Some Earth shattering bits of pointless trivia

I was scribbling down some ideas for new blog entries and come up with a bunch of ideas that while interesting, I didn’t think were ‘big’ enough to fill a whole entry.
So, from time to time I will do a blog just filled with these small thoughts and odd, rambling bits.
So, here goes:

I can’t help wondering, once the vampire and zombie trends in literature fade, what would be the next big monster trend.
Trolls? Probably be hard to do a romance with trolls.
Ghosts would be good. Though, if it was up to me, it’d be giant Japanese monsters.
Gnomes or leprechauns probably don’t stand a chance.

I really like Robin Hood, but almost never bother checking out any new Robin Hood movie or book as they always seem to tell the same couple stories over and over again. They tell us how he became Robin Hood and then waste a bunch of time trying to fit him into real history.
Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the big, swashbuckling adventure? Where are the wildly overdone, Matrix-style CGI archery effects and sword fights? How about some books, where the merry men fight monsters or evil outlaws?
How about at least adaptations of some different Robin Hood stories, then where he becomes an outlaw and meets the others?

Having just written my first western and my first pirate story, I’ve been pondering what other genres I’ve never tried that might be fun to write.
While I have written some sci-fi, I’ve never done a proper space opera. Big Star Wars/ Flash Gordon kind of stuff. That would be fun.
In my most ambitious and/or deranged moments I think it would be a fun challenge to try some kind of historical bodice ripping romance, just to see if I can, while avoiding those annoying bits from the few I’ve actually read. Maybe I should try a gothic romance and work my way up to bodice ripping.

I love comic books, but tend to get annoyed when they get turned into movies. They make massive changes for the movie and then defend them in the name of ‘realism’.
It’s a guy that deals with a childhood trauma by dressing as a bat, fighting an evil clown! If you went into that movie hoping for realism, you might want to go see ‘The King’s speech’ instead.
I wouldn’t complain, but I never hear this kind of stuff about, say, Harry Potter, Twilight or Narnia.
If you fly on a broom, that’s realistic, but not if you have a cape?
The minute anyone uses the phrase ‘realistic’ when discussing an obvious piece of fantasy film/literature, I tend to start tuning them out.
Okay, that wasn’t really writing related, but I needed to get it off of my chest and…hey, it’s my blog.

The nice thing about cell phones, is that now when I’m driving in my car and am trying out bits of dialogue or story ideas by saying them out loud, the people in the other cars don’t look at me like I’m crazy, they just assume I’ve got one of those earpiece phones.

For the other writers out there:
Why is it so hard to come up with a good title? I either have a perfect title right off the bat or go through mental agony finding a suitable one, and even then feel vaguely unsatisfied with it.
Is that just me? Is it because, at this point, all the really good ones are taken?
Anyone else have this problem?
Or maybe I should ask: When you write, what comes first, the title or the story?

So, there we have it. This is the kind of stuff that goes through my head when the real world gets boring. Nothing too inciteful, but hopefully somebody out there will find this stuff interesting, or at least mildly entertaining.

I doubt I'll be doing this kind of thing on a regular basis, unless my followers ( all 12 of you) can't get enough of it and demand more.