The Return (and other things)
…I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Gone and forgotten my blog for months at a time. Hmmm.
Well, what’s there to say? It’s nearly February… which means the Oscar nominations will be announced soon. I admit, I don’t pay a lot of attention to the Oscars themselves, other then to see whether any of the movies I enjoyed the previous year won anything (generally, they don’t). This year, though, was a truly stellar year for animated feature films, so I’m eagerly waiting to see which of them takes home the trophy for Best Animated Feature. I don’t even know which of the films that came out this year I prefer, but I think my heart’s torn between Coraline and 9. Coraline’s reasons are obvious, I hope: Selick and Gaiman on their own are enough to make me tear my way to the movies (or a bookstore) but both of them? It’s one of the most seamless stop-motion films I’ve ever seen, too: both in animation itself and the sheer detail of the world the film creates, it’s amazing. 9, on the other hand, had an equally gripping storyline, animation just as good, a world just as immersive, and a bittersweet ending that will linger in my mind for a good long time (especially as the way it was set up, I was expecting something along the lines of a Only Mostly Dead scenario).
…That and I just like the twins. They’re cool.
Of the others, my opinion varies greatly, but I’d be happy to see Princess and the Frog, Ponyo, or a couple of others come out on top (and I can’t help but think Disney’s very name will carry Princess and the Frog far when decision time comes for the committee). Seeing the Irish film, The Secret of Kells, manage a nomination would be nice (but I don’t think it would quite manage the trophy). But I’d be so much happier to see the dark, vibrant, detailled, immersive worlds of 9 and Coraline emerge victorious. They’re a breed apart from the typical animated movie of the Western world, especially those that come from Dreamworks, where it seems if there isn’t a funny joke somewhere in every scene, the writers failed at their jobs. (Oh yes, if Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs wins, I’ll kill something. You have been warned.) Not only that, but with two animated films that good in the same year, Focus deserves some positive attention thrown their way.
Oh well. Nothing to do but hope… and, of course, I’m keeping a close eye on Focus pictures from now on. Very, very close.
But it’s only the second day…
On that count, there is good news and bad news.
The good news: I have written over one-fifth of my total required word count! Most of it was acquired in short, 15-20 minute bursts with the help of Write or Die on Evil mode.
And that has a lot to do with the bad thing.
Most of it sucks.
HARD. Here are some examples, for the comedic value they present:
“Yes. What… What would you recommend here, to eat?” Johann relaxed a little, although his outer bearing didn’t change.
“Well, the roast beef is good, and comes with some of the best vegetables they have– they’re in season now– but the roast chicken is good too, especially with the meat dipped into grvy and the skin left dry. Wonderful and this–” he said, pointing to the salmon entry in the menu– “is also excellent, they’re lucky to live near a source, so it’susually no older than a day…”
No, the novel did not start like this. The 1000 words that preceded this fateful conversation were even more utterly banal, trust me.
Johann stared openly at Vien for a few moments before finally blurting out: “What the heck? That’s not… are you like…”
“Ever heard of the Guards?” she asked, cutting him off without too much consideration for his melting brain in her voice.
“Er, no, but I don’t see why you won–”
“This isn’t the time to explain then. Just watch and you’ll have a good idea of what we can do.”
Because Talking Is A Free Action, even with bullets, boiling oil, hand grenades and crossbow bolts coming over your heads, and a hoarde of zombies charging at you. This is only about a fifth of the yapping they did out there. And I’m sorry about the TVTropes link. Really. *cringe*
“No…I think he may be right,” Vien said in her own turn.
Ah, so that’s the explanation for the last one: This is an RPG! With turns!
“Yes, but not in the way you’re probably thinking of,” he replied, before letting out a whimper of delight as the three fish were placed over the rekindled fire.
“Breakfast soon, everyone!” Francis yelled, poking the coals with a stick to incite the fire to greater temperatures.
“Do that and you’ll just sear it on the outside and leave it raw inside.”
“I want to sear it,” Francis complained. “All the juice will run out of it if we don’t.” Derek scowled at him and snatched the stick Francis was using.
“You’re not ruining all our breakfasts by poking the fire.”
Vien leaned back and waited for the fish to be done so Derek and Francis would stop arguing over it.
I feel you, Vien. That was threatening to turn into something like Chriss and her stupid cocoa last year.
Her technique had been one of the more refined among her peers back at the clam home.
Err… meant to be clan. Or else Vien is saying she had a really weird upbringing.
Once they were out, they could dine on zombies if they wanted, three meals a day, and no-one would care.
Except the zombies, perhaps, since no-one knew how long they remained conscious after being hacked apart, or if they ever really died at all. So it was possible the zombie would care quite a lot.
Enough of that thinking now, Vien told herself. It has nothing to do with anything, and was actually extremely revolting, although whether it was the idea of eating a conscious zombie, or just the idea of eating a zombie in the first place, that was more disgusting,was debatable..
She really needed to stop.
YES. She DID. This is what happens when Write or Die makes you keep going and you just don’t have anything to write. Disturbing things. Horribly disturbing things.
Well, now I get to keep writing and dossing on the forums. Fun!
(Yes, I know the widget isn’t working. They aren’t activated yet. The Gunnerkrigg image keeps disappearing too, for some reason.)
Okay, fine, and Halloween too…
Alright, since it’s Halloween and all, I suppose I’ll throw in my two cent on that. It’s definitely not that I deeply wish to start writing my novel now and am just stalling until it comes time to write my novel. Certainly not. It’s… ah….a warm-up! Yes. It’s a warm up. heh.
Anyway, it’s not as if this is my first Halloween. Obviously if I can find my way around a blod I can find my way around a plastic pumpkin loaded down with toot-rotting, sugar-high inducing, completely and utterly free candy. Well, I thought it was free.
This year I paid for it. Yep, I’m one of the ones handing it out. We shall ignore the minutiae of just how the hell that happened and simply move on to Halloween itself.
Because Halloween is an interesting holiday: for a holiday best celebrated after dark, during which people dress up as everything from the walking dead to the living dead to animals to voodoo dolls to blood-drenched murderers from B-movies to the ghosts of those they killed… Halloween is a pretty good example of just how decent humans can be when they’re pushed to it.
This is a holiday where people buy things just so they can give them away to complete strangers. (The fact that their next-door neighbours may be complete strangers to them is another discussion.) They open their door to dozens of those complete strangers over the course of a few hours, and give candy away to them, expecting nothing in return. A holiday where people walk around their neighbourhood, or someone else’s, in the black of night, and encourage their kids– their kids!– to knock on pretty much every door they pass, without necessarily accompanying them there. Only about 10% of the people who have come here tonight have come up to the door with them. Which is normal on this occasion. So we have charity, trust, community: all that good stuff society runs on.
Yes, there are people who see this as an opportunity for mischief. Or worse. There are people who see that in every holiday. But halloween is the only holiday I can think of off the top of my head
that requires these things for celebration, instead of simply encouraging them. Pretty awesome.
Aw, look, a little guy from… was it Saw? I don’t really watch horror movies too often. Oh well. …he sure likes Tootsie Rolls, too. Bye, guy from some-movie-probably-Saw! Happy Halloween!
N-minus-5!
For those of you who don’t know what it is I’m counting down to so eagerly, it shall soon be…
NOVEMBER! *throws hands up in glee and anticipation*
Which, of course, means the return of NaNoWriMo to the lives of over 100,000 aspiring novelists all over the world. And for the sixth time, I’m one of them. Yeah.
NaNoWriMo, for non-wrimos, is the co-ordinated effort by thousands of people to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. That, at the very least, is 1,667 words a day. For me and my fairly average typing speed, that’s about 45-50 minutes of work minimum. Not counting the time inevitably spent chewing fingernails, sipping tea at an egregiously slow rate, slowly poking one letter key, then the backspace, over and over and over…that is, not counting the times you spend in front of the computer with the words just not coming.
It’s both harder and easier than it sounds. 1667 words a day may sound easier than it is; that’s about 6-7 pages of regular type. 50,000 however, probably sounds harder than it is. Over 21,000 people succeeded last year, quite a few blowing 50,000 out of the water and reaching 100k, 150, all the way up to the highest number the wordcount bars on the site will register: one paltry wordshort of a cool million.
(Yeah: I’m not sure how they did that either. It requires writing as much every day as I did all November ‘04.)
Look at the word count widget over there: that’ll tell you how much I’ve written, how close to my ultimate goal (75k; if I reach it, I’ll raise it) I am in percentage format, and who I am on the site.
As I write this, there’s about 5 hours left to go: Asian and European WriMos are typing away (or sleeping) and everyone running in GMT is eagerly counting down the final 10 minutes. I have five hours to wait. That’s five hours to outline the events I’ll cover in my first 10-15k, since I have an insane word count goal for the first 24 hours, to run to the store and get detergent (how banal), to limber up my typing fingers, and to make one last attempt to get inside my character’s heads, all interspersed with the doling out of candy to wandering children.
(Well, some people think some international holiday or something is more important than the sheer awesomeness that is NaNo. I don’t get it, but if they want candy, I might as well give it to them. )
This will be a wild month. Trust me.
In five hours, it will begin. *shudders in anticipation*
IF Prescience
For anyone who doesn’t know, (or indeed, is reading this at all) Illustration Friday is a website which posts a new topic/keyword every week, and encourages anyone who wants to draw, paint, or otherwise create some piece of visual artwork based around that keyword. You can look at the work of the other people who’ve done that keyword, too. It’s nice to check up on it and see what I have to come up with an idea for in that particular week, and it’s good as far as encouraging lateral thinking and creativity goes, too.
(I’m getting to it.) Anyway, this week’s keyword is “impossibility”. And I had the most brilliant idea for it. It’s symbolic, it’ll look good when it’s all finished up, and best of all, I can do it in chiaroscuro, because I really like that idea. Only thing is…
I had the idea yesterday. And I started it yesterday. I wasn’t connected to the internet yesterday– I logged on this morning. So far, I have three theories to explain this.
1) It’s a coincidence.
2) My brain has a live subliminal link to the internets.
3) Aliens/fairies/the CIA are messing with my mind.
…Nah.
The first one is a pure nonsense; surely even the most unconspiratorial fool can see that. Tomorrow in English class I’ll have to test the second one. I’ll see if I can access Wikipedia or TV Tropes. I’ll have to leave forums and such until I get a little more used to this new skill…
NO! (or, On My Darling Sister)
My sister is TWO. This is generally, I am told (I don’t remember being two, and my brother talked late) the age at which little kids develop a fascination with the word ‘no’. And boy oh boy, does she have it.
NO! (You have misunderstood me: I wanted the blackcurrant squash, not the orange.)
NO! (Actually, I’m not feeling sleepy; I would like some lunch, not a nap.)
NO! (I’ll stay outside for a little while longer, it will be dark soon after all.)
My favorite so far is:
Me: *takes out a DVD– Over the Hedge*
A: NO!
Me: What, you don’t want to watch this?
A: NO!
Me: Do you want to watch another DVD?
A: NO!
Me: …Are you just saying no for the sake of it?
A: NO!
Me: That means yes, then.
A: NO!
Me: Okay, sure. Watch RJ.
A: (transfixed already) NO!
Real life is not an RPG
We (the entire family) went on an excursion to a forest park yesterday. And, as expected, we got lost. Because we treated the excursion like an RPG dungeon.
By which I mean, if we saw a path or trail branching off from the main path through the park, we took it. One led to a ringfort. (Read: roundish clearing where all the mud was kindly hidden by fallen leaves.) Another went around in a big circle, leading absolutely nowhere. Another went over a big hill then effectively stopped at a lake, requiring anyone following it to backtrack back over the hill.
Damn. I hurt everywhere from walking everywhere. Note to self for the future: forest parks are BIG and MUDDY amd TIRING and are not to be approached in the way that a dungeon in a game would be. Yo do NOT have to go down every path.
Well, now I know. Learning about Real Life is fun… although it’s a lit more tiring than the Internets.
P.S: Reminded me of this comic page.
Lucky find!
This being my first post, I’ll open with a ‘hi’. But whatever people habitually do in first blog posts, I’m going to disregard it, because it’s probably boring. You don’t want to hear about my dog. Or the vagaries of my personality. Or what I had for breakfast. If you do, you can head on over to my profile– can’t promise much about the breakfast, though. Now, what shall I open with? Hmmm… ah. I know just the thing.
In Dun Laoghaire earlier this week, while the nice lecturers were perusing my portfolio for entry to their Animation course, I (and my mom as well, yes) was looking through a second-hand bookshop in the area. At no point, however, did I see the name of a favorite author or a long-sought title jump out at me from the shelves, from any part of the room, except for the Farseer Trilogy (Robin Hobb), which I’d already read, wonderful though those books be. I looked over the last short wall and shadowy alcove of the store, where the quiz and humor books were kept, with an air of disappointment. I didn’t expect to find anything interesting– certainly not anything interesting enough to buy.
How wrong could I have been? Nestled in the corner, between a manga title and a trivia book, was a fetching hardback about 8 inches tall, and only about 15mm wide. According to the spine, I was looking at the first book of Amulet: The Stonekeeper. It was worth a look, anyway, right? I pulled it down and leafed through the pages.
First Impression: It’s a comic.
Second Impression: It’s a cool comic. On the basis of an appealing art style and the barest promising glimpse of the storyline (it was a bookstore, not a library), Amulet wound up accompanying me out the front door of the shop. I’m glad it did, too. The storyline’s been nicely begun in this volume, with Emily (the central character) finding an amulet in her eccentric great-uncle’s workshop/library, and subsequently falling, along with her brother Navin, into an alternate Earth, where the two of them have to rescue their mother from the stomach a huge, bulbous, tentacled thing– with the help of a couple of the aforementioned uncle’s humanoid/lapinoid inventions. (Yes, all of that is on the flyleaf.) There’s something nice about seeing hand-drawn panel borders and speech-bubbles, too: there almost isn’t a single hard-edged line in the entire book, which is all the better as far as I’m concerned.
And when I visited the author’s website today, what did I find out? He only just finished the second book! All right! Won’t have to wait too long for that at all. Of course, while I wait, I have the good pupils of Gunnerkrigg to keep me company, right?
I love lucky finds like that– the best part of reading any story is the moment when I realise, this is a good one– I like this one a lot. Can’t wait until I encounter my next Brilliant Undiscovered Comic.
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