Amy Lee Takes No Crap!
Jun. 9th, 2011 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribalI feel like I haven't been to LJ in a while, but that isn't really true.
Dude I'm dating came back from Morocco recently - said there were some nice scenes of police beating protesters because they didn't have the proper permit to protest, of course. Also, there's a large, beautiful mosque in Casablanca that is built on artificial land on top of the Atlantic - it's architect didn't take into account that the Atlantic will someday come back and bite that artificial land in the butt, eventually sinking the mosque. It also cost the country a lot of money and displaced a bunch of poor people without compensation. He also tried to climb this mountain, but failed.
Saw X-Men, don't have anything to say about it beyond what I told![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cafenowhere (Leland Palmer as Dean Rusk?). Yesterday I watched an interesting little extremely low-budget horror movie on Netflix called The Ceremony (don't ask me what's up with that cover), about a guy graduating college who finds that his roommate has left behind an odd little book surrounded by a ring of burning candles. Being concerned about fire safety, the main character blows the candles out, and being a curious student, starts reading the book, which turns out to be a history of a ritual used to summon Satan, here "the man in the white suit." Of course he reads some unfortunate parts aloud and things start happening around the house, culminating in a phone conversation where he tells a friend, "The furniture, it came alive. It had to be contained." It takes its cues from Paranormal Activity and had some interesting touches, particularly when the main character learns to his horror that he can understand as well as speak the language being spoken by the presence in his house. It's creepy, it has a cast of essentially one person, and it's well-made on a shoestring budget. Good job, director James Palmer. Horror fans, check check it.
I've been putting all my writing efforts into the novel, which is now at 77,000 words. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near finished, so looks like I'll be overshooting that 100,000 word goal. This is how it's getting done: I made an extremely detailed outline of 10,000 words, and I'm writing it scene by scene, often out of order. I do foresee problems with flow and continuity and a believable evolution of characters, doing it this way, but at least it's getting done this way, right? I'm going to quit my job in July to devote the rest of the summer to writing this thing before I move to D.C. to start graduate school.
Had a David Lynch moment today while driving to work. We've had construction in the left lane of this one big swerving road for a month now, so all the regular commuters automatically drive in the right lane even before we're told to merge right. But today there was a new big flashing construction sign telling cars that the right lane would be closed up ahead, so go into the left lane. Everybody's like, wow, maybe they finished the left lane and are starting work on the right lane? And after about a mile of driving in the left lane, with no sign of construction on the right, the old familiar big flashing sign pops up telling cars that the left lane was closed, so we all scoot back over to where we started. Calisthenics for cars, I guess. Speaking of David Lynch, I'm trying to convert my mom to Twin Peaks. It's going... interestingly. One of my tactics is comparing it to our favorite shared show, the British cozy-mystery series Midsomer Murders. They both feature a gamut of weird people in seemingly-innocuous, scenic small towns, grisly murders, and supernatural undertones. If you're unfamiliar with MM, I've always thought it was what Hot Fuzz was tipping its hat to. MM is also one of the few TV shows to ever make me cry (in the episode "Green Man," which is very environmentalist). Someday I'll do an ode to my favorite MM episodes, cuz it's a wonderful show.
I'm almost done with Alan Heathcock's Volt (one more story to read). Also almost done with Godforsaken Lord of the Rings (two more chapters).
Here's an acoustic version of Korn's "Freak on a Leash," with Evanescence's Amy Lee. Shut up, I don't shop at Hot Topic! Also, Evanescence did a cover of "Thoughtless" that I like, but a lot of Korn fans are all "what the fuck this song has to be full of AGGRESSION and RAGE D:<" and I'm like, whatever.
Dude I'm dating came back from Morocco recently - said there were some nice scenes of police beating protesters because they didn't have the proper permit to protest, of course. Also, there's a large, beautiful mosque in Casablanca that is built on artificial land on top of the Atlantic - it's architect didn't take into account that the Atlantic will someday come back and bite that artificial land in the butt, eventually sinking the mosque. It also cost the country a lot of money and displaced a bunch of poor people without compensation. He also tried to climb this mountain, but failed.
Saw X-Men, don't have anything to say about it beyond what I told
cafenowhere (Leland Palmer as Dean Rusk?). Yesterday I watched an interesting little extremely low-budget horror movie on Netflix called The Ceremony (don't ask me what's up with that cover), about a guy graduating college who finds that his roommate has left behind an odd little book surrounded by a ring of burning candles. Being concerned about fire safety, the main character blows the candles out, and being a curious student, starts reading the book, which turns out to be a history of a ritual used to summon Satan, here "the man in the white suit." Of course he reads some unfortunate parts aloud and things start happening around the house, culminating in a phone conversation where he tells a friend, "The furniture, it came alive. It had to be contained." It takes its cues from Paranormal Activity and had some interesting touches, particularly when the main character learns to his horror that he can understand as well as speak the language being spoken by the presence in his house. It's creepy, it has a cast of essentially one person, and it's well-made on a shoestring budget. Good job, director James Palmer. Horror fans, check check it.I've been putting all my writing efforts into the novel, which is now at 77,000 words. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near finished, so looks like I'll be overshooting that 100,000 word goal. This is how it's getting done: I made an extremely detailed outline of 10,000 words, and I'm writing it scene by scene, often out of order. I do foresee problems with flow and continuity and a believable evolution of characters, doing it this way, but at least it's getting done this way, right? I'm going to quit my job in July to devote the rest of the summer to writing this thing before I move to D.C. to start graduate school.
Had a David Lynch moment today while driving to work. We've had construction in the left lane of this one big swerving road for a month now, so all the regular commuters automatically drive in the right lane even before we're told to merge right. But today there was a new big flashing construction sign telling cars that the right lane would be closed up ahead, so go into the left lane. Everybody's like, wow, maybe they finished the left lane and are starting work on the right lane? And after about a mile of driving in the left lane, with no sign of construction on the right, the old familiar big flashing sign pops up telling cars that the left lane was closed, so we all scoot back over to where we started. Calisthenics for cars, I guess. Speaking of David Lynch, I'm trying to convert my mom to Twin Peaks. It's going... interestingly. One of my tactics is comparing it to our favorite shared show, the British cozy-mystery series Midsomer Murders. They both feature a gamut of weird people in seemingly-innocuous, scenic small towns, grisly murders, and supernatural undertones. If you're unfamiliar with MM, I've always thought it was what Hot Fuzz was tipping its hat to. MM is also one of the few TV shows to ever make me cry (in the episode "Green Man," which is very environmentalist). Someday I'll do an ode to my favorite MM episodes, cuz it's a wonderful show.
I'm almost done with Alan Heathcock's Volt (one more story to read). Also almost done with Godforsaken Lord of the Rings (two more chapters).
Here's an acoustic version of Korn's "Freak on a Leash," with Evanescence's Amy Lee. Shut up, I don't shop at Hot Topic! Also, Evanescence did a cover of "Thoughtless" that I like, but a lot of Korn fans are all "what the fuck this song has to be full of AGGRESSION and RAGE D:<" and I'm like, whatever.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 04:09 pm (UTC)Calisthenics for cars, I guess. (LOLed at that, too)
That's super that you're taking time off to finish the novel--fingers crossed for you.
Someone else somewhere said good things about The Ceremony. I'm hit and miss with horror; I like about half the things people recommend, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. (Haven't yet seen The Shining--it's in the queue now, though)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 04:16 pm (UTC)Thanks!
Well, Ceremony is completely un-gory, and I suspect some horror fans might slam it for being too "art school" (like SF/F fans slamming SF/F books written by "literary authors", y'know), so... hard to say.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 07:28 pm (UTC)I was eying those Tinkerbell pillow cases myself.
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Date: 2011-06-09 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 07:43 pm (UTC)I liked it a lot. You?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 03:25 pm (UTC)Novel-writing plan sounds ambitious. Wish you luck!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 04:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, especially now that I write more slowly and deliberately. I have hope, however. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 04:48 am (UTC)His sister is in Morocco? Why?
Deadlines like that scare me very much.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 02:10 pm (UTC)She was studying abroad there, for a year.
But with this kind of writing deadline, at least you're not accountable to anyone other than you. So if I don't get it done it's not like I lose anything, and besides, it's not like "finish novel" here means "novel is ready for publication." I would still need to do like 20,000 edits (well, maybe not that many). This is more like "get text on page." Which, again, I've gotten less good at.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 07:08 am (UTC)Eh...I think it's difficult to connect in any deep way with other people. It's easy to sympathize, harder to understand, and hardest to have that kind of emotional connection. Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean other people do, necessarily. They just have relationships anyway. :P Seriously, though. Maybe real emotional connection is a bit of a high standard, not that I think you should lower your standards. And maybe you need to get out of Nebraska. I feel like...the people who stay behind there tend to be less ambitious/talented (not that all are), and you might need someone with more of that in common before you can worry about connecting to them... fwiw. I know I wouldn't have a hope of finding somebody there, myself. You haven't exactly been in the best place to find people to date for like the last six years, and I don't think you should blame yourself for that. It's difficult.
Also, I would like to note that technically, I am 'not in a relationship.' We have issues. Which cause difficulties.
See, if I'm not accountable to anyone other than myself, I don't take it very seriously. It's like, what's the point of even having a deadline? But maybe I could make a habit, like 'an hour a day' by myself. I don't really understand forcing oneself to write, either. I tend to be like, 'If you're not dying to write it, if you can live with yourself not writing it, etc., then it's not worth writing.' Which is maybe a bit overly romantic.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-15 01:30 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think you're right in that I'm setting too high of a standard. I think that the relationship as it is has been good for me (or at least, people around me think I'm generally happier or whatever), but I need to accept that it's not going to be the end-all-be-all, or last, or anything. I hope you're right about that last part, and that it's not just me. I do blame myself for that because they're decisions I've made (where to live), but for other reasons. I guess my fear is that because of my non-extensive experience I'll fuck it up when someone really compatible does come along. But no use living in fear, right?
I actually agree with you on not forcing oneself to write. I think that's true. But I don't see this as forcing myself to write so much as just saying, "hey, focus, work," and not letting myself get distracted by things on the internet. Cuz it's not that I don't write otherwise, it's just that I write slowly and inefficiently. Part of that is an accumulation of bad habits on my part (I really do blame the internet. It wasn't as powerful of a pull when I was younger).
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Date: 2011-06-13 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 11:02 pm (UTC)