(no subject)

[cleolinda]

Today's horoscope (my.yahoo.com): Right now it's time to put the past behind you. Focus will be especially difficult if you're faced with a task you'd rather not be doing. Stay on your toes -- critical eyes are watching your every move. Use your spare time to catch up on communication issues you've let fall by the wayside. Return phone calls and emails, and follow up on written correspondence. The sooner you deal with the issues at hand, the better it is for everyone involved.

Okay, that's so spot-on as to be a little scary.


Had a massive headache last night, but back working again. It's frustrating, because I've been sitting here for four or five months now, and even though I was sick or had classes or whatever, I still had more time to write this book than I do now, and I sat there in front of my computer and plunked away at the keyboard, and whatever came out was either crap or... nothing at all. And now I've got, like, two weeks until my deadline and I'm on frickin' fire, but I still don't know that I can make it on time. I keep telling myself that--worst case scenario--I'll just turn in what I've finished, make very apologetic noises, and keep writing, but... that doesn't satisfy. Why is it that I can't write well unless I'm living in fear of a deadline?


Clarification: the list of movie pictures yesterday was not meant to be a list of "the most interesting movies of 2005" or even movies I particularly want to see; it was just that, out of the dozens of studio previews posted at comingsoon.net, those are the ones that 1) had pictures and 2) I thought y'all might be the least bit interested in. I'm already terribly disappointed in what I'm seeing for Aeon Flux, I'd already posted Harry Potter pics, and some of the movies I wanted to post links to didn't have pictures yet. So don't read too much into that list.


A deliciously scathing review of the POTO score and movie:

Original Composition: *****
1986 Cast Recording: *****
2004 Adaptation and New Material: **
2004 Cast Recording: FRISBEE
Overall 2004 Rating: *


Ended up following a daisy chain of links that led me to... a recipe for pasta puttanesca at the Food Network. Bless. (The thing I can't get over is that, yes, "puttanesca" means what you would think it means, if you're familiar with the Spanish word puta. Basically, the kids are serving Count Olaf "Whore Pasta." Daniel Handler must have used it in the Snicket books for a reason, but... I can't quite put my finger on the joke. Maybe he just really likes it?)


Apparently Cindy, My Second Cousin, is/was doing the sets for House. I say "was" because I think she's elsewhere doing a movie right now (not Hostage, that one wrapped a while ago), but for all I know, she's still on the TV series, too. I don't get to see or talk to her much, so "Yay Cindy!" is pretty much my involvement with all of it, but it's still fun to find out what she's doing. (I believe her husband, also a set decorator, was working on Legend of Zorro this... summer? I don't know his last name for sure, but the overlap with Cindy's credits leads me to believe that this is him... OMFG HE WORKED ON BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHY ARE WE NOT BEST FRIENDS WTF?)


Back to work. Except that I think I'd like lunch first. Hmm.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

That's how writers work. If your editors are any good at all, the deadline they've given you isn't really real, because they expect you to only start cranking out the copy shortly before deadline and come up short.

OTOH, if your editors aren't good, then you could be in a fix. :)

Good luck!

[mcfeste.livejournal.com]

Why is it that I can't write well unless I'm living in fear of a deadline?

Am the same. Protagonists unite, yo. It's a nasty habit, but unfortunately(?), it works, so I stick with it. Heh.

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

*icon love*

[http://users.livejournal.com/caeru_/]

You're exactly like me then. Essay due in a month? Nothing. Essay due in a week? Nothing. Essay due tomorrow at 8 am? Oh yeah baby! *g*

Though recently it's actually been more like: Essay due tomorrow at 8 am? Nothing. *mopes*

[andromeda-77.livejournal.com]

I think some people just work better under pressure. I'd say just go with the flow. If you can slam out the rest of the book in 2 weeks by knowing you only have 2 weeks - then more power to you. (and stockpile the Kraft macaronni and cheese and caffeine to get you through) ;)

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

I need a deadline too to work, it's not just restricted to writers. ;)

[illmantrim.livejournal.com]

Good luck and may yer spirits and inspiration race ever higher!

[altiloquent.livejournal.com]

One of my great grandmas used to say that puttanesca came from the fact that you "didn't need to whore yourself out to get ingredients to make puttanesca because it'll work with anything." It's all about resourcefullness I suppose.

[elbiesee.livejournal.com]

I gotta find the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip where Calvin cites 'panic' as a motivator. I think you'd get a kick out of it.

Sorry to get OT, but your Christmas card from the Sooner State is in the mail as we speak. :-)

[collie-wing.livejournal.com]

Is that the one where he says "You can't turn creativity on like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood."

"What mood is that?"

"Last minute panic."

I love that one! :D

And cuuute icon! OMG hamster karaoke!

[prncssaurora.livejournal.com]

1. Okay, that review is just a tad harsh (but, as you said, deliciously so). I've seen the stage show of Phantom 3 times (once, the night before I saw the film for the first time), and I still adored the movie. Gerard Butler may not have the world's greatest voice, but it's not the trash that this reviewer makes it out to be, and brings a LOT of emotion to the role. I hate it when people make Michael Crawford out to be some kind of musical deity. Sure, he has a great voice, but he's not the only person in the world who does! The guy playing in London now is, in my opinion, better than Crawford. And Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson were fantastic in the movie.

2. I TOTALLY know what you mean about not being able to write unless you have an immediate deadline. Allow me to quote from a journal entry I wrote during finals week last semester:

Current mood: so not procrastinating

Diary of a Term Paper

All right, kids.

Songwriting term paper due in exactly 14 hours 44 minutes.

Sources required: 3-5

Sources found: 5-6 (I so rule)

Sources read: 0.5 (erm...)

Things underlined with pretty highlighting pen, most of which are probably irrelevant: too many

Pages required: 6-10

Pages written: I don't think my name, the date, and "Piracy and Copyright Infringement in the Music Industry" really counts as a full page...


BUT the good news is that I have 3.5 hours' worth of time between classes tomorrow in which I can write. So really, I won't have to be up very long tonight. Really. After I stop wasting time on Livejournal. And stop playing it fast and loose with the highlighter. Seriously, I have so much time, it's almost too easy. I could go watch Comedy Central for a while, I bet. Or eat some cereal. Or...

TERM PAPER!! CONCENTRATE!!!

;)

[prncssaurora.livejournal.com]

Ah, and this:

In other news, have an 8-10 page paper due for my Music Business class tomorrow at 8am. Should have worked on it all weekend. Instead, went to Vegas. Am very responsible. And studious!

[edda.livejournal.com]

Should have worked on it all weekend. Instead, went to Vegas.

Something tells me this is possibly how the actual music business works. Well, if you're Mick Jagger, for sure.

[prncssaurora.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha, yes exactly. Or Britney Spears, perhaps?

[jennnk.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure why snicket would put puttanesca in the book (haven't read them yet, yes i'm bad!), but i don't think it would have any importance in a children's book. in desperate housewives, when evie brings it to the plumber guy, on the other hand...

[collie-wing.livejournal.com]

Love the icon!

This line is just too much laughter. I dunno, I'll still go see the movie. :D

-- and one writer from The Herald summed up the critical response by stating, "I approached this with an open mind. I really did. And it made me want to claw out my own eyeballs and use them to plug my ears."

Imagining a whole theater full of people doing that simultaneously is just too funny.

Food is good, especially if it's whore pasta.

[wearejustducky.livejournal.com]

Well, I was enjoying the sheer venom of that review until I hit this little gem:

it's safe to say that Webber's The Phantom of the Opera is a cult, a religion, and quite possibly one of the greatest compositions in the history of the musical and opera genres.

Umm. Excuse me? Mozart is rising from his unmarked pauper's grave just so he can beat you over the head with the score from Cosi Fan Tutte.

While I have a soft spot for the Webber ouevre, it's always good to be reminded exactly how totally and completely insane the fans are. Greatest composition in opera history my ass.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hit that part and kinda went, "Okay!"

[wearejustducky.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's about all you can do. In real life, that would be the point I start backing away slowly and making nonthreatening gestures.

[chocotaku.livejournal.com]

if you check out how rottentomatoes has PotO rated, and then read some of those comments, i see it not making much in the box office. I guess only true PotO fans should apply.

[wearejustducky.livejournal.com]

You know, it might do ok this weekend - when you absolutely must find out-of-the-house entertainment for nine of your closest relatives and Granny thinks "that Fockers movie just looks a little too risque", PotO probably starts looking pretty good, reviews be damned. How it will do after that, I have no clue.

Sadly, nothing, not even the pile of crappy reviews, will keep me from seeing this (I do love me some misguided spectacle), so they'll still be getting my $6.

[la-sonnambula.livejournal.com]

From the Food Network link, Rachael Ray wrote of Pasta Puttanesca, "This sauce is named for ladies of the night. They would place pots of it in their windows to tempt men into the bordellos. I like it because it's spicy, fast and easy (...no disrespect to the ladies.)"

Awesome.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Um, if you have to use food to get men to enter a bordello, something is seriously broken with the universe.

"Sex? Naah. Not really interested - hey, PASTA!"

[la-sonnambula.livejournal.com]

It's the little extra effort (i.e. pasta) that puts you ahead of your fellow putas.

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

So I clicked on that review, but it was way too long for me to actually read. Cleo, it scared me.

Mmmm, Italian food...

[mysticowl.livejournal.com]

Heh, I can't write at all, well or badly, unless under pressure. Aaah those night-before essays.

Hmm so wait, they are making a new Mask Of Zorro? Because you the link you posted yesterday led to the old one, the Banderas/Zeta-Jones one. *heads to IMDB to check*

Good to know I wasn't just being dirty minded when I thought about what Putanesca means, hee.

*comes back from IMDB* oooh a sequel. Meh. If it's not Don Diego, it's not Zorro!

Speaking of movies, if any of you plan to see Ocean's Twelve and haven't gotten around to it yet - don't waste your money. The movie wasn't just Zeta-Jonesed, it was Entrapmented!

[chocotaku.livejournal.com]

sorry if it sounded like I was ragging you for forgetting goblet of fire the other day. It was really meant to keep it in the topic of conversation due to the HP hype around that time. I knew you wouldn't forget it was coming out, I just wanted other to remember it, being the HP nut I am.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No, no--you weren't the only person who said something, either. And at least a few people said something like, "I'm glad you think ---- is going to be one of the best movies next year," and I was like, "Uh, no, that's not what that means."


(Whyyyyy am I up now?)

[lady-tavington.livejournal.com]

About the horoscope...Dude. Dooooooooooooood. That's like way creepy it's almost not funny. Seriously...

How lucky are you to have a relative who works on movies and TV shows? Seriously, I mean, come on...I'd like to have one...at least get a toe in the door already...

Namarïe,
~Sáthien

[likescarecrows.livejournal.com]

d00d i worked out the whole Whore Pasta thingy. My dad got this awesome food dictionary, and yeah.

Puttanesca sauce; alla puttanesca
The name puttanesca is a derivation of puttana which in Italian means "whore". According to one story, the name purportedly comes from the fact the intense fragrance of this sauce was like a siren's call to the men who visited such "ladies of pleasure".

Maybe we're just reading too deep, but it seems puttanesca can be made out of things you generally have around the house anyway, so yeah.