Admittedly I have not the best of times since I last posted back in mid-December. Writing wise I've had a lot times where I was fired up to write then got pulled away by various things, usually by pesterings from my brother's six-year-old son who came barging into my room demanding that I play with, which normally I did. Most times, though, the stumbling was my own fault: I sleep in to late, have too much to drink the night before, and just not be into it the way a good writer should.
That's all gunna now, though. With Christmas, New Years and MOST of the football games behind me, it's time to knuckle down and make some real progress editing that pesky, epic fantasy novel I've been re-editing for over a year now.
Writers are notorious procrastinators and lolly-gaggers--and we need to stop that! (At least I do) Stop being lazy and put in the time. The good thing is, I got a lot of work to do. A couple days ago I read chapter 2 to my mother, and she seamed to like it. I wasn't too impressed by it, and still think it needs a lot of work.
But one cool thing came out my reading to her, my mom wanted to help me produce books of what I'm writing, which is something I'm going to do. Yes, I'm going to self-publish this epic fantasy novel I'm working once it's done. Not really looking forward to doing so, but I realize that's the way I'm going to have to go. 11 years ago or so, back when I was involved with the Pacific Northwest Writing Association, the panelist they flew in from New York we advising new and aspiring writers to do this: get a track record of sales--THEN query NY publishers. It's all about developing a "platform". Celebrities don't hafta worry about that, but no-names do.
So, I'm a long way from crossing that bridge. Gotta finish the novel, get it edited, and illustrated BEFORE I worry about shelling out the $$ for self-publishing.
One of the funner vanities I'm going to work on in 2015 is illustrating the novel I'm writing. I want a killer cover and artwork for each chapter. This artwork will be a feature visuals from something in that chapter. C.S. Lewis sold me on this on the masterful way he has an illustration for each chapter at the beginning of his "Chronicles of Narnia" series.
So is there still "magic" in the writing? Yeah, I'd hafta say so. I find myself putting a lot of personal stuff into this novel. Stuff from E.C.'s life, only slightly reformatted so as to be more interesting. Like one of my character's near suicide. A long time ago I thought of doing the same thing, and nearly did. Is there magic in that? Is is cathartic? No, not really, the circumstances of my near suicide back in 1990 is quite different than the one I'm writing about now. Still, I do to draw from that experience, but only to make the writing more dramatic, real and interesting. We'll see if I can pull that rabbit out of the hat...
I'm going to throw the kitchen sink into the novel. I'm going to make it the best I can. In order to do so I know I'm going to hafta log more hours at the keyboard. It really boils down to self-discipline. Staying away from alcohol will definitely help. I've found that I've tried it many times alcohol and writing don't mix. When I start to get "buzzed" I just completely lose my creative edge.
So what else have I been doing since I last posted? Well, I did take my 2008 Toyota Corrolla into the shop to get some 100,000 + mile maintenance done on it: new drive belt, spark plugs and front brakes. I also put 4 new Les Schuab tires on. Did a boatload of Christmas shopping. Took Obo (my 6-year-old nephew) out on a couple adventures, went and saw a couple movies: "The Hobbit: The Battle of the 5 Armies" and "The Gambler".
I was SHOCKED by how poor the plot of these movies were. O-kay, I get it, "The Battle of the Five Armies" as the last movie of a trilogy, but this movie really doesn't stand-up well as a stand-alone movie. First you have a cool dragon fight, as Smaug burns down Laketown at night, but after that it's just an amassing of various people groups, which ends in an epic battle. There is about ZERO character development in this movie. Bilbo tires to convince a dwarf to share his treasure, he doesn't want to until the very end. Oh, and Gandolf looks really worried a lot. This movie just SUCKED from a character standpoint. Sure a lot of the battle was kinda fun to watch, but where is the compelling drama? Will the ugly Ork get what's coming to him? Of course he will, dipshit!! What did you expect?!
After watching this movie with my aunt and father, I asked my dad what the plot of the movie we'd just watched was. And my 69-year-old father said to me:
We don't need no stinkin' plot!
Great! Guess that's where he are as society. Plot smot, just give us some dazzling visuals and choreographed fight scenes. Is that all you need to entertain the masses these day? Ouch, from a writer's standpoint, from a guy who WANTS to deliver thought provoking stories, that hurts. And that comes from my own dad. Swear to God he really did say that on route back to the car from the multiplex. Later, after we discussed this some more he came up with another plot summary gem. With more careful deliberation my dad told me, the plot of "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" was:
Take the cave!
This was in reference to the former dragon's lair where the dwarfs were holding up, and various people groups were amassing outside the gates. Anywho, the point is "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" DOES NOT have a very strong, compelling story to it. IF you like this movie chances are that's because of the visuals and fight scenes: a continuing sorrowful trend, at from my point of view, of this generations continuance of flash over substance.
Mark Wahlberg's "The Gambler" (2014)" had a great cast and some good acting on display, but I was VERY DISAPPOINTED with its bo-ring plot. I did however like the improper relationship Mark Wahlberg's character, Jim Bennett, had with Brie Larsen's character, Amy Phllips. That should have gotten more screen time, as it was FAR more interesting to watching Jim Bennett's character get deeper and deeper into debt with loan sharks and his mother.
Huge fan of Brie Larsen (the actress off to the right). Feel in love with her after watching Bree play the potential love thwart in "The Spectacular Now" (2013: Shelienne Woodly, Miles Teller).
I was also VERY DISAPPOINTED with the effort of a fellow scribe out there, an academy award winner no less, William Monahan. This dude can write killer stories, deservedly winning an oscar for best adapted screenplay with "The Departed" (2006: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, and Matt Damon). Yes, there was some screenwriting on display here especially with the choice of showing Jim Bennett's descent in losing money gambling via a fast-forward montage set to music, but overall I thought that this plot was rather cliche and I was never drawn in to Jim Bennett's plight, which given all the screen time he got is a very bad mistake. This movie sets itself up to explore the reasons why a college professor with a rich family would risk it all in high stakes gambling. And I don't think the William Monahan script answers the basic question that is set-up with story: what is diving Jim Bennett to gamble when he's got so many good things in his life? Why is he so unhappy? For my $$ that's the central question in this character driven drama, as this movie spend ALL of its time with Jim, and zero time with anyone else.
"The Gambler" (2014) is a bad movie--and it shouldn't have been! And the crazy thing is this is like a remake of movie they did back in 1974 which stared James Caan. Ugh, now even dramas are being remade poorly by Hollywood! I thought drama were the one genre where original thoughts and ideas were still thriving. Guess not.
Anyway, "The Gambler" (2014) This is a movie that is bad at the story level. Its fixes are all needed at the story level. The whole oriental crime family thing was dull, and the black hoods weren't much better. This movie had a place it could have went to make it more interesting, the whole Jim and Amy improper professor/student thing, but they didn't get enough screen time together, and from what screen time they showed I didn't buy the connection they made. Amy's side of the ledger needed to be gone into more.
Enough with the movies. Moving on, I'll defiantly be posting on more regular basis. Sorry, I got lazy. I had the time, could have easy posted more. I did start one post, just never brought it to completion. I need to get back on track. I think tomorrow I'll get up early and put in a couple extra hours on the epic fantasy novel. The cold hard truth is, I need to be more productive and bringing this story closer to a professional level where it's as good as I can take it and now it's time to show it to a professional editor.
I do not want an editor doing my job for me! I merely want to use a professional editor to pre-screen my work before I self publish it. You can only trust yourself so far, then it's time to bring in other people. That's where my mind is right now. I want to push my material and make it as good as I capable of doing. That's going to involve challenge the emotional core of the scenes I've already got written. Can I make them better? Can I push them to greatness? As of right now I can't honestly say thay I've done that. But things are gunna change in 2015. Just you wait and see!
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