(no subject)

[cleolinda]

I'm done with the entire niamhstar thing. Apparently it "all makes sense now" because "things happen." Maybe there are "explanations" to be had and she'll "crack her code" for us, but I, personally, have better things to do.

In happier news, Sister Girl is now out of bed and back at work. Apparently they had to actually cut into her jawbone and take one of the teeth out in pieces, which is why recovery was so hard for her (I don't think she spent an entire day out of bed until yesterday). My mother and my aunt are out on their bikes, because my aunt's off from teaching for Good Monday (yes, I know it's not Good Monday. Birmingham City Schools: We Maek Yer Kids Smrt!). Me, I've been doing a lot of writing lately and feeling pretty good. I've mostly been working on the Fantasy Opus, whose details I am guarding so closely that I would rather give it a lame-ass nickname like "the Fantasy Opus" rather than actually tell you the title. Good times. I'm mostly still in the drafting phase, where I sit down and freewrite and sort of describe to myself, in present tense, what I see happening. This way I get down dialogue and plot details--and, occasionally, actual turns of phrase--without having the pressure of Writing with a capital W. Half the time I slip into my narrative voice (dead giveaway: past tense) anyway, and usually by the time I get to a revision phase, I discover that there's not all that much I have to change, other than verb tense and a bit of cleanup, anyway. The freewriting/describing is more about tricking myself into thinking that no one's looking, if that makes any sense.

Meanwhile, my mother (who is still off work) and I were having lunch a couple of hours ago, and we got to talking about The Second Book. The second book is not coming along so well. I think what's stressing me out is that I set myself a premise--big movies of 2005--that's pretty much already outdated. I mean, by the time it would hit shelves, it would probably be 2007, and this kind of year-in-review thing can't be more than a year old at the most. And then, if you've done one year, you've basically committed yourself to doing several unless you want to have one lame year-in-review all by its lonesome, and this does not, after some consideration, seem like a good idea to me.

But I hated giving up on the book entirely--one of the things I liked about that selection of movies was that it was chock full of franchise movies: Narnia, another Star Wars, another Potter, etc. So we're sitting there eating takeout from Panera, and it finally occurs to me: Why not just do a book of recent franchise movies? Batman Begins was already on the list, and there is a sequel confirmed for that; in the next three months alone you've got new X-Men, Superman, Mission: Impossible and Pirates of the Caribbean installments. Throw in, let's say, Sin City (another confirmed sequel), and you're already up to nine. And since POTC2 is in July, you've already set aside a good three or four months in which you cannot finish, because even if you do, you're waiting on a new movie to come out. So there's scheduled downtime and less pressure. I like that.

Which reminds me: I always swore I'd never do Pirates of the Caribbean, because it was already funny. Same reason I won't do The Princess Bride: it's just redundant at that point. But we watched POTC with my grandmother last week, and... it's really not... quite... the movie I remembered it being. I still love POTC, and it's a good movie, but after three years, the creakiness shows in places. The entire last, I don't know, forty-five minutes of the movie, with the endless battling of the undead? Yeah. And watching the Jack Sparrow scenes was a little like watching Casablanca again: you've heard all of it repeated and parroted so many times that the gleam of novelty's pretty much gone. I think a sequel would be doable, is what I'm saying, and I wouldn't mind doing the original to put online if time allowed.

(Tenth movie for the book? I don't know. I'd be willing to do any movie from late 2004 to mid 2006 that is part of a confirmed series. Well, I say "any," and that's not true. Any movie from that period would be eligible, let's put it that way.)

Another thing that bothered me about the old configuration of the book: it basically took all of the 2006 movies people wanted parodied and trapped them in print format. That is, none of them could be posted online, and I was too tired--from the first book, and trying to work on the second--to write up anything else. Honestly, V for Vendetta got written because I was just that burnt out on everything else; January to March tends to be a bad time for me, seasonally. So what would happen now is that anything originally destined for the book that wouldn't go in the new series-only version could be written, time allowing, and put online. (As far as that goes, I had DVDs for Constantine for the Reeves-Swinton factor, Serenity, King Kong (on which I have a lot of notes), and Kingdom of Heaven that I could do. Again, time allowing, and anything that would help pay bills would, of course, come first.)

So I'd get one good book of franchise movies out of 2005-2006, maybe wait a couple of years for another slew to come out (Prince Caspian! The Golden Compass! Spider-Man 3!), and in the meantime be able to work on my children's book ideas and the Fantasy Opus and Black Ribbon, and not have to worry about squeezing paid funny out of a yearly turnip. Or something.

So I'm probably going to throw Narnia and Goblet of Fire back in the DVD player and work (some more) on those first, for the book, and get them locked down. Thoughts?

zombiequill: "I'd like to request that the next time you do a Linkspam post, you alert your many readers to the newly-created, thoroughly wonderful Neptune Navigator Online, a Veronica Mars blog. An extension of the Neptune High School newspaper (The Navigator), the online edition is geared toward fans and non-fans alike.  It features celebrity gossip, computer how-to's, video game reviews, private investigating tricks, an advice column, et cetera.  The articles are written by the Neptune High Journalism class, who are characters on the show.  There's a tremendous amount of talent onboard, and the blog is terrific!  New issues are posted every Sunday."

Comments

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Apparently it "all makes sense now" because "things happen." Maybe there are "explanations" to be had and she'll "crack her code" for us, but I, personally, have better things to do.

Hell, I'd lost track of that whole dramallama a few days back. My original empathy was with her, but if she's going to be OMG en1gmat1c about it (not that I can blame her with the Internet Furies breathing down her back) then, yeah, not going to break out the decoder rings and polygraphs. Besides, the few things she does say outright don't compel me any further.

As for book two, sometimes magic happens (like V), but the greater part of writing is hard hard work -- which is the way it is for lesser mortals 99% of the time. But you've got enough going on that I can understand needing writing as a diversion more than work -- pastimes lose their luster when they become necessities. Would just rather you still found magic in the writing, and hope that it never devolves into a chore for you. That's...that's just no good for anyone.

Just hang in there.

[koritsimou.livejournal.com]

It's Good Monday for us Orthodox peeps (Kali Anastasi, y'all!), but unless you guys are like, 80%+ Orthodox down there, I'm going to guess that that fact's been ignored like everywhere else in the country.

[mary-re.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that niamhstar is just out of it on painkillers, because if not, she's just purposefully being really confusing. And if I read that entry correctly, she has recently spoken with the guy who kicked her in the face, and she... understands his motivation? Wha?

Whatever. I wash my hands of it all as well.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, that's why I'm trying to divide it up and space it out a little more so that I get to do some of it for fun and some of it as work. The way I'd scheduled it before, it was all work, and nothing to post online.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Dude. I didn't realize you had, like, a bona fide book deal. How many do they want you to crank out? That's so cool that you're frickin' getting paid for something you'd been doing for fun anyway.

Also, go zombiequill with the Neptune Navigator pimp! I hope your vast readership is teeming with potential VM fans with Nielsen boxes.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah... it's mostly Baptist/Methodist country down here.

[skyblade.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I don't find the niamhstar deal very surprising.

Fantstic Four is getting a sequel (though I don't know if you consider it to fall under the "comedy" banner) but how about the new James Bond movie? There's another Rocky and that's rife for parody. A third Fast and the Furious is being released...when's Hannibal 902010 coming out?

[elyim.livejournal.com]

The book ideas sound great :D

There's also the Eragon/Inheritence Trilogy due, which would probably be those kind of films.

[claddagh812.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of the franchise-movie book much better than "big movies of 2005." To be honest, though, I'd read whatever you ended up writing and thoroughly enjoy it, whether it's franchise movies, big movies of such-and-such year, or anything else that you come up with.

[marciamarcia.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'm really surprised that isn't causing more vast internet wank considering all the energy people put into trying to track the guy down. I'm really kind of sad/disgusted to see a face-stomping be worked out and understood and so few people questioning that...though I suppose there's not a whole lot of good internet strangers are going to do for someone if they want to buy into "getting face stomped=not a big deal now".

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean, there was the first book. I don't have an actual deal for sequels in writing, but they had expressed interest in getting to see anything I worked on in the future, and I think part of what's stressed me out is that I had this tiny window in which to write a 2005-oriented book and still have it be marketable. Widening the parameters would make it a much easier sell, in terms of getting it published.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I don't know--I think Casino Royale is slated for November, and it's on my list, but I don't know if that's too late in the year or not. Theoretically, I might want to have the manuscript turned in by then. Fantastic Four is a thought, although it's... not all that fantastic. But yeah, it would count. When was that, 2004 or 2005? Same year as Batman, right?

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Good plan. And there's apparently an Alien vs. Predator 2 coming down the pipe, which you could do in 15 words or less. Might I suggest that two of them be "enough" and "already?"

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh, this is true. Is it coming out this winter? I think the cutoff point needs to be the end of this summer season, but... I have a feeling Eragon would get into a theoretical third book.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Recent franchise movies sounds like a great idea! :-) And I haven't seen Sin City for a while, but the thought of a M15M for it makes me a gleeful little person. lol

And as for linkspam, forgetful me has been neglecting to mention these things:

There's a writing contest called the First Adventure Writing Competition (http://deryka.livejournal.com/54135.html#cutid1) going on . . . first prize is a character portrait. :-) Not sure if it's something you specifically would be interested in, Cleo, since you're busy (I can't imagine why. Heh), but someone might be.

Also, I just found out about this neat little charity called Donors Choose, which lets teachers explain what their classrooms need, and people can search through and donate to specific schools/causes. I'm sponsoring a Challenge there (http://allthelivesofme.livejournal.com/132277.html). No idea how it'll work out, but worth a try. :-)

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

((and the deadline for the writing competition has been extended to June 1, btw))

[amberdulen.livejournal.com]

Would you consider doing old classics: Citizen Kane in 15 Minutes? Or top 10 movies from the 50s, or 60s, or 70s...?

[aberrantangels]

And if I read that entry correctly, she has recently spoken with the guy who kicked her in the face, and she... understands his motivation? Wha?

O_O I don't think I want to read any entry that can be summed up in those words.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Casablanca in 15 Minutes. ::snicker::

[skyblade.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it came out in July. It's not a great movie, but the bad science is just asking for a reaming. I'm not sure if it'd be redundant in light of X-Men 3. Blade is a popular franchise, and it had a third film in December of 2004, but that might overlap with Underworld. War of the Worlds isn't a franchise film but you could say "It's uh...a de facto sequel to Minority Report?"

Dare you take on Saw? Or The Ring 2, which came out early in 2005.

It's actually a shame a fourth Indiana Jones film never came out. The *creaks* write themselves.

[tygerlander.livejournal.com]

First off: <3's the icon :)

Somehow I read her last entry to be that she's getting ready to take him to court and supposedly she's shutting up to avoid giving the defense ammo to use against her.

That's what I think. She is kinda writing that last post like she's doped outta her mind. I hope so.

The Cro-Magnon man needs to have something sharp and point shoved up where the sun don't shine at any rate.

Have you thought about...

[mustang-bex1126.livejournal.com]

Best Picture winners in 15 Minutes. Or even some of the other categories... Like "Haley Berry movies in 15 Minutes" or some thing like that...

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Gone with the Wind in 15 minutes! Can you even imagine it?

SCARLETT: *is married*
SCARLETT'S HUSBAND: *dies*
SCARLETT: *is married*
SCARLETT'S HUSBAND: *dies*
SCARLETT: *is married*
SCARLETT'S CHILD: I'm going to die soon.
SCARLETT'S CHILD: *dies*
SCARLETT'S HUSBAND: *leaves*

[amberdulen.livejournal.com]

Gun: *blazes*

Bug-eyed Guy: *dies*

Audience: *weeps*

[sweetdaddydavid.livejournal.com]

Call it "the worst of m15m" and do the Razzies nominees and winners for the past 3 years. Plenty of unintential humor fodder there.