Stacy kicks ass.
That is all.
Halfway
I should be breaking through the 25k barrier on the story‘s word count today (probably before 5pm). Here’s a recent snippet that made me chuckle:
Calliope did some quick calculation. “You’re the most powerful… thing that I’ve seen since I’ve gotten involved in this mess.”
“Oh, how you talk,” Faegos said and smiled, tipping his oversized head bashfully as though receiving a compliment. He blinked his bulbous eyes. “Really, I am surprised. I was led to believe you were quite… coarse at times.”
“I’m just trying to sort everything out,” Calliope said. “See, if I eventually have something you want, and you want to bargain for it now, then it’s probably dangerous to you.”
The diminutive old man’s smile vanished. “Go on.”
Calliope turned her eyes toward the ceiling, musing. “What’s to keep me from telling you to go fuck yourself, then waiting to find whatever you think I’m going to find and hunting you down like any other rat bastard?”
Faegos’ face was grim. “I see I was not entirely misinformed as to your personality.”
Calliope shrugged.
Joss Whedon destroys J.K. Rowling in no-holds-barred Cage Match
I’m officially foregoing Harry Potter tonight so i can stay home and watch Firefly instead. Jackie and Justin are still going — the shows are sold out for the whole night.
Seems like something similar happened with the first HP movie — everyone went, then I went later. Whatever. First one didn’t do much for me that the book hadn’t already done.
Geeky Trivia: The producer’s assistant that keeps a blog on the firefly website has a cameo in tonight’s episode.
Perspective
Here’s a scary thought:
Firefly could get cancelled.
Birds of Prey could keep going, maybe for years.
That’s the world we live in.
Sometimes I understand not wanting to have kids. I mean… whoa.
Morbid and Creepifying
My current favorite Firefly line:
River: The human body can be drained of blood in 8.2 seconds with the proper vacuuming equipment.
Mal: See, now, morbid and creepifying I’ve got no problem with, but don’t let her scare the cattle.
And speaking of morbid and creepifying, how about last night’s Buffy?
*deep shudder*
Yeah, me too. Jeez, that was some of the creepiest stuff I’ve ever seen them do, and they had something eating Willow alive a few weeks ago.
—
Okay, onward: here’s a few quotes from Joss Whedon from a very recent interview:
Where the rubber hits the road.
I’m hating what I have to write tonight. I have a fear of commitment.
There comes a point at which suspense becomes frustration; instead of keeping the best parts hidden, you’re just frustrating the audience. But once you’ve given up enough of the story to the audience, you risk losing the best parts of it: is the moster ever as scary once you’ve actually seen it in full frame on the screen? Obviously, no.
This is the point I’m at: some of the curtain has to draw back — I know this because of the main character: by god, if she doesn’t find some stuff out right now, she’s going to fuckin’ walk out. I can’t ignore her anymore, but I still hate this part.
Up to this point, the mind of the reader does a lot of my work for me: whatever I don’t say they fill in for themselves with the most delicious terrors and boogeymen in their own head. Now I have to shine a light in there and say “here’s the boogeymen that I see”. Some people will see it and say “that’s what I figured” and some others are going to say “eh, I’ll deal with that”, and the rest will just lose interest.
At least that’s how it plays out in my head. I love the suspense, the shadowy zones of undefined space, but if I leave it that way for too long I’ll get to the end of the story and everyone will be writing me to ask what the hell they just read.
It’s the thing you’ve eventually got to do, hoping that most everyone says “well, now that I can see the rest of ride, I’d say it looks fun and I’m staying on”. That’s what you hope. Here’s hoping.
Firefly
Well, I really can’t recommend it any more than I have. I really enjoy Firefly, and I want keep it on the air. There’s a Fan Movement to support the show, and if you’re into it, check it out. Right now, they’re working on a postcard campaign for the Sweeps month of November and are auctioning off script books signed by the authors to raise money for a full-page ad in Variety.
Happy Thoughts, Happy Thoughts…
This is how we do it… [sing]
Sol said (in comments): “How do you do it?
Well, Zelazny’s method works very well for some: every time you flip over to the screen where you’re writing, you have to promise yourself that you’ll write at least three more sentences before you leave that screen, basically.
For me, that probably wouldn’t be enough… somewhere in there, something has to kick off and make something more of itself. What I do is commit to getting 500 words out every time I start writing — by the third time I write that day, I’m getting close to the 1800 I want, per day. Here’s a few other bits…
– Never edit: If you want to spellcheck, that’s good, but the next run is for editting — people get hung up trying to make one page perfect (rearranging sentences and scenes) instead of writing more imperfect pages. It will never, ever be perfect, so write like crazy and edit later. One of the best things keeping the word count going is that you have to force yourself to accept what goes down on the paper as your first draft, good or bad, and move on.
– Embrace productivity, not perfection: it doesn’t matter if what you’re getting down is crap, it’s your crap, and by god there’s a story there somewhere. Eventually you’ll find it, but for now just write write write. Nobody writes a perfect book, certainly not the first time. Stephen King writes 60k words a month so that after he does his second draft he’s still got 54k.
– Take lots of showers: Seriously. Something about those water drops hitting your head make ideas come.
– Never write everything: Finish each writing session with something you still haven’t had a chance to write lingering in your head. Let that small bit you haven’t done sit there and fester germinate. By the time you get around to writing that part, it’ll have lots of little word buddies that are waiting for you to write them as well.
– If you don’t know what comes next, move: You’ve got lots of characters (and if you don’t, add some, or make your main character schizo, or something). When you’re stuck on what happens next to character A, move to character B: someone else that you DO have an idea about. Readers will think you’re building suspense and heightening anticipation — they’re dead wrong, but who are you to correct them?
There are lots of people who know more about this than I do — these are just tricks for getting the words out there. Everything after that is gravy, so wallow around in the keyboard and just push. :)
Update:
Chris Baty’s suggestion: “Keep those guilt levels high and stay away from that delete key.”