Music I've Been Listening to Lately

We're gonna rock with Def Leppard!

Writing Tidbit

Dean Wesley Smith posted this video on his own blog because creator Michael La Ronn talked about Dean's book Writing Into the Dark.

For the record, I read Dean's book some time ago. And I pretty much gave up outlining back in 2008 when I wrote Amish, Vamps & Thieves. These days, I do a half-assed combination of plotting and pantsing. As in, I know how/where the story starts, I know how/where the story ends.

The middle stuff? I just start typing and leave it to the characters to figure out how they are getting from Point A to Point Z. It's basically my own weird version of The Amazing Race. LOL

Anyway, I watched Michael's video, and I was intrigued. He has some interesting spiritual/psychological insights beyond Dean's "Just the facts, ma'am" delivery. I ended up subscribing to Michael's YouTube channel to watch the rest of his videos on writing. And I'll probably check out his fantasy novels, too.

So check out Michael's commentary on Writing Into the Dark and see if he can help your process.

The Summer Shorts Sampler

I'm not in this promotion, but a couple of writers I know are. Lots of good stories, but I highly recommend Joseph Bradshire's "Fire Flower" and Stuart J. Whitmore's "Wolf Block".

Even better? All the stories in The Summer Shorts Sampler are FREE!

So load up your phone, tablet or e-reader before that Fourth of July roadtrip. This is a great way to try some new-to-you authors!

Monday Movie Mania - Ocean's 8

I finally felt comfortable enough for an extended outing in public, and there are too many movies out in June that DH and I want to see. So the plan is to hit them in the order of their release...


* * *


SPOILERS!!



* * *


PROS
1) Sandy B. ALWAYS brings it! She was totally believable as Danny's little sister, Debbie.

2) The rest of the cast was charming and delightful in their roles. I just wish there was more interaction between them since most of the scenes were between each actress and Bullock.

3) The plot was frothy summer fun. No death threats or posturing.

4) James Cordon as the insurance investigator was funny as hell. He knows damn well who stole the Cartier necklace, but he doesn't feel the need to wave his wang about it as long as he can recover the goods so his company doesn't have to pay out.


CONS
1) Danny's dead!? Look, I didn't expect George Clooney to be in this one, but I was waiting for the reveal that Danny faked his death to get some peace with Tess. Was this Steven Soderbergh's "screw you" to Clooney for not wanting to do a fourth Ocean's movie?

2) I would have loved a little more character building with Debbie's crew. Rihanna's Nine Ball and Awkwafina's Constance in particular were shorted.

3) Really? They had to bring in Yen at the last minute to complete the heist? LAME!


Overall, Ocean's 8 is what I would expect out of a summer heist comedy--fun without a lot of thinking. I give it 8 stars out of 10.

Music I've Been Listenting to Lately

June needs to be Def Leppard Month!

I'm Still Here!

It's been simultaneously busy and boring since I got out of the hospital.

Bills are starting to roll in just from the initial scans and biopsies from April and the first half of May. Despite having insurance, we're talking several thousand dollars worth of items with deductibles or stuff the asshole insurance company is flat-out refusing to pay for.

For example, United Health Care is trying to say any ultrasound or MRI is an "experimental" procedure. Mind you, lobular carcinoma is notorious for not showing up on x-rays.

So it's a matter for writing letters to challenge the UHC's bullshit. And calling various providers to set up payment plans.

Before anyone makes a comment about why we don't have savings, let me point something out--we did. We'd been saving for a down payment on a house. That's gone now, swallowed in the miasma of cancer treatment costs.

In the meantime, my typing was down to nil, thanks to my Jackson-Pratt drain. When the surgeon takes such a large swath of tissue, like in a mastectomy, fluid collects under the sown-up incision, especially blood and lymph fluids. My drain was a couple of inches beneath my left armpit. Unfortunately, there's no rhyme or reason for how long a person might need to keep the drain in. As my surgeon said, there's no correlation between age, gender, size, or type of surgery.

No worries, right? I could sit in my recliner with my laptop, right?

However, when I tried typing on my wip the second week after my surgery, my left arm would rub against the drain. Think of the type of rubbing of a new shoe that causes a blister on your foot. Within three days, the pain was unbearable. I had to stop. I even tried typing with just my right hand, but I'd get so immersed in the story, I'd start typing with both hands until the pain made me halt.

So I left my laptop on the desk, propped up my left arm, and watched too much TV.

The drainage petered down to where the surgeon felt comfortable pulling the drain on Monday. Yay! Freedom! I could write again without pain. And I did peck out a couple of pages Monday night.

However, my appointment with a oncologist here in town is next Monday, roughly four weeks from my surgery. I'm also looking to get a second opinion from an oncologist in Detroit. I don't know what's going to happen next. Radiation? Chemo? A combo of both? Neither?

Basically, I need to write (type) as much as I can over the next few days before the next step. But to be perfectly blunt, I'm reconsidering reconstruction after all the bullshit with the drains.

Monday Movie Mania - Gifted

Gifted was a sweet little character piece I missed in the theaters last year in my desperate attempt to get some writing finished. It only lasted in our local cineplex for a couple of weeks. I really should have gone to see it then.

I made a point of recording it during the February free HBO weekend, and finally sat down to watch it. while I was recovering from surgery. This is not a remake of Little Man Tate, though there are a ton of plot similarities.


* * *


SPOILERS



* * *


PROS
1) Chris Evans shows a depth to his acting he normally doesn't reach for in a lot of his other movies. His Frank is not a dumb mechanic. Evans gives Frank a measured nuance of why a former philosophy professor would become a boat repairman for the sake of his niece's humanity.

2) Elizabeth Marvel captured the incredible ego of today's public school officials, where it's never really about the kids, but about punishing the parent/guardian(s) for daring to question the official's methodology or opinion.

3) Lindsay Duncan as Frank's mom/Mary's maternal grandmother Evelyn was perfect as a person who really doesn't get the harm she does to the people around her. (Sending her granddaughter's cat to a kill shelter was low, but Evelyn really didn't get how bad she fucked up.)

4) Mckenna Grace was perfect as Mary. She didn't push the precociousness too far, nor did she come across as unnatural in her emotions. Despite Mary's intellect, she still comes across as a warm, giving child.


CONS
1) Octavia Spencer does her usual excellent work, but I wish casting directors and producers would see her as something more than the Mamie role they keep plugging her into.

2) This would still have been a great movie without the gratuitous sex scene between Frank and Bonnie, Mary's public school 1st grade teacher.


Overall, Gifted earns a 9 stars out of 10.

Sweet Cthulu, Am I That Old?

I picked up a couple Def Leppard albums over the weekend because the local oldies station has been playing them a lot.

When did the stuff I listen to become "oldies"?

Monday Movie Mania - Blade Runner 2049

Blade Runner 2049 is one of those movies that we missed when it was at our local theater. DH was in the middle of soccer season. Not to mention, this was soon after his mom passed, so he was spending a lot of his free time doing  stuff for or with his dad. I didn't dare go without him so I went to Professor Marston and the Wonder Women instead.

But the original is on DH's list of favorites, so he wanted to watch it, and we tried the Amazon Prime rental feature. I was impressed with the ease and the quality of the streaming function.

But this isn't a review about Amazon, and since the movie came out less than a year ago...


* * *


SPOILERS



* * *


PROS
1) The story picks up thirty years after Blade Runner, and the producers and director stayed true to the noir atmosphere of the original movie.

2) I've never been a big fan of Ryan Gosling, but he did a convincing and sympathetic job as the replicant blade runner, K.

3) Robin Wright has really come into her own as an actress. I only wish there had been more of her in the film. Her character hints that she knows more about K than he realizes.

4) The writers add more clues that Deckard is himself an even more advanced replicant than Rachel without actually coming out and saying the truth. (The character figured out the truth in Phillip K. Dick's book , the basis for the original movie, but he retired Rachel to hide that he knew the truth.)


CONS
1) Using K the same way Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty was used in the first movie. It was at its heart lazy writing.

2) Taking Deckard off-world to interrogate him makes no sense. It would be a total waste of resources on a dying earth.

3) This story continues the recent trend of movies that set up the protagonist as "The Chosen One" only to yank the rug out from under them. I don't mind the everyperson being the protagonist whose moral compass demands they do the right thing, but I hate the need of writers to trash the protagonist's ego. It's a morality convention the Hollywood seems determined to shove down the throats of the Millenials, to say "Hey, you're not special, no matter what your parents said."


Overall, I give Blade Runner 2049 8 out of 10 stars just for the annoyances in my CONS list.

New Music I Like

Some beats just work outside of stupid-ass commercials...