This entry is not what you think it would be about

So I watched a good bit of the Twilight DVD (Target edition) today--I got through the first two discs and a couple of things on the third, and while I was there I started mulling over something that's occurred to me once or twice, but I don't know that I'd ever fully articulated it, even in my mind, and it is this: it is a lot harder for me to write now than it was five years ago when I started Black Ribbon. Original fiction, I mean, as opposed to recaps or parodies or what really amounts to doll fanfiction. And the reason for that: I've been linkspamming movie and general entertainment news in some capacity or other since late 2001. I have watched the process of a book--many books--becoming a movie, becoming a merchandising property, becoming a cultural touchstone. And inevitably, a production where anyone gives a damn always includes various people gushing over how wonderful the original book was and how they just wanted to honor that. I mean--Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, The Golden Compass, Twilight and now Watchmen--I've watched the life cycle of this process dozens of times, both for series and individual, one-shot books.

And what this has done to me, I'm starting to realize, is given me an entirely new angst topic: ( Read more... )