Soooo yeah. That resolution of mine to blog more? Well…
Oh, and those ten pages I was supposed to turn in to my writing group… last Tuesday?
Hmm. And when is enrollment for grad classes for this semester? Oh. Really? Three months ago, you say…?
Yeah. I’ve been falling behind.
But I’m enjoying the ride and I haven’t fallen TOO far to catch up (I hope?) so here we go again!
Some things I’ve been putting off lately: Continue reading there’s that whooshing sound again
Well, having spent yet another month sick (do not ask me about last week–it was horrifying) I have fallen behind on my blogging goals AND everything else in life… but, on the plus side, I now have a WattPad account and I entered SyFy’s The Magicians writing contest with an entire HOUR to spare.
Go me?
My entry is very silly.
I do, however, intend to read some of the others.
I just started watching Season 1 of The Magicians (SyFy) on Netflix last week and have been steadily bingeing through all of it with C. Tragically, tonight he has choir and all we have left is the finale and Season 2 premiers TOMORROW and it looks like SyFy lets you watch things online live and that might (MIGHT) be enough to get me to forgive them for spelling their name that way (SyFy? Seriously?).
As we went through the episodes–“This is like if someone was writing Harry Potter fanfic and kept going further and further off course… in the best possible way,” I said, early on–I started Tweeting about it, made some friends via hashtags… I might or might not have followed most of the cast on Twitter. Um… uhoh. Am I joining a fandom??
I’ve been thinking about adding TV recaps to my blogging fodder. I think maybe #TheMagicians might be the show I choose.
Unless I just spend the next few weeks entering their writing contest (i.e. FANFICTION!). 1500 words by Feb. 8th…
Piece of cake. I’ve got plenty of time and tons of ideas.
…right?
So, thinking about teams again: one character I really like is the goofy-but-loyal sidekick who comes through big. Sam Axe from Burn Notice is one of my favorites. And image-searching for pics for this post gave me such a yearning to re-watch the series that I’ve got the pilot playing in the background now. I love every single one of the main characters; it’s interesting to think that I almost quit after the pilot (only stuck with it based on a friend’s recommendation).
The Burn Notice team fits Crusie’s requirements for a team (eventually): Continue reading When You’re a Spy…
Well, last night I was so exhausted that I finally broke my streak and failed to post.
🙁
But today is a different day! So here I am, ready to dust myself off and start again…
…except that I actually spent the whole evening grading, so now it’s time for bed. OH WELL HERE I GO ANYWAY!
As usual, the end of the month is turning tricky. But at least I got to watch some Leverage while grading! That, of course, was inspired by thinking some more about the “team” posts on Crusie’s blog and my own favorite teams.
I want to make sure that my YA cli-fi WIP involves the development of an interesting team, so I’m hoping that a combination of reading Crusie’s analysis, analyzing some teams on my own, and thinking about my WIP (possibly even just subconsciously, since who has any free time in Nov/Dec??) will help me work past some of the blocks I keep running into.
Crusie sets up these qualifications: Continue reading break the chain
I’m really loving the posts that Jenny Crusie’s doing about “Story Teams” over on her blog. She’s analyzing why they work (or don’t). She analyzed the teams from Leverage (LOVE it), Person of Interest (tried to like it because she loves it and writes such interesting analysis of it, but…), and Legends of Tomorrow (uhhhhhhh) in preparation for troubleshooting the team she’s building in her WIP.
Reading her posts made me think about some of my favorite TV teams (Burn Notice, Chuck, and Buffy being standouts, and White Collar too, although that’s a duo with support more than a team most of the time, and, of course, the Quest Team/Venture Brothers–Oh, and I guess Archer?).
So I want to analyze these teams the way she’s doing it, mostly for fun but also for comparison to the team I’m trying to build in my Lilly grant novel (YA cli-fi starring Anika, as-yet-untitled). I listed too many, so I might just pick a few from the list.
Of course, that requires me to a)do that analysis and b)figure out what the heck is going on with my team.
And tonight’s not the night for that; I’m going to go to bed and sleep on it, and see what thoughts manage to crawl across my mind in the tryptophan-haze that is post-Thanksgiving relaxation time.
But teams make a pretty satisfying story unit. I’m excited to dig into this more!
I’m still watching Luke Cage, on and off, but more and more I find myself playing Dots while it’s on in the background. (Yes, Dots is a stupid game. No, I cannot stop playing it.)
Anyway, I find myself more and more in agreement with one of the criticisms that I had read of the show earlier, which is that every episode is about ten minutes too long.
Don’t get me wrong -there’s lots of stuff that doesn’t necessarily advance the plot that I still enjoy having in there: the musical numbers (which some say remind them of The Bronze) are awesome, the long moody shots to create mood are great, and I don’t even mind the increasingly goofy scenery-chewing of the characters (srsly gettin goofy though with the villain in the second half of the season). That stuff’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is that the plot just… sags. Continue reading The Mushy Middle
So, I’ve been slowly (very slowly–we’re only on episode 7) watching Netflix’s Luke Cage. And there are a few things I love about it:
Ahem. Excuse me. Sorry about that.
Anyway, despite the fact that there are lots of things to love in this show, I’m struggling with the pacing. Luke’s just… there. Or, as C put it at the beginning of tonight’s episode, “Manifest” (1×07), “Wow. That was definitely the least exciting superhero interaction… ever.” [Gun deal is happening. Luke walks up. Criminals run away. Luke stands still, tells gun dealer he’s taking the guns, it’s over, blah blah blah, that guy runs away too.] Luke just… stands there.
Implacable…
Unmotivated.
Seriously, what does Luke want? Yes, he’s powerful, but he doesn’t want his power. He doesn’t want anything except to be left alone. That’s… kind of a tough sell, yanno?
Spoilers through 1×07 below the cut!