(no subject)
Jul. 8th, 2004 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cleolindaFantastic Four casting: The HELL? Rumor had got me expecting George Clooney and Julia Stiles, and they give us Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba? (Yeah. I have no problems with Gruffudd. Besides, I'm sure there's a lot of people who'll be thrilled with that one.) But--Jessica Alba? Not that it's entirely settled yet--other candidates are Rachel MacAdams and Keri Russell, completing a triumvirate of actresses who have no physical traits in common.
P.S. We were watching the second half of Flashdance on VH1 last week, and--Jessica Alba was totally constructed from Jennifer Beals' DNA. Don't lie, you know it's true.
Working: Edited Black Ribbon chs 1-3 last night. Was dismayed by the staginess of the first chapter--you can feel me trying to tell a story, instead of just getting caught up in it. Did some word tweaking, cleaned up a few awkward/overwritten sentences, but... really, it is so not as good as I remembered it. I mean, I'm really proud of the work I did on the characters and the story/plot itself, but... yikes. I'm going to have to do some heavy editing to the ball in the second chapter, I think, because it just goes on and on and on... although theoretically it does balance out the whole crisis at the Blacks' house in the second half. But... yar, that first chapter. Still, the writing does get a bit smoother towards the end of the three chapters, and I'm editing out some of the interminable bit about the Chinese herbs.
Which brings up something I love about writing on the computer--I can't write by hand anymore, you know. Seriously, I hate taking notes in class now. I used to be a total speed demon with a mechanical pencil; I remember that, when I was younger--can't remember how much younger, but probably early teens--I hand-wrote 42 pages in one day (college rule, fronts only). But now that I write everything on a keyboard, my right hand isn't used to taking all the weight; it gets tired so easily now doing longhand now. In fact, I'm pretty sure I type faster than I write--almost faster than I think.
Which is great and all, but I remember when computers first started to take over typewriters' territory, people were pissing and moaning about how the age of rough drafts would be gone. Not that people wouldn't draft anymore, but that they would just change things on the computer and you'd have no record of the changes and woe. Apparently it never occurred to people at this time that you could just save different versions.
Which is what I do. (Hi, three paragraphs in a row beginning with "which." I'm pretty sure that's a new record.) I pick up the latest version of Black Ribbon chapter 4, which was titled something like "installment4 050304.doc," and read over the most current draft, which reflects changes made on--you got it--May 3. Then I save it as (what's today...?) "installment4 070804.doc" and go on my merry way. That way, if I stupidly delete something and decide I want it back two weeks later, I can just go through previous versions and find what I want. As far as I'm concerned, it's a system that preserves and documents drafts better than my longhand method, which was basically A Pile of Crap in a Box Lid. If you don't already use a system like this, let me highly, highly recommend it. (The dated document thing... not the Pile of Crap thing.)
So. Off to take the dogs for a quick walk, and then back to work I go.
ETA: I took the dogs outside and found a hand-written note wrapped around the front door handle:
John's Novelty Shop
Looking for those hard to find items? Call me, John Rogers, at [phone number] or beep me at [number] (beeper number). I have the following:
Pen Radios: $15.00
Radio/Flashlights: $25.00
Portable Televisions: $35.00
Mace: $20.00
Stun Guns: $50.00
First Aid Kits: $25.00
I have so many other items!!
I will personally deliver the items to your home or business!!
There's something about that specific collection of items that just cracks my shit up.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:12 am (UTC)that said, i still write by hand. part of it is ease -- my computer is an elephantine tower model that i can't lug anywhere without throwing out my back. part of it is also the effort. i can write something out completely by hand and really feel what i'm writing in my wrists and fingers, and then i can shove it in a drawer and not think about it for a few days. at that point i just write it out. a friend of mine who writes has this belief that the cut-and-paste option has been the death of good writing because no one needs to go back and reread what they've written...they can just plug the new stuff in.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:42 am (UTC)And I do write a little by hand when I'm away from the computer, but it's mostly a boredom/emergency thing. My handwriting has so deteriorated since I got my computer that I can barely read it anymore anyway.
Good luck with the short film, by the way. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:18 am (UTC)Have you ever wanted to say something and for some odd reason, can't seem to find the right way to say it?
I hate that.
Anyway, out of gratitude for sharing your 15M series with me, i'd like to invite you over to my journal, where i've written two vignettes, I hope you may find entertaining. So... if you're so inclined, enjoy! Oh, and they're before the Fahrenheit 9/11 post.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 08:54 am (UTC)I used to watch FF (the cartoon) everyday after school growing up on some kind of Hanna Barbera hour thingy, but didn't Reed Richards have gray hair? Clooney might have been the way to go, but after Batman Forever, I don't know if we will see him do a comic book film again...
I need to check out your Black Ribbon site...
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:42 am (UTC)I type 115 wpm. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:57 am (UTC)That is so true for me too, I type so much quicker than I write by hand, so writing by hand just pisses me off because it takes too long! Of course, that makes me try to write more quickly but that makes my hand writing even more difficult to understand.
I have no patience.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 10:30 am (UTC)Once I get tired of writing longhand, I will type up what I wrote (I'm yet another of the fast typists). I usually end up writing more of the story on the computer, but I will make notes in the sketchbook as I go along.
Next time I sit down to write, I draw a line across the sketchbook page and just start writing where I left off on the computer copy. But, I save the notebooks (I don't know why), so I have a giant collection of nonsensical first drafts.
And why isn't there a guy selling stun guns door-to-door in my neighborhood? I am so jealous!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 10:37 am (UTC)As Sue Storm?!?!?!?! What?! Jessica Alba in a blonde wig?! WTF?!?!
Hmmm... well, it may work...
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 02:57 pm (UTC)Also "asshattery" is a word you just don't hear often enough. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 09:50 am (UTC)Thank you so much for letting me limerick your work; it really made me laugh!
OMG..SS....RL...
Date: 2004-07-08 03:31 pm (UTC)I love you now. You can never escape me.
Shame.
Re: OMG..SS....RL...
Date: 2004-08-04 12:30 am (UTC)Re: OMG..SS....RL...
Date: 2004-08-04 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 01:26 pm (UTC)Or Keri Russell, for that matter. What's wrong with Julia Stiles? That'd be awesome!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 05:13 am (UTC)I don't know FF at all though, so I can't offer any constructive casting suggestions.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-09 05:59 am (UTC)James Cameron just needs to stop getting work.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 01:46 pm (UTC)Screw actors!
Date: 2004-07-08 03:40 pm (UTC)Re: Screw actors!
Date: 2004-07-08 06:36 pm (UTC)Nothing beats the classics.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 03:43 pm (UTC)Omigoodness, no! I actually like her, but just....no! It's just not right!!
Is there somewhere we can go to vote for Julia Stiles?
Date: 2004-07-08 05:48 pm (UTC)Makes me mad.
And George Clooney is fantastic. I can't wait to see 12.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 06:25 pm (UTC)That is an excellent word.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 06:30 pm (UTC)(I'm kidding, I kid, I kid.)
They're greenlighting everything these days. What's next, "New Warriors?" Who would be "Nova, the Human Rocket?" Joey Pants? Who'd be "Speedball"? "Namorita?"
I'm just happy Nick Cage will not be Superman. Forgive me for saying this, but he is a "Buttmunch". Okay, I'm not sorry.
That annoying blonde girl from "24" would be a better Sue Storm, if only because her "Ultimate" version is modeled after her.
naming versions
Date: 2004-07-08 07:14 pm (UTC)I'm a layout artist (I make books all day), and version control is my life. I find it sort of amusing that the EXACT WAY I name my files (today's were called, for instance, atlas frontmatter 070804.qxd and atlas spreads 070804.qxd) is what you came up with. I've been doing this for years, and it's almost ideal.
The only quibble I have with it is that once you do start doing it for years, or even if the same project spans December and January, your files don't sort alphabetically by date anymore. You get all the Julys and then all the Augusts, even if some of them are twelve months older.
If you want a piece of advice, and if (as I think you do) you have years-long projects lying around, alter the system just slightly and change the date format to YYMMDD. Like "installment4 040708.doc". That's how I have my digital photo rolls arranged, and it's just so super handy to be able to sort it by date when only a 'name' field is available.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:27 pm (UTC)Mace, a pen radio, a flashlight and a first aid kit. It's the nerd jogger from hell.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 09:44 pm (UTC)As for that flyer, I have this to say: Pen radios? $50 for mace? What is this guy, James Bond?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 10:49 pm (UTC)Mine all start with "I". Because I'm such a self-centered hor. Not that I'm saying that's a bad thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 01:33 pm (UTC)::resumes lurking::