the trails and less in my neighborhood, but the park is sort of in a "you can't get there from here" spot due to access roads, freeways and one-way streets. I suppose I just need to pace myself better, take more breaks, not walk quite so forcefully, and only do one part of the trail at a time instead of trying to do it all at once. I think I ended up walking close to 7 miles yesterday.
Once I got home, I sat on the patio and read for a while. The nice thing about the abrupt change in temperatures is that it's not going to go back up again, at least not within the next week. It'll be a little warmer than yesterday and today, but not what it was. It won't be like last month, with the one cool day surrounded by 100-degree days. I'm glad I decided to use yesterday as a real holiday because today I'm somewhat relaxed and energized to get to work in what's going to be a very busy month for me.
I spent most of yesterday outdoors, something I haven't been able to do in months. I packed a lunch and a bottle of water and headed out for the park on the hike/bike trails. It turns out they just opened a new leg of the trails, leading from the park by my neighborhood, and this leg runs through some woods alongside the river. This means I can go walking in the woods near running water, and it's walking distance from my home. It's almost as good as when we lived in Germany and our neighborhood was adjacent to a forest full of walking trails. We used to pack lunches in our school backpacks and spend a Saturday just walking. Now that I know this is there, I imagine I'll be spending a lot of time outdoors this fall. I'll have to stock up on Black Forest ham and hard rolls (our staples from those hiking picnics in Germany). Unfortunately, I won't have another free weekend to allow such an outing for about a month. I'm not entirely sure how safe it would be on weekdays. This neighborhood is generally an extremely low crime zone, but it's not entirely smart to be in an isolated area where a person meaning to cause trouble would be the only other person out there. On weekends, it's not crowded at all, but there are enough people around who'd notice something was up or who would be within range of a scream. I don't know how many people would be there on a regular weekday. There is another part of the trail that has some of the better sit-by-the-river spots, and it's a lot more open, running alongside a park that's on a major freeway access road.
The only moderately portable finger-food type fruit I had on hand was cherries, so I'd pitted some cherries and put them in a little refrigerator dish, then held the dish carefully to catch the cherry juice as I ate. It turned out that I hadn't sealed the lid properly, so there was already cherry juice on the side of the container, which meant that holding it to keep juice from dripping off the cherries allowed juice to drip off the container, so I ended up with red blotches on my shirt. I guess it's good that cherry juice dries to a purplish pink instead of looking like blood, or I might have alarmed people I ran into on the trail. Then again, it might have been fun to come out of the woods looking like I was covered in blood, licking my lips and putting a knife away.
The one real downside is that the trailhead park is about a half-hour walk from my house, so I've had a pretty long walk before I even start the trail. Thus, I was out for about three hours yesterday and my hips and knees are not all that happy with me today. It looks like they're building another access point that might be a little closer and more direct. I suppose I could drive to the park and then walk more on the trails and less in my neighborhood, but the park is sort of in a "you can't get there from here" spot due to access roads, freeways and one-way streets. I suppose I just need to pace myself better, take more breaks, not walk quite so forcefully, and only do one part of the trail at a time instead of trying to do it all at once. I think I ended up walking close to 7 miles yesterday.
Once I got home, I sat on the patio and read for a while. The nice thing about the abrupt change in temperatures is that it's not going to go back up again, at least not within the next week. It'll be a little warmer than yesterday and today, but not what it was. It won't be like last month, with the one cool day surrounded by 100-degree days. I'm glad I decided to use yesterday as a real holiday because today I'm somewhat relaxed and energized to get to work in what's going to be a very busy month for me.
September 5, 2011
It's Cool!
So, theoretically it's a holiday and since blog posting is a "work" thing I try not to do it on holidays, so I can retain at least some since of difference between an ordinary day and a weekend or holiday, but I just have to shout to the rooftops that our heat wave has truly broken! We don't even have 100-degree temperatures in the long-range forecast. At the moment, I have my windows open and no AC on.
I made scones and tea this morning, since I could turn on the oven without overheating the house, and I opened the patio doors (that open from the breakfast nook). I guess I could have eaten on the patio, but the patio is kind of a mess, so it wouldn't have been pleasant. I think one of my tasks today since I can be outdoors is going to be to straighten up the patio, pull the weeds in the small strip of "flowerbed" and sweep up the weeds I'd already pulled. I had grand plans of getting some fall flowers to plant in containers on the patio this weekend, but when I went to Home Depot on Friday, their garden center was pretty much empty. They said their vendors had taken back a lot of the plants. The heat was just too brutal for them. They said I should check back again in a few weeks. I was hoping to get some zinnias because once they get going, you can cut them and put them in vases. And I need to replace the basil plant that died while I was out of town (next time, I should get my green-thumb neighbor to plant sit for me).
Since the rest of this month is going to be seriously busy, I'm torn between using today as my last day to rest or using it to get a jump on the rest of the month. I may do a little of both, but I think I'm going to start by taking a long walk. I'd thought about walking to the river, but that's a really long walk, and it's pretty windy, so I'd need ballast. I suppose I could pack a picnic in my backpack and make a day of it, and that would count as ballast. It is possible that I'm being a wee bit overexcited by the sudden cooler weather and trying to cram an entire autumn's worth of outdoor activities into one day.
I made scones and tea this morning, since I could turn on the oven without overheating the house, and I opened the patio doors (that open from the breakfast nook). I guess I could have eaten on the patio, but the patio is kind of a mess, so it wouldn't have been pleasant. I think one of my tasks today since I can be outdoors is going to be to straighten up the patio, pull the weeds in the small strip of "flowerbed" and sweep up the weeds I'd already pulled. I had grand plans of getting some fall flowers to plant in containers on the patio this weekend, but when I went to Home Depot on Friday, their garden center was pretty much empty. They said their vendors had taken back a lot of the plants. The heat was just too brutal for them. They said I should check back again in a few weeks. I was hoping to get some zinnias because once they get going, you can cut them and put them in vases. And I need to replace the basil plant that died while I was out of town (next time, I should get my green-thumb neighbor to plant sit for me).
Since the rest of this month is going to be seriously busy, I'm torn between using today as my last day to rest or using it to get a jump on the rest of the month. I may do a little of both, but I think I'm going to start by taking a long walk. I'd thought about walking to the river, but that's a really long walk, and it's pretty windy, so I'd need ballast. I suppose I could pack a picnic in my backpack and make a day of it, and that would count as ballast. It is possible that I'm being a wee bit overexcited by the sudden cooler weather and trying to cram an entire autumn's worth of outdoor activities into one day.
September 2, 2011
Preparing for Cave Time
I had a late night last night due to an emergency meeting of the ballet class support group. I didn't take the jazz class, but I hung around and read a book on my phone while waiting for the class to end so we could all go out together. It's our teacher's last class before she goes on maternity leave, and there are some complications with the pregnancy, so she needed to talk. Unfortunately, by the time we got out of the dance school it was nearly ten and there aren't a lot of places open that late on a weeknight in a relatively small town. We went to the Wendy's nearby, but it turns out their "eat great even late" thing means their drive-through stays open late. They were locking the restaurant when we got there. So the ones who wanted food went through the drive-through, and then we sat in the parking lot and ate and talked. A group of high-school boys was doing the same thing in another corner of the parking lot. I did wonder what kids were doing hanging out in the Wendy's parking lot at nearly 11 p.m. on a school night, but there must have been a football game or band practice, as I recognized one of the kids (and the name the others were calling him by) in a photo of the band in today's newspaper. I think my bedtime was 10:15 when I was in high school, and I definitely would not have been allowed to be out and about town that late on a school night. They were still there when I left, and I'm foggy this morning in spite of sleeping late. I can't imagine they'd be too functional in school, since teens need a lot more sleep than people my age.
Wow, I really sound mom-like there. Or else nosy little old lady. Kids these days. Get off my lawn!
Apparently they finally found and repaired that water leak because I do have water today and had no notice that it would be turned off again today. They finally cut off the water after about 3:30, and it was back on around 5. That meant I could have done things like laundry and dishes earlier in the day, but I didn't because I was worried about losing water mid-way through. And now I really need to do laundry and dishes. We're reaching emergency levels.
This is going to be my last free, moderately relaxing weekend for quite some time, between convention stuff and choir. I have some Sunday-morning obligations at church, but otherwise I have nowhere I need to be at any particular time all weekend, and I intend to take advantage of that. Now I need to pick up supplies for the weekend so I can cook the things I want to, and then I plan to enjoy some quality cave time.
Wow, I really sound mom-like there. Or else nosy little old lady. Kids these days. Get off my lawn!
Apparently they finally found and repaired that water leak because I do have water today and had no notice that it would be turned off again today. They finally cut off the water after about 3:30, and it was back on around 5. That meant I could have done things like laundry and dishes earlier in the day, but I didn't because I was worried about losing water mid-way through. And now I really need to do laundry and dishes. We're reaching emergency levels.
This is going to be my last free, moderately relaxing weekend for quite some time, between convention stuff and choir. I have some Sunday-morning obligations at church, but otherwise I have nowhere I need to be at any particular time all weekend, and I intend to take advantage of that. Now I need to pick up supplies for the weekend so I can cook the things I want to, and then I plan to enjoy some quality cave time.
September 1, 2011
Crying Water Wolf
I'm on day two of my homeowners association doing what I like to call "crying water wolf." Yesterday morning -- at about 8:30 -- they stuck a note on my door (I was in the room adjacent to the front door, so I heard it) that in order to find and repair an underground water line leak, the water would have to be shut off at some time between 8 and 5 that day, so we should make appropriate preparations. I rushed around to make sure I had drinking water, water in the teakettle, etc. I needed to do laundry, but I didn't dare start a load when at any time I might lose water. And yet there was water all day. I figured they only had to shut off the water for a short time, and it happened during an hour or so that I was working and didn't need water. But then last night after choir, someone knocked on my door and handed me another note that repeated the exact same information, but for today. So I got up early enough to be done with breakfast, washing up, brushing my teeth and other morning stuff before 8, then found an e-mail from earlier last night saying that they hadn't actually shut off the water or done any work yesterday, so that's why it was today, and that note said between 9 and 4. This is reminding me of the time a couple of years ago when we were getting notes like this on a weekly basis -- they were doing some work on the water lines every Wednesday -- and I'd be prepared each time, only to never lose my water, until the time I decided that it wasn't for real, after all, or maybe I wouldn't be affected, so I didn't make preparations. Of course, that was the time my water was shut off. They were trying to lull me into complacency with all the false alarms. They didn't get me this time, though. I have water ready for every possible use except maybe a shower. If they pull this again tomorrow, I may have to express my extreme displeasure.
We started children's choir for the year last night, and I have 16 preschoolers in my choir. That's after 7 kindergarteners last year. It will be an adjustment. I don't always do well with crowds and noise, and that's a lot of people inclined to be noisy in a rather small room. Last night when we had the parents in there, too, I ended up in the hallway, mostly because I was hanging back to greet those who were still drifting in and coaxing the shy ones to enter the room, but I'll admit that was also kind of an excuse to be out of the crowd. I was successful with most of the shy ones -- once they saw the fun going on in the room, they went in on their own. The one I didn't persuade is a special needs child, and her mom said it may take a while to expose her gradually to the idea. It should be less crowded without the parents, but that's still a lot of kids, and almost all of them are girls. I think I counted four boys in the whole group (actually, there were 15 kids last night, 3 of them boys, but I know of one more boy who was out of town this week who'll be in the choir). There was a lot of pink.
Incidentally, parents: flip-flops aren't great footwear for small children in just about any situation other than maybe the swimming pool or beach because they tend to lose them very easily or fall off them. There's a very high injury rate related to flip-flops. But they're a really, really bad idea for any activity that requires movement like jumping, hopping, skipping or dancing. Shoes with open toes also aren't great for activities where children are likely to bump into each other where they could step on each other's feet. Get some real shoes for your children, please. I spend way too much time catching children when their flip-flops don't move with them.
I think I came up with an idea for a short story yesterday. Now I need to work out the specifics beyond "and then the bad guy will be up to something." I figure that with the lack of upcoming publications and with all the good stuff I have in progress already having been read (and with the audience frustration of hearing the start of something that ends up not being published), I need something new to read at FenCon. Then that will be one more thing I'll have to possibly put in a story collection. I'm wondering how the idea of writing something specifically for a reading will affect the work. There are things I like getting the chance to do in a reading, like different voices, singing, things that require comic timing, and I suspect I'll be looking for excuses to put those in this story. Fortunately, I've got a friend who's the perfect research resource for the setting. I guess I know what I'll be doing this holiday weekend, when I'm not reading, cooking or watching Haven and Doctor Who.
We started children's choir for the year last night, and I have 16 preschoolers in my choir. That's after 7 kindergarteners last year. It will be an adjustment. I don't always do well with crowds and noise, and that's a lot of people inclined to be noisy in a rather small room. Last night when we had the parents in there, too, I ended up in the hallway, mostly because I was hanging back to greet those who were still drifting in and coaxing the shy ones to enter the room, but I'll admit that was also kind of an excuse to be out of the crowd. I was successful with most of the shy ones -- once they saw the fun going on in the room, they went in on their own. The one I didn't persuade is a special needs child, and her mom said it may take a while to expose her gradually to the idea. It should be less crowded without the parents, but that's still a lot of kids, and almost all of them are girls. I think I counted four boys in the whole group (actually, there were 15 kids last night, 3 of them boys, but I know of one more boy who was out of town this week who'll be in the choir). There was a lot of pink.
Incidentally, parents: flip-flops aren't great footwear for small children in just about any situation other than maybe the swimming pool or beach because they tend to lose them very easily or fall off them. There's a very high injury rate related to flip-flops. But they're a really, really bad idea for any activity that requires movement like jumping, hopping, skipping or dancing. Shoes with open toes also aren't great for activities where children are likely to bump into each other where they could step on each other's feet. Get some real shoes for your children, please. I spend way too much time catching children when their flip-flops don't move with them.
I think I came up with an idea for a short story yesterday. Now I need to work out the specifics beyond "and then the bad guy will be up to something." I figure that with the lack of upcoming publications and with all the good stuff I have in progress already having been read (and with the audience frustration of hearing the start of something that ends up not being published), I need something new to read at FenCon. Then that will be one more thing I'll have to possibly put in a story collection. I'm wondering how the idea of writing something specifically for a reading will affect the work. There are things I like getting the chance to do in a reading, like different voices, singing, things that require comic timing, and I suspect I'll be looking for excuses to put those in this story. Fortunately, I've got a friend who's the perfect research resource for the setting. I guess I know what I'll be doing this holiday weekend, when I'm not reading, cooking or watching Haven and Doctor Who.
August 31, 2011
A Wednesday Book Report
It seems that being out of town on Monday and coming home on Tuesday got my days mixed up this week. I made a point of talking about a movie yesterday because I usually talk about movies on Mondays. I talk about books on Tuesdays, and I have books I want to talk about, but I forgot it was Tuesday. Then I either do a writing post or a post about the Enchanted, Inc. series on Wednesdays. I suppose these aren't etched in stone, and it's even possible that people haven't noticed the pattern, but I do like having some structure.
I think I'll take a break from the writing posts for one more week (I took last week off, too). I've kind of dried up on topic ideas. I'm sure there are things floating in the back of my mind that I could address, but none of them are coming to mind at the moment. I'll open the floor for questions -- is there something about writing or the publishing business you'd like me to discuss or some question you have about writing? I'm also open to more questions about the Enchanted, Inc. universe -- OTHER than when the next book will be published. The next person who asks me that instead of asking the publisher may get turned into a frog. Ask the people who can do something about it. Asking me does no good whatsoever.
I did read a couple of good books while I was traveling, and I'm going to talk about them today, even if it isn't Tuesday (but I may need to put Post-its around the house to remind me that it's Wednesday so I don't forget choir).
First, the book that kept me engrossed during my outbound travel and most of the week of the convention, to the point I skipped going to the Hugos because I preferred to stay in and read and then ended up staying up until 1:30 in the morning to finish it after going to parties. That was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I would describe this as kind of a White Collar or Leverage type story set in a fantasy world in a Venice-like city that reminds me of a more serious version of Terry Pratchett's Ankh Morpork (there is humor, but it's not a comedy like the Pratchett books are). In this often-cruel city, orphan children are dealt with by rounding them up and selling them to slavers. The lucky kids get diverted to criminal gangs when the gang leaders bribe the watchmen. One particular kid, Locke Lamora, proves to be too clever for his own good, creating elaborate schemes instead of simply picking pockets. That gets him sold to another gang, where he learns a variety of skills that help him find his true calling. The criminal gangs, which all report to one crime boss, have a sort of understanding with the authorities: they are allowed to get by as long as they don't target the wealthy aristocrats. Locke thinks this rule is rather silly and goes about secretly breaking it while still pretending to be a common criminal, but not by sneaking in through windows or picking pockets. He creates elaborate schemes to convince the wealthy to willingly give him their money. He's on the verge of his biggest score ever when a new distraction arises. Someone is killing all the heads of criminal gangs and even though that means he's a potential target, the crime boss wants him to do something about it.
It's hard to put my finger on what I liked about this book, other than "the book." It was kind of a slow build, at least for me. I was skeptical at first (a thief hero?), but it gradually sucked me in, especially once we met Locke as an adult. The narrative bounces around a bit in time, starting with his childhood, then going to his adulthood, with interludes that continue the story of his childhood and how he became what he is. Although he's a thief, there's a core of honor to Locke that made me like him. He's loyal to his found "family" within his gang, he's incredibly clever, and he works hard to improve himself. The pace and the tension keep building until it's almost unbearable, and the main characters really go through hell and have to make impossible choices and great sacrifices to prevail. I had to re-read the ending because I tore through it so quickly while barely keeping my eyes open. I'm about to head to the library to pick up the second book in the series, and that will be my holiday weekend reading.
But after that, I still had a day (and a light day, at that) of the convention to go, plus my trip home, and after reading a book like that, it can be difficult to get into anything else. Fortunately, I had the good luck to be standing by the freebie table at the exact moment that someone brought back a book she'd picked up when they'd put some books out (that were then snatched up in a heartbeat). She'd found that her husband also got a copy and put her copy back. I picked it up because it looked interesting but didn't start trying to read it until I was on the airplane, and then I read the entire book on the flight home.
This book was Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine. I would describe it kind of as a post-apocalyptic steampunk version of the TV series Carnivale (though with an actual circus instead of sideshows). In a world where some major wars have devastated the landscape and left a lot of isolated small communities, a mysterious traveling circus creates awe while giving its participants a home and safe haven -- and something else. The head of the circus had a gift that allows her to repair human beings mechanically -- clockwork lungs, unbreakable metal bones, etc. -- and these repairs are life-changing. It's hard to describe the plot beyond that. The book is written in a more "literary" style, so it's not a straightforward, plot-driven narrative. It jumps about between first-person, second-person and third-person viewpoint and jumps around in time, weaving incidents from the past into the present. At first, that can be hard to follow, but eventually all the timelines click into place so that you really get what's going on. There's something about all that jumping around and vagueness that makes it rather hypnotic, and although I felt that it was skimming past things and never really telling us much about the characters, by the end of the book I felt like I really knew and understood them and their world. When I finished the book with at least half an hour left in my flight, I wished there had been more because I didn't want to leave that world and I wanted to know more about those people. I couldn't make myself get into anything else after finishing it, so I read the SkyMall catalogue for the rest of the flight. It's definitely different and probably not for everyone, but I found it captivating (the book, not the SkyMall catalogue). I think I'll have to re-read this one now that I know how it all fits together because that will likely change the way I see things.
I think I'll take a break from the writing posts for one more week (I took last week off, too). I've kind of dried up on topic ideas. I'm sure there are things floating in the back of my mind that I could address, but none of them are coming to mind at the moment. I'll open the floor for questions -- is there something about writing or the publishing business you'd like me to discuss or some question you have about writing? I'm also open to more questions about the Enchanted, Inc. universe -- OTHER than when the next book will be published. The next person who asks me that instead of asking the publisher may get turned into a frog. Ask the people who can do something about it. Asking me does no good whatsoever.
I did read a couple of good books while I was traveling, and I'm going to talk about them today, even if it isn't Tuesday (but I may need to put Post-its around the house to remind me that it's Wednesday so I don't forget choir).
First, the book that kept me engrossed during my outbound travel and most of the week of the convention, to the point I skipped going to the Hugos because I preferred to stay in and read and then ended up staying up until 1:30 in the morning to finish it after going to parties. That was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I would describe this as kind of a White Collar or Leverage type story set in a fantasy world in a Venice-like city that reminds me of a more serious version of Terry Pratchett's Ankh Morpork (there is humor, but it's not a comedy like the Pratchett books are). In this often-cruel city, orphan children are dealt with by rounding them up and selling them to slavers. The lucky kids get diverted to criminal gangs when the gang leaders bribe the watchmen. One particular kid, Locke Lamora, proves to be too clever for his own good, creating elaborate schemes instead of simply picking pockets. That gets him sold to another gang, where he learns a variety of skills that help him find his true calling. The criminal gangs, which all report to one crime boss, have a sort of understanding with the authorities: they are allowed to get by as long as they don't target the wealthy aristocrats. Locke thinks this rule is rather silly and goes about secretly breaking it while still pretending to be a common criminal, but not by sneaking in through windows or picking pockets. He creates elaborate schemes to convince the wealthy to willingly give him their money. He's on the verge of his biggest score ever when a new distraction arises. Someone is killing all the heads of criminal gangs and even though that means he's a potential target, the crime boss wants him to do something about it.
It's hard to put my finger on what I liked about this book, other than "the book." It was kind of a slow build, at least for me. I was skeptical at first (a thief hero?), but it gradually sucked me in, especially once we met Locke as an adult. The narrative bounces around a bit in time, starting with his childhood, then going to his adulthood, with interludes that continue the story of his childhood and how he became what he is. Although he's a thief, there's a core of honor to Locke that made me like him. He's loyal to his found "family" within his gang, he's incredibly clever, and he works hard to improve himself. The pace and the tension keep building until it's almost unbearable, and the main characters really go through hell and have to make impossible choices and great sacrifices to prevail. I had to re-read the ending because I tore through it so quickly while barely keeping my eyes open. I'm about to head to the library to pick up the second book in the series, and that will be my holiday weekend reading.
But after that, I still had a day (and a light day, at that) of the convention to go, plus my trip home, and after reading a book like that, it can be difficult to get into anything else. Fortunately, I had the good luck to be standing by the freebie table at the exact moment that someone brought back a book she'd picked up when they'd put some books out (that were then snatched up in a heartbeat). She'd found that her husband also got a copy and put her copy back. I picked it up because it looked interesting but didn't start trying to read it until I was on the airplane, and then I read the entire book on the flight home.
This book was Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine. I would describe it kind of as a post-apocalyptic steampunk version of the TV series Carnivale (though with an actual circus instead of sideshows). In a world where some major wars have devastated the landscape and left a lot of isolated small communities, a mysterious traveling circus creates awe while giving its participants a home and safe haven -- and something else. The head of the circus had a gift that allows her to repair human beings mechanically -- clockwork lungs, unbreakable metal bones, etc. -- and these repairs are life-changing. It's hard to describe the plot beyond that. The book is written in a more "literary" style, so it's not a straightforward, plot-driven narrative. It jumps about between first-person, second-person and third-person viewpoint and jumps around in time, weaving incidents from the past into the present. At first, that can be hard to follow, but eventually all the timelines click into place so that you really get what's going on. There's something about all that jumping around and vagueness that makes it rather hypnotic, and although I felt that it was skimming past things and never really telling us much about the characters, by the end of the book I felt like I really knew and understood them and their world. When I finished the book with at least half an hour left in my flight, I wished there had been more because I didn't want to leave that world and I wanted to know more about those people. I couldn't make myself get into anything else after finishing it, so I read the SkyMall catalogue for the rest of the flight. It's definitely different and probably not for everyone, but I found it captivating (the book, not the SkyMall catalogue). I think I'll have to re-read this one now that I know how it all fits together because that will likely change the way I see things.
August 30, 2011
Starting my "School Year"
I took a quick trip to the parents and enjoyed a day in which my only computer time was downloading books from Project Gutenberg to my dad's e-reader. Instead of being online, I ate my weight in Mexican food and barbecue and got a lot of sleep. Now, it's back to the "real world" and catching up on all the stuff that happened on the Internet while I was off-line. I am rather looking forward to the holiday weekend. After a few very busy weekends (and with a number of busy weekends ahead of me), I have absolutely nothing scheduled this weekend and it's supposed to be cooler and rainy. I'm stocking up on books and am planning to finally get around to watching some DVDs I stockpiled during a Blockbuster store closing sale. I may even do some cooking since it won't be too hot to turn on the stove or the oven. It's going to be jam-making weekend, too, I think.
But before the holiday weekend, I've got a busy week, since this is the week when my schedule gets back to "normal." Children's choir starts again on Wednesday, and this year I have preschoolers. I already know at least two of the kids who'll be in my choir (and better yet, I know their parents). That's added to my usual Wednesday choir rehearsal, and ballet is now on Thursday nights. I guess it's back to school time for me. On the bright side, it is good to have things that make summer different from the rest of the year.
My weekend was too busy to watch any movies, but on Friday afternoon, I did see part of the recent Ridley Scott version of Robin Hood. I missed the beginning, so I was a little lost about what the situation was supposed to be, and there seemed to be a lot of legend and historical revisionism, but I was enjoying the movie. And then it turned into a remake of Saving Private Ryan. The French were landing at the beach in Dover in their medieval Higgins boats, and there seemed to be some shot-for-shot matches. I laughed myself silly. It was like a parody film taking the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan and doing it in medieval times and with (somewhat) medieval technology. I hurt myself from laughing so hard. That was the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I don't think it was supposed to be funny. It was the film's climactic scene, and the rest of the film was very serious, but if you like World War II films or military history and want a good laugh, watch the last forty minutes or so of this movie.
But before the holiday weekend, I've got a busy week, since this is the week when my schedule gets back to "normal." Children's choir starts again on Wednesday, and this year I have preschoolers. I already know at least two of the kids who'll be in my choir (and better yet, I know their parents). That's added to my usual Wednesday choir rehearsal, and ballet is now on Thursday nights. I guess it's back to school time for me. On the bright side, it is good to have things that make summer different from the rest of the year.
My weekend was too busy to watch any movies, but on Friday afternoon, I did see part of the recent Ridley Scott version of Robin Hood. I missed the beginning, so I was a little lost about what the situation was supposed to be, and there seemed to be a lot of legend and historical revisionism, but I was enjoying the movie. And then it turned into a remake of Saving Private Ryan. The French were landing at the beach in Dover in their medieval Higgins boats, and there seemed to be some shot-for-shot matches. I laughed myself silly. It was like a parody film taking the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan and doing it in medieval times and with (somewhat) medieval technology. I hurt myself from laughing so hard. That was the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I don't think it was supposed to be funny. It was the film's climactic scene, and the rest of the film was very serious, but if you like World War II films or military history and want a good laugh, watch the last forty minutes or so of this movie.
