I wrote 3700 words yesterday...

...and looking them over this morning they mostly don't suck, so that's good. I celebrated with lots of dancing. Since it's been so unremittently hot I've given up treading the mill for the last few weeks, but what with all the dancing I've actually dropped a few more pounds (well, that and the lack of appetite I always get when it's just too hot). Oliver likes to dance with me, but Aidan finds it distracts him from reading the subtitles. He's trying to work out which Hindi words mean what in English. I guess he must be my kid after all.

You know, George Lucas has talked about watching Akira Kurosawa films before making Star Wars, and how he loved all the little rituals and things that a Japanese viewer wouldn't need explained, but as an American you don't know what it means but it surely means something. He was going for that effect in his first three films, that sense that this or that gesture meant something specific but didn't feel like he needed to explain it all. (Two problems with the second trilogy: he lost the sense of fun and he started explaining stuff instead of going for that sense of it all being foreign and cool. Mitichlorians, anyone?).

I only mention this because Salman Khan is in a Hollywood movie about Bollywood movies coming out next Friday called Marigold, and while I'll surely go see it, it looks from the preview that they missed that crucial fun element. It looks like it's going to be all explainy about what makes Bollywood great instead of just being a great Bollywood movie. (Like Moulin Rouge, which was essentially an English language Bollywood movie, and tons of fun. Baz Luhrman, where did you go?) Plus the MC seems like she really belongs in the movie Braatz. Personally, I'd rather see the new one he's doing with Govinda called Partner that just came out in India, but it'll probably be a year before it makes it to DVD here. Sigh. At least there's always You Tube.

Brief Notes

So this week is our homeschool vacation week, the only time I get these days to write. I'm not making any goals to finish anything, though. I'm standing on shifting sands employment-wise, which is making me panicky. Quin's career is taking off now, but it's not the meteoric rise we'd need to get by on one income, and it would be hard for me to find another work-from-home nights and weekends thing which is necessary for the homeschooling, especially as Quin sometimes has to go out of town overnight with almost no notice. I couldn't really do the overnight shift at the Red Cross again unless I was constantly calling in sick or something. I might have to work my way through less and less savory transcription employment (working for services, ugh, and just until they outsource out of country or replace humans with computers). I hope to milk out another six years. Ten would be nice. I could always go back to being a lab tech, although at this point it would be a huge drop in pay. I've gotten spoiled on this pay for productivity thing; it's easy to forget that most jobs you can't get more cash just by working harder and faster.

It's hard not to have the "what if I did this for a living?" fantasy about the writing, but I don't really find that to be a healthy influence; in fact the quality of the work suffers when I'm in any way thinking of who would ever want to buy it when I'm done. It's just not good for the writing to be looking at the WIP like it's a potential Powerball ticket where I can skew the odds if I just write really, really well. Because nothing can ever be brilliant enough for that, and it's leaving me quite dejected. So I've had to get my head straight and just focus on the craft again and not worry about whether or not it will sell. I haven't written any actual words for it in over a month, but I've come up with back stories on secondary characters I need to add to the second half, and also a sense of some other things which are missing. I'm focused to work now, but I'm not quite as joyful as I usually am when I write. Maybe I'll find the joy when I get in the zone.

On a totally unrelated note, Quin's company picnic is this Wednesday, and he's very excited for me to go. I don't go to any of my work's functions; since I work from home the only people I actually know are the other transcriptionists, with whom I have almost nothing in common, so there's very little point (plus, I just hate parties). Since Quin works for an engineering firm, his coworkers are all just like the guys I hung out with in high school, so that's cool for me (it's still a party, but a tolerable party). Quin is particularly anxious for me to go this time since he can dump me with his Indian coworker who has been lending me all of her Bollywood movies (almost all of which I went on to buy my own copies; those movies have an insanely high rewatch factor. I've had Hum Aapke Hain Koun on in the background while I've been working or doing whatever. I've only had it for two weeks but I've played it about 20 times. It's my favorite). Quin's not only been carrying these movies back and forth, but I have him ask her questions about what this or that means, or what other movies with the same actors are good. Then this became "Ask her which one she likes better, Aamir Khan or Salman Khan?" She says Aamir Khan, because Salman Khan has pictures taken with his shirt off and that's just so inappropriate in India. "Well, inappropriate photos aside, I like him in the movies. He's got this dorky-funny thing going on. He reminds me of a Hayao Miyizaki character, that big-hearted, opposite-of-cool vibe is just so... cool." Well, she says you may like Salman Khan now, but that's just because you've never seen Shah Ruh Khan. She doesn't have any of his, but here's a list of titles (none of which are here yet, so I still haven't seen Shah Ruh Khan). I don't know why he wants to get out of the middle of this fascinating conversation. I can't imagine a bunch of engineers giving him crap for discussing which actor is the cutest in this or that musical. Oh, wait...

Squirrels

They're so cute when they're helping themselves to your stale pita bread...



But then they do this to your (admittedly cheap) patio furniture...

I think there's a man-eating squirrel lurking just out of sight in my backyard.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (the movie)

So I saw this last night (and just managed to squeak in reading the book for the third time before I went). I suppose I was bound to be disappointed; it is far and away my fave of the series (I'll let you know on Saturday night whether that is still true). This is the first installment by a director whose work I've not seen previously. He had an amazing visual sense; the Ministery of Magic looked fantastic, Harry's dreams/visions and the dementors were genuinely creepy, and the wizard fight at the end was phenomenonly good. In some ways the movie actually tops the book (what the director did at the end is so much cooler than statues coming to life to shield Harry, and having the Room of Requirement provide the mistletoe just when it was required was a stroke of genius). The screenwriter deserves some praise for masterfully condensing the longest book into what I'm pretty sure is the shortest movie.

Alas, in the end it didn't quite do it for me. The scenes without visual effects just really fell flat. They were staged funny, the actors didn't seem to know where to stand or which way to look (particularly Emma Watson, who never seemed to know what to do with her arms). It all felt so wooden; none of the emotional resonance carried over. None of the anger was angry enough. Harry should've been much more sarcasic in Umbridge's class, and the scene when Trelawney is fired really needed more, and should've been on the stairs. I have to blame the director here because I know these actors can act. Somewhere out there I imagine they're moaning "that's the take he kept? That one?" My favorite scene from the book didn't make it into the movie (when Neville's mother gives him the gum wrapper), but it's just as well. A bad rendition would have completely ruined it for me.

My boys didn't see it. From what I heard I thought it might be a bit much, and as they hadn't seen the Transformers yet they went to that one without me. They enjoyed it very much. Quin says that Oliver was on the edge of his seat, grinning, practically vibrating with excitement. I'll have to catch that one on DVD (probably about a million times...)

This and that

Mostly links here.

First off, check out the latest issue of Fusion Fragment, which features a certain "My Bonny" by a certain J.F. Peterson, a fine tale from one of my favorite writers. This story came from the same Backspace contest as my own "Tale of a Fox". It's always cool how the same set of parameters can lead to such varied works.

This is why Ursula K. LeGuin rocks. The whole review Ruth Franklin did of Chabon's book is full of chuckletastic quotes like the one that set LeGuin off. Frankly I stopped being bothered by this "genre is crap" rhetoric some time ago. I just like to point it out and mock it.

And posts like this are why I love John Scalzi. (Someone in his comments linked to this Gandhi quote, and on days like today I can totally agree with him. But then I would, because apparently I am Gandhi).

(You can see the incident Scalzi is referencing on YouTube here. I find it just sad and upsetting. Actually I find most of CSPAN sad and upsetting, except their coverage of British parliament, which is fun and engaging, although the fact that none of what they're saying is going to directly affect me could be a contributing factor there).

Here's something more on the fun side: a clip from Boondocks. I'm anxiously awaiting season 2 on this show; it's funny but unlike most of Adult Swim it's gorgeously animated. The reflections on the hospital floor, the detail on every person in a crowd scene, Huey's anime daydreams; it's all good. And I love these two characters, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson and Charlie Murphy:

Who reads this blog?

It's been a while since I checked in with my StatCounter (and I totally promise I am going to get some writing done today!). Myspace I like for having the little counter box right there in the corner, very convenient for obsessives. However, it doesn't tell you who stopped by or what they were looking for. I have StatCounter on my blogspot blog, so I do get that information. However, it's not particularly enlightening, is it?



All spanking, all the time. With just a hint of basketball (and the basketball searches are usually from Germany or Sweden. Actually, so is a lot of the spanking). (Hey, dude from Germany, if you find that Marko Jaric wallpaper, send me the link!)

I'm fairly certain the "Kate's blog" searches are looking for Kate Moss...

I've only just started getting stats on my website from Google Webmaster, and while it's not gotten very many hits, at least the hits in question have been for "Kate MacLeod", "Seagull and Raven", and "Fantastical Visions V". Those are probably relevant (although I hate the website in question. Now that I have the laptop paid for I'm going to start hoarding cash to pay someone to make my website look all spiffy. Me alone with Website Tonight just doesn't cut it).

My June Book Report

Many, many things slid to the wayside last week during my failed attempt to finish the WIP. For instance, Aidan was delighted to find that his assignment sheet for school this week was completely empty. That means he doesn't have to do anything! (Uh, no. It means mom flaked and didn't do her prep work last week for this three week school period. It was a long morning).

So today is all about getting non-WIP things done so I can plunge back into it tomorrow with a clear conscience. Ergo, this book report which is now 9 days overdue.

First off: the book I didn't finish. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Now I remember why I stopped reading Gibson (although I never stopped buying him; the books just kept stacking up waiting for me to finish this). It's official: I give up. I want to like it; it has a lot of cool ideas in it. I think what it needs from me is a quiet afternoon with me, this book, and maybe a cat or two. When my youngest goes to college and I have quiet afternoons like that again, I'll take it back down. In the meantime, I'm moving on to books more amenable to my 10 minutes at a time reading style.

Namely, the sequels to Mona Lisa Overdrive: Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties. These I liked immensely. Gibson writes teenage girls who have no close friends very well (and I should know), and I particularly like the character of Rydell, who carries over from MLO. At the end of May, my favorite Gibson novel was MLO, but that changed to Idoru, and then to ATP, and in the end wound up being Pattern Recognition. PR doesn't tie in to any of his previous efforts. It is, however, dead brilliant. If you're cynical at all about the forces behind marketing, you'll want to check this one out. It also touches on 09/11, something I've been avoiding in fiction be it books or TV or movies. I know it's been nearly six years now, but I'm still not in a place where fiction about 09/11 doesn't really upset me. Gibson only touches on it, he doesn't try to explain it, there's no "this is what it's all about" moment. From a writing stand point, I think he handled it very well. It did, however, bring my nightmares back for a brief encore.

(And for those who make fun of me for shedding tears for characters who die in Harry Potter; yes, it is much worse when it happens to real people. This is why I don't watch the news).

I'm officially out of Gibson until next month, but I have Spook Country on preorder.

At that point I decided to take a break from sci-fi and read the latest Johanna Lindsey. Feel free to mock. It's like potato chips; I know it's not real food but I can't help myself. Plus, it only takes a day to read one of these. It's sort of the anti-Difference Engine.

Then I read The Ice Dragon by George R. R. Martin. Technically a children's book; it's very, very short. I liked the story, being a sucker for all things ice and snow related. No replacement for the long-awaited Dance with Dragons, though, and it sounds like that one is still more than a year off.
I read a bit of nonfiction this month, Parenting Beyond Belief, a collection of essays on raising children in nonreligious households. More of a "you're not alone" than a how-to, but being a secular homeschooler, I can never hear "you're not alone" enough, frankly. The homeschooling community is a lonely place for an evolutionist to be, I can tell you that. It has essays from Penn Jillette, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, and Julia Sweeney. (Actually, that's kind of a litmus test for whether you'll like the book. Have no idea who Dawkins or Shermer is? Not for you).

I finished off the month with two new releases. The first was Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell. I quite enjoyed Crystal Rain, and this is a sort of sequel (although it introduces all new characters and only picks up the old ones when the story is well underway, a structure I quite liked). Ragamuffin is even better than Crystal Rain. There are lots of cool ideas in it, the story is fast-paced, and the character of Nashara is very well done, especially when you find out who she is. As you can tell from the cover, she kicks ass, but she goes deeper than that too. You know, I've often been bugged by the scene in the movie The Matrix when Neo and Trinity blow away all the security guards in the lobby before going up to save Morpheus. These are security guards, not agents, so they're human beings who are stuck in the Matrix and have no idea of what's really going on. Do Neo and Trinity have to kill them to get to Morpheus in time? Almost certainly yes. But does it really have to be such a rah-rah moment? Or am I the only one thinking, you know those are really innocent victims if you think about it. No one is offering them the pills. Which is all to say a similar situation faces Nashara at one point, and she sees it like it I would. She does what she has to, but there is no rah-rah about it. Of course that moment is sort of a footnote to a scene that just happened to stand out in my mind. The whole book is both cool and fun (you know, there's just not enough fun around these days. The fun quotient is really what divides the two Stars Wars trilogies in my mind. I like to go to dark places as much as the next person, but having fun has real value too), and I would recommend this book just for the names the ragamuffins give their ships. And like with Crystal Rain, Buckell put the first third of the novel up on his website so you can read it for free.

The last thing I read in June was the little number I mentioned buying because I loved the cover: Mainspring by Jay Lake. Another fast, fun, cool read. (You know, I think I needed these two books to come back from the movie Pan's Labyrinth, which was marvelously well done, and I adore Guillermo Del Toro, but that movie left me seriously bummed out for days) Lake takes the idea of a clockwork universe with God as the ultimate clockmaker and really runs with it. If we're all very, very good, maybe Hayao Miyazaki will make a movie of it.

(You know, I'm tempted to call both of these last two perfect beach reads, but "beach read" calls to mind books with pictures of some woman's feet on the cover. Have you walked down the book aisle in Target lately? They carry nothing but books with close-ups of women's feet, bare or in flip-flops. What could these books possibly be about? I couldn't tell you, the feet are such a turn-off I don't pick them up to read the back copy. But books with airships and gigantic gears or burly women in free fall with big-ass machine guns? That's what I want to read at the beach!)

Nope, didn't do it

Didn't finish the novel. Got real close, though. I added in the subplot elements, revised the two chapters, and wrote one and a half chapters. I only have a chapter and a half left to go to reach THE END. I'm really hoping I get to it by next Friday. The mood swings are killing me: I either think I've created something really, really cool, the book I've always wanted to read but could never find because no one was writing it, or I absolutely hate it and wonder why exactly I've given 18 months of my life to something no one besides me is ever going to want to read. (You can probably pick which one I'm feeling right now, can't you?).

Well, time to set it aside for the weekend and get cracking on the job that pays.

Sprinting to the finish line

...which I'm still hoping will be this Friday. It's a vacation week from homeschool, and we have no plans for the 4th (quite intentional, I assure you). Still, lots left to do. Three chapters to write, two chapters to majorly revise, and a certain subplot thread that needs to get woven in all over the place to tie it all together.

Man, I'm tired now! I blame the cat who mastered opening the screen door; I've only half-slept while listening for him to come back a couple of nights this week, and he seemed to prefer 4 a.m. for that. There's a bolt on the screen door now (and boy is he pissed!) but I haven't made up that sleep yet. Not to mention like a dope I volunteered to work extra to cover other people's time off, again, which is going to cut into my writing time.

On a completely unrelated note, this blog is rated:

With only one use of the word "crappy". I was hoping for a nice respectable PG-13. I should unleash my inner Tarantino and write something like this.

Maybe next week. Well, wish me luck!

(PS - I have my June book report half finished, but you probably won't see it until the WIP is done and put away.)