Really really hot randomocity

Temps hit triple digits here today and they probably will again over the next few days.

Yes, it's hot. I'm staying inside, watching a godawful movie on TV, staying cool. Writing Seer II. Playing Plants vs. Zombies--yes, it's a stupid game but I just can't stop.

To all you folks out there who want to make monster movies but don't have the budget to do a really effective monster--you can still do a good one but find creative ways to imply the monster instead of just showing it. Why? Because if your audience giggles when your monster appears on-screen, this is never a good thing. If you're trying to scare them, that is. Unfortunately, these days, the folks who make these movies seem to think that it is a requirement to show the monster, plainly and entirely, and since they can't afford to do it right it either looks like a guy in an ill-fitting suit and an expressionless, motionless mask, or CGI that looks like something from an old video game. It sort of spoils the whole thing, folks.

Watch Alien, people! Sheesh. One of the many reasons that film is a masterpiece.

Speaking of masterpieces--while this one doesn't exactly qualify, I do urger you to take just over and hour and a half to watch Island of Terror. I saw this movie when I was around nine years old--a local TV station would show monster movies in the early afternoons sometimes--and it scared me spitless. I watched it again today and found myself enjoying it all over again. It probably won't keep me awake all night this time but I did find it engrossing.

I've been talking about titles for the Seer film trilogy and here's what I'm thinking of calling them.

• Seer
• Seer II
• Seers

I'm sure that answers all those burning questions you've been having about this issue.

So, stay cool, wherever you are.

Scorching hot randomocity

Baby, it is hot outside. I mean hot. No doubt that summer has arrived.

I'll be spending my day working on the first draft of Seer II (and I still frakkin' hate that title, though it's better than the one I was using before)--I got to the end of Act I this morning.

I was sort of dreading that point, too--it contains an intense argument between the two central characters. It's silly, I know, but I like these two people and want them to get along. Unfortunately, if they got along this would be one boring frakkin' movie. Plus, the argument they had is nothing compared to what's in store for them in Acts II and III. Let's just say the next few days of their lives do not go well.

I also plan to nap, as much as I can. I haven't been sleeping very well over the past month or so for some reason. I'll sleep okay until around 3 a.m. and then wake up, and will be unable to go back to sleep again for hours. It is no fun at all, especially when it's been going on awhile.

An idea for a new tune came to me earlier today, too--I need to meditate on it for a time before deciding if it's worth developing into an actual song.

So, that's my life this weekend--writing and napping. As good as it gets. For me, anyways.

The process

A long time ago I co-wrote a series of novels that will never see the light of day. My collaborator drove me nuts during that time.

See, when I'm writing I don't spend a lot of time actually writing. I spend hours every day thinking about whatever I'm working on, imagining scenes, plotting out the plot, all that sort of thing. This is between calls at work, on my lunch break, at the grocery store, or sitting on the couch watching TV or playing a game. By the time I'm sitting here at my computer, fingers poised over the keyboard, I've already planned out my day's work. Actually physically writing it normally only takes an hour or so.

My collaborator thought that I had to actually be sitting at my computer banging away to actually be working. That's the way he did it--he thought that's the way it's supposed to be.

And I used to work that way, too, a long time ago--before I found out that after a five hour session of sitting, staring at the screen, typing, staring some more, typing, basically forcing the story out--that I would later go back and delete everything I wrote. Because it sucked. It read like I was struggling to find somethiung to say. Because I was.

Now I play with the project in my head throughout the day and it sort of flows when I sit down to work on it. It's amazing how easy it is, and it simply isn't necessary for me to spend all that time sitting here forcing myself to work.

I'd say I spend as much time as any other writer on writing--it's just that I spend more time with the pre-typing process, I guess.

Of course there are as many different approaches as there are writers--some work better sitting for hours at their computers writing and writing and writing. Others work more like I do, sort of daydreaming about their projects.

As Kipling said, "There are nine and ninety ways, for writing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right."

Post vacation randomocity

So, it's back to work tomorrow, after being off a week.

This is not a complaint--at least I have a job to go back to--but it's always a bit stressful, returning after being off for a while. Getting back up to speed with what's going on takes some time. My inbox is going to be interesting.

All-in-all my vacation was pretty productive. I saw Prometheus--twice--in 3D and lucked out with the theater audiences both times. First time there were about ten others in the theater with me and apparently they were there to actually watch the movie instead of party. Second time was even more ideal--I was the only one in the audience. If I can't watch a movie with my best friend and/or my goddaughter this is the ideal theater audience to me.

I made a very good start on Seer II--I'm almost all the way through the first act of the first draft. I read it over again last night and so far, so good, too. Some gut-wrenching scenes coming up in the second act--I may have to wait until next weekend to actually write those as I'll probably be exhausted after I finish that.

Also went by the music store I found a while back and replaced some gear that got lost in the move. I couldn't find a tuner like the one I was using but the one I got in its stead will work, I think.

Didn't work on any music during the week, which is one thing I was going to try to do. I'm not all that disappointed, though, because of my progress with the screenplay. I feel like I got quite a bit accomplished.

So, all things considered, a pretty good week off.

Oh, and Happy Father's Day, to all you dads out there!

A post-modern Prometheus

This is my review of the film Prometheus, which I just now got home from seeing. In case you were wondering.

First, my bona fides, for those who don't know. I'm not a fan of the film Alien. No, with me it goes way beyond that. I've been obsessed with it, since it came out in 1979. The following films in the series? Not so much. But I consider Alien to be the greatest film ever made.

So, needless to say, when I found out Ridley Scott was directing this sort-of prequel to his greatest film, I was excited about it. I've never followed a film so closely before, searching for articles and tidbits and spoilers online, pictures, trailers,, all that stuff.

To get this business out of the way, was I disappointed? Needless to say, my expectations were through the roof. Were they met?

Yes. They were.

But I'm a realist and I was not expecting another Alien. Scott has already made that film--there is no need for him to make it again, and that's not what he was doing here.

Alien was claustophobic, Prometheus is wide-open. Alien is intimate, Prometheus is epic. I could go on contrasting the two films but there is no need--while there are some things in common they are two different films.

Disappointments? Yes. My biggest disappointment was with the score--it was a bit too Star Trek in several places, though there were some musical shoutouts to the first film in a couple of places that I thought were very nice. All-in-all, though, I thought the score was too intrusive, inappropriate in spots, and a bit too pervasive. To give the composer the benefit of a doubt, though, he had a difficult task at hand because of my other issue with the film.

That is, it couldn't decide what kind of film it wanted to be--horror? Scifi? Allegory? Alien made that decision at a definite point--the famous chest-burster scene, where it suddenly became a haunted house story. While there are a couple of equivalent scenes in Prometheus it keeps drifting back and forth across that line, never wholly committing to one or the other.

That's not a major flaw here, though, more of a minor annoyance. In the end I didn't mind so much, and it didn't cost the film anything to my mind.

And the hommage to the original Greek myth that gives the film it's name was absolutely amazing and one of the hardest to watch scenes I've come across in a very long time.

Castwise--everyone was good to excellent. Fassbender's performance I'm sure you've heard is incredible. I loved Noomi Rapace, as well--and to all of you who were bitching about the decision to cast her, saying "She's no Sigourney Weaver"--you can all suck it. Of course she's no Sigourney. That's the whole point. She was perfect.

So, were any questions answered? Kind of. More questions were raised, and this is a good thing, provided the screenwriters and producers already have the answers to those questions. If they don't then the next film will make me feel like I'm being jerked around. If they do the next one will be as brilliant as this one.

Visually it was flawless. Like his stuff or hate it, Ridley Scott is a genius when it comes to shooting a film. You can see it here, in spades. Incredible. I have never seen anything like it.

Yes, there will be a sequel. Yes, I will see it. I can't wait.

I give it an A-. Only ding, really, was that disappointing film score.

The biggest hurdle

After a few false starts I think I've finally made a decent beginning on the script for the sequel to Seer.

Thiis is not unusual for me. Normally when I begin a new projects I have to delete and restart at least twice before I feel like I have something I can work with. Such was the case here. Now, though, it's starting to flow for me--I'm already seeing other scenes down the road, the story is unfolding, characters are defining themselves . . . this is why the process is so much fun.

The hardest part of a project for me is getting started. I've heard other artists talk about how intimidating a blank page one is and I can identify. But once those words start appearing it gets a little easier.

Another old adage that happens to be true--great stories aren't written, they are rewritten.

Here's what I liken the process to--this is a story I actually heard on Captain Kangaroo when I was a wee lad, and it is almost certainly not true, but it is illustrative. The story is, someone asked Michelangelo for the secret of his success as a sculptor. His reply was, "Say I want to make a sculpture of a lion. I find a piece of marble, and I carve away everything that doesn't look like a lion."

People look at me with an expression that you are now wearing--I guess I'm the only person in the world who gets that story's point. Let me see if I can explain it.

The first draft is the block of marble. Rewriting is the process of carving away the stuff that doesn't look like a lion--in other words, editing it so that the story contained within emerges unfettered and visible to those who chose to look for it. But before you can make the lion you must first have that block of marble.

Maybe that makes sense. I hope so.

So, I'm going to be banging away at this thing for the next few months,, then banging away at the rewrite, then sending it off to a friend of mine who will read it and then give me some notes on it, then rewriting again, and then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting . . .

I know, it sounds like sheer drudgery. In reality it is quite fulfilling. Once that ball gets rolling, that is.

So, if you want to be a writer, write. If you don't do that it'll never happen. Nobody will publish or film that blank page one.

Pre-vacation randomocity and a goodbye

First, the goodbye.

Ray Bradbury died this week. While Isaac Asimov began my transformation to a science fiction fan/writer, Bradbury completed the transformation. His anthology, S is for Space, changed my life, opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at things. He made me see things I hadn't noticed before, think about things I hadn't considered, see things in a brand new light. He also sort of introduced me to Lovecraft by mentioning him in a story--I got curious and sought HP out after reading that and promptly discovered a brand new source of deliciously terrifying nightmares.

Good bye, Ray. And thank you. You changed the world, for the better.

I'm taking a vacation this week. I'm not really planning to go anywhere--got a routine doctor's appointment, and I'm going to catch a matinee of Prometheus on Tuesday (Yes, I'll post a review afterwards).

I'm also going to start re-reading my screenplay, Seer, in preparation to beginning a first draft of the sequel, which I'm calling Seer II until I can come up with a better title than the one I had but decided was just bloody awful.

I'm also planning to swing by this music store to get some gear to replace what apparently didn't make the move with me--my microphone, some cables, guitar tuner, stuff like that.

Anyways, that's my upcoming week--writing, movie watching, getting poked and probed, and probably sleeping as much as possible.

Back home again and grieving randomocity

So, I went to visit family this weekend.

When I lived in Savannah I'd go every third week. Now that I'm Douglasville I go a lot less frequently. It's a bit of a longer trip and I try to save the wear-and-tear on my old pickup truck--and my nerves. Though I have to say I timed it well so that traffic was negligible, so my nerves are relatively intact.

However, another issue I run into when visiting dad's is dealing with ghosts. Specifically Atari.

I have no memories of him here, in my new place, and I never go to the place where he and I lived together for eight years or so. But he went with me several times to visit dad.

And there his ghost still roams, around the fenced in back yard where he would wander around after we had arrived, sniffing out a place to do his business and also checking out the spoor left behind by the armadilloes, squirrels, turtles, and other creatures that wandered through there.

I can't look out dad's front door without seeing Atari lying there in his favorite place, where he could look out through the glass and survey the front yard.

I can't sleep in my old room without remembering him being unable to setttle down and go to sleep--he wanted to be home, in his usual place in the bedroom where he could get truly comfortable. So, when we would visit dad he'd spend most of the night tossing and turning, sniffing, hoping I'll wake up and take him outside for no reason other than he was bored.

Atari's ghost still haunts my dad's house and it's hard to go there to experience it.

I miss you, you big silly dog. I love you.