Archive for category Writing
Various and sundry things of note
I’m bleary-eyed at best today, and contemplating the possibility of a 500 cc espresso IV drip, for reasons I’ll get to momentarily. First, however, a few mentionable mentions:
Last week I wrote a bit about how I was dragging my feet somewhat in the procession from my first novel to the next, which was, by necessity, going to be about a different world with different characters, etc, etc. I got some truly awesome, very supportive comments on the post, demonstrating that there more people out there than I ever would have guessed pulling for me in this whole writing business.
So I guess I do have readers out there besides just my mom and wife. That’s pretty cool. If I hadn’t traded my capacity to for genuine human emotion several years ago for an Arby’s Medium Roast Beef and 6 bombers of Arrogant Bastard, I might have even gotten all verklempt.
Luckily, though, there’s nothing inside of me but old hay and spiders, so we’re cool.
Seriously, thanks, everyone for the words of support. I was totally not expecting them. Also, please don’t take that post to mean I’m even in the same time zone as that dreaded place where I temporarily give up on Famine and slide it in to a drawer for a few years (or—gasp!—consider self-publishing it). On that score, I defer you to that immortal words of that one navel guy. I think it was Captain Kirk, or maybe Ramius, or, no, no, Jack Sparrow, that’s it, who mumbled around a fifth of rum, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
I’m kidding, it was John Paul Jones. Actually, I believe Sparrow would likely say something more akin to what Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday said in Tombstone, “I have not yet begun to defile myself.”
Anyway, movie-related rambling aside, thank you for the awesome words of support. And don’t worry, there’s plenty of fight left in me.
Mention the Next: Last week, I got to attend one of the Coolest. Events. Evah. My dad (previously dubbed “PuddinPa”, I think), who spent the bulk of his professional career working tirelessly as an educator, coach, and administrator at my high school, was surprised at the dedication of the school’s new softball field to find that it was, in fact, dedicated to him. They suckered him to a game to throw out the first pitch and then, once they had him on the mound with First Pitch Ball in hand, executed the old bait-and-switch by revealing, with a showman’s flourish, a big sign emblazoned with his name.
I believe his discomfort at being the Center Of Attention was equally balanced by his Immense Gratitude for the whole thing. It was amusing to watch.
Then he did actually throw the first pitch, which made it all the way to the catcher and even looked like a strike to me. Of course, he’d probably say it was barely good enough for batting practice and would’ve ended up over the fence in center field, but since that’s where I expect they’ll hang said sign-with-his-name-on-it, that seems fitting anyway.
Finally, for an explanation of why today’s ramblings are full of Extra! Bonus! Ramble!, i.e., what made my brain more porous than a cartoon character trying to take a ladle of water after being shot repeatedly (wow, and parents worry about violence in media today!), I hope you enjoy this Theater of Twitter monologue.
First, at about 11 PM last night, there was this:
Something just knocked out power to my whole ‘hood and maybe more.Candles 1, Scentsy 0
— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) May 14, 2012
Which prompted:
It’s amazing how loud one’s house is when all the things that make “white noise” (fridge, pcs, ac units, etc) go off.
— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) May 14, 2012
And then:
Dear battery-powered fluorescent camping lantern, I never realized how much I love you until the power went out.
— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) May 14, 2012
But it wasn’t all fun and games and devotion to lanterns:
Seems that kids used to sleeping w/ soothing white noise don’t sleep so well when it goes away.Kids not sleeping = parents not sleeping.
— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) May 14, 2012
And that’s how I learned to make special requests at the coffee shop:
This explains why this AM I’m rocking a 24 oz concoction of 4-shots of espresso topped of with black coffee. #OHHAICOFFEE
— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) May 14, 2012
The most interesting (and painful) thing to take away from this experience is that you’d think that the power going out at night would be No Big Deal, what with most everyone either being or going to sleep. But it turns out that it can Become Quite A Thing when puddinlings used to comforting background noise and gentle night lights either can’t get to sleep or wake up and freak the hell out because Something’s Wrong.
So, that’s how the Puddinette and I came to be entertaining visits from children pretty much every 30 minutes last night between 2:30 AM and 5 AM.
Which is what brings me to say (and someone should write this down for posterity): today, I am more grateful for coffee than beer.
Of course, I’ll probably deny I even suggested that later.
Pud’n
Moving on
When I first began working on what would eventually become Famine, I had no idea what may or may not come of 
the effort. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to become a full-fledged novel by any stretch of the imagination. That I ended up there, I suppose, is a combination of good luck, perseverance, and, well, a smidgen or two of creativity.
In other words, I just happened to start coughing up the right words at the right time and place.
Which isn’t quite the same as that old “infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters” bit. Oh sure, there’s some similarity there, but the monkeys didn’t have the Puddinette’s support. Clearly that’s the most significant thing separating me from the lesser randomly-typing primates.
At any rate, I’ve knee-deep in sending out submissions and crossing my fingers and re-re-re-re-thinking my query hook and sacrificing the occasionally grocery-story broiler/fryers. Yes, I realized that probably doesn’t have the same effect as using a live chicken, but it turns out that live chickens are harder to get than you’d think these days, especially when you explain what you’re going to do with it.
Poultry aside, the key thing here is that it’s time to move on to something else. Unfortunately, I’m finding that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. Yes, sure, I have a new idea and I’ve even laid out a skeletal outline I’m content with, but the thing is, I don’t want to move on.
It’s just, that, well…
It feels like I’m in grade school and moving away from my friends. And I don’t want to leave my friends.
I started working on Famine in early 2010, and spent the last two years with that particular set of characters living, breathing, fighting, and sometimes dying in my head. They have hopes, fears, plans, and voices, and their stories, their lives, aren’t over yet. There’s so much more for them to do; so much more about them to get out. And, honestly, what comes next is going to be a huge amount of fun to share, I think.
But I have to wait to get there. And that sucks.
Why, you ask? Honestly, it’s little more than selfishness. I don’t want to simply be a writer, I want to be a published author. If my goal was just to write, then I could gleefully go along my merry way rambling out a blog post every day while continuing along the same thread of narration I left when I typed “The End” in that manuscripts. No would care, the birds would still chirp, the sun would still shine, and the dingos would still eat your baby.
But I want to writing to be part of my livelihood, not just part of my recreation. And if you’re looking to secure an agent and/or sell a book, it doesn’t make sense to write three books about the same world and same people, one right after another (unless you already have a contract, of course, duh). I suppose it’s probably worked for some authors, but the fact is that in today’s more-or-less-gambling and twitchy-as-a-meth-head uncertain and highly dynamic publishing marketplace, the book I just wrote might not be something any publisher wants to buy for a few years.
There are trends in publishing, just like in women’s jeans, and if you’ve got a story that doesn’t fill an existing hole on someone’s buy list, well, clearly no one’s going to buy it. Similarly, you don’t see anyone wearing grey acid-wash these days, do you?
Admittedly, that grey acid-wash will probably come back “in” someplace down the road, but that could be 20 years from now. So spending all your time today crafting more and more grey acid-wash is wasting the time that could be used to craft the next big thing.
Which is why, it’s time for me to move on. I’m going to say goodbye to my friends, for now, and go make something besides acid-washed jeans.
LIke I said, though, it’s just a little harder than I thought it would be.
And strangely, smells like fried chicken.
Pud’n
Like this:
On (finally) being a Writer
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I pined over it for years. And yes, I could have used “dreamed” there, but, you know, dream is so everyday. Everybody dreams about stuff. Right now I’m dreaming about bucket full of buffalo wings hot enough to make me regret them until next week and a pint of IPA to wash them down. But in a few hours I’ll actually have eaten something, and then my dream of gut-blowing chicken morsels will subside for a time.
See? A dream can be as fleeting as a butterfly’s touch. So, no, when I thought of becoming a writer, I didn’t dream of it. My desire, instead, was permanent. Even when I wasn’t actively thinking about it, it tickled slightly, a maddening itch buried in the back of my head somewhere would just wouldn’t go away.
In other words, I yearned deeply to be a writer, which, by the way, is the exact definition of “pine”.
Of course, I’m pretty sure “yearning deeply” is more commonly something experienced by the lady-folk ready for a good, old-fashioned, um, romp with the muscular, hair-waving-in-the-breeze heroes of romance novels. So maybe that’s not the best way to describe myself.
Ahem. Yes, well, let’s never speak of this again.
Anyway, as I’ve been doing this continuously for over two years and managed to actually finish concocting a whole novel, it seems reasonable to pause, look around, and consider whether being a writer is everything I yearned for all those non-writing years.
The answer is pretty simple: completely, unequivocally, and without hesitation, Yes. It’s everything I though it would be and more.
I’ll spare you the laundry list of romanticized, saccharine reasons it makes me happy. But I will say that I knew I’d been right all along when I realized no matter how crappy a mood I was in before I did some writing, I’d be in an awesome mood after. It’s a short list of things in life that have such power: ice cream, a brownie, the perfect temperature beer on the back porch as the summer sun sets, this week’s People magazine.
Wait, maybe not that last one.
It’s gratifying these days to feel confident to call myself a writer and not be gilding the lily, so to speak.
And no, that’s not what I mean by “gilding the lily”. Get your mind out of the gutter!
That said, though, it’s not a perfect thing, the writing. Sometimes, even for as much joy as it brings me, I have to make myself sit down and start. It’s not always easy, especially in the “getting-going” phase, and let’s be honest, sitting on one’s ever-softening backside in a recliner with a lovely beverage while watching the latest episode of “Toddlers and Tiaras”* is universally easier than doing just about anything.
Inertia rules all, you know.
Oh, and the other thing that kind of bites is the whole not getting paid to do it.
Yeah, see, being able to call myself a writer is one thing. Being a professional writer, though, that’d be awesome beyond words. But, well, it’s also a whole other ballgame.
Attempting to become a professional writer is a fundamentally different task than just writing. Writing is the process of forcing yourself to start with a big empty nothing and yet create an entire something out of your twitchy brain impulses. There are no other parties involved, just, you, yourself, and your gray matter, and succeeding bring a warm glow of satisfaction. It’s the same joy that compels children to make mud-pies, sand castles, and Lego dioramas of the Red Light District (complete with Lego cops on the dole).
Err…maybe that was just me?
Trying to sell something you’ve written, though, isn’t quite as much fun. It’s like…well, standing against a wall and smacking your forehead against it over and over and over and over and over. Deep down you believe that sooner or later, surely to all things holy, someone is going to walk over, shake your hand, and stop you.
And, yes! Occasionally someone will stop. They’ll pull you away from your plastery punishment, look you over briefly, but then just say, “sorry, kid”, before repositioning you and setting you back into motion like one of those not-quite perpetual energy birds that dip their beaks into water. Why you aren’t the one and/or what they’re sorry about it is anyone’s guess, and they aren’t talking.
That’s okay, though. Anything worth doing is worth getting beaten up a little bit. If you’re faint of heart, weak of will, or have the intestinal constitution of an octogenarian after the 4:30 Early Bird special at the Grand Moon Buffet, trying to get published is probably not for you. And that’s fine. Lock yourself in an attic and write sonnets about Chicken McNuggets until your hand becomes stiff as the boarding school Headmaster, Mr. Howard’s, shirt collars—which, not incidentally, match his speaking tone.
Is it easy? Nope. Fun? Not always. Full of questioning and self-doubt. Check and check.
But you know what? That’s okay.
You want to write? Write. You want to get published? Keep writing, and don’t ever give up.
And that’s the only magic formula that’s ever going to work.
Well, unless you’re Snooki.
Thank God I can take the hard road, instead.
Pud’n
*I’m kidding of course. I might have seen some movies in my day I’m ashamed of, but I’d throw every TV in my house out before I watched one of those shows.
Like this:
Haiku: The Writer’s Boundless Procrastination
I should be writing
A post, book, or grocery list
Let’s boil eggs instead!
Like this:
A limerick for the novelist with foolhardy plans for a non-fiction book
Puddin chose to pen a book of non-fiction
after a novel, it’d just take some conviction.
But when he sat down to write,
he soon realized his plight…
This non-fiction stuff’s an affliction!
Like this:
A brief change to the regular lecture schedule
Well, turns out I was close with yesterday’s ridiculous weather prediction. It didn’t quite reach 75 degrees today, but weather.com tells me that it’s currently 63. So, yes, while yesterday it was cold enough that I was afraid my hands were going to turn Morning-Sky Blue, today everyone’s begging the professor to have class outside. Which reminds me of something. Listen, kids, computer science is a fine field to go into if you like sterile, atmospherically-controlled spaces lacking any sort of window. If, however, the out-of-doors genuinely interests you, you might want to think twice. Because you can go ahead and assume you’ll never, ever be having class outside while you’re working on that CS degree.
For one thing, those lab computers don’t work so well out in the courtyard. And even worse, your professors are probably even more likely to consider the outside world a hostile environment than you are. Most of mine were damn fine people, but tended to hiss like vampires on the way to their cars every year when spring arrived and the clocks rolled forward again.
No one can teach you about binary search trees or the importance of tessellation for graphics processing when they’re worried about turning into a pile of ash.
So, yeah, sorry, you’re staying inside today. But, hey, at least you’re preparing for that career. I didn’t get outside today either.
In other, probably more pertinent news, the time has once again come to limit my typical, every-day-or-so Posts of Ridiculous Length. I’ve applied a daily word quota to the non-fiction project in progress, which means that in regard to writing time, that comes first for a while. On top of that, I’ve started noodling on the next novel I want to write, and submitting queries for the previous novel takes a not inconsiderable amount time itself. And as always, the family and work take precedence over everything.
Now, before anyone starts crying into their beer, this doesn’t mean I’m abandoning you or the blog. It just means that you’re only likely to see, at most, three real posts a week for a while. But don’t worry, I’m feeling pretty good about a whole new slate of limericks, haiku, and stick-people art* to fill the gaps.
And if that doesn’t fill you with the tinglies of anticipation, well, I just don’t know what will.
Except maybe a taser. Or a meth hit, but neither of those is probably a good thing.
Probably ought to stick with what I’ve got for now.
Pud’n
PS: I’m open to suggestions for additional forms of short post. I mean, maybe not sonnets or anything, but otherwise, if you’ve got an idea to torture me, by all means drop it in the comments.
Like this:
Happy Seussday!
The second of March
and Friday to boot!
But another small thing
has me fixin’ to hoot.
It’s his day, you see,
the anniversary of his birth.
Few writers I’ve read,
could bring me such mirth.
He was a great one, I’ll say
still loved far and near.
And while sadly he’s gone,
his works keep him here.
He made up silly words,
like “sneetches” and “grinch”.
But noodling his point out
was always a cinch.
So on this hap-giddy day,
here’s something to do:
think Dr. Seuss thinks,
and then you’ll smile too.
I think I’m over-thinking this querying for a literary agent
I found a penny on the ground this morning. A “heads up” penny, actually. That’s the lucky kind, right? At 38 years old (39 in 11 days), you’d think I might be immune to that kind—or really, any kind—of school-yard superstition. Turns out I’m not. Which makes me wonder, what’s next? Hoarding horseshoes or stalking four-leaf clovers? Making wishes and blowing away daffodils? Wait…maybe it’s dandelions? Daisies? Dingleberries? Who the hell knows.
The point is, it might appear that I’ve lost my mind. But I haven’t, not entirely. It’s just that I submitted my first actual query to a literary agent last night, and as I posted to twitter and facebook, I’m kind of terrified. Just, you know, in a good way. More like the first time you jumped of a high dive rather than that time you were stalked by Shelob in a dark, webby cavern while attempting to simply walk into Mordor.
Hmm…come to think of it, I believe I just broke the first rule of Query Club: Don’t talk about Query Club. It’s actually a good rule because:
- Publicizing a list of one’s interactions—including both rejections and possible successes—with potential representation is a Bad Idea (yes, with a capital B and I).
- A play-by-play of my (mis)adventures in novel querying isn’t likely to make anyone’s list of Most Entertaining Blog Topics in 2012. In fact, this is my 2nd query-related post (remember this one?) in the last four. You don’t come here to read about the emails I sent yesterday, you come here (one can only assume) to see me make fun of myself and reference Oompa Loompas.
So, why mention it? Well, because I realized yesterday I had a kind of conundrum, and was curious if anyone had advice for me. The thing is, when querying potential agents, it seems to me that first and foremost, the writer in question should be looking for the right person to represent them. After all, the agent works for the writer.
The process actually seems to have a lot in common with interviewing for job, to some degree. Personally, I believe too many people fail to realize that it’s a two-way interview. While they’re vetting you to determine if you’re right for the job, you should be vetting them (when the situation allows, of course). The point is, not every position is right for every candidate. Likewise, not every agent is not a good match for every author.
Specifically, I’m looking for an agent that represents fantasy and science fiction, appreciates character-driven stories, even in speculative genres, and isn’t going to bat an eye if I want to write one book about mummies, the next about dragons, and a third about the Xenotang, Brain-eating parasites from Aurora 13 that resemble Chicken McNuggets.
I’m pretty sure that last one’s non-fiction. It would explain A LOT about McNugget sales.
Ironically, the one agent I’ve queried so far isn’t on my preferred list. In fact, she doesn’t even represent the genre my novel falls into. But I’ve see her post online that she loves reading queries and doesn’t mind if she gets out-of-genre submissions. The worst thing that can happen is she’ll send you a form-letter rejection.
Which is exactly what I’m expecting.
I figured I’d go ahead and get a rejection out of the way. Because if nothing else, I can guarantee that the first query won’t be one that hits the mark. Ask the Puddinette and she’ll tell you, I can accomplish just about anything I put my mind to, but I’m going to fail doing it the first time, at least. Hanging pictures, replacing plumbing, and being a good husband are all things I wasn’t so awesome at at first, but just needed experience. Nowadays, I can flip grilled cheese without a flipper and toss sautéing veggies around with the flick of my wrist, just like Bobby Flay. But I cleaned an awful lot of diced mirepoix up off the floor before I got here.
The point is, there are few agents that I believe (based on a considerable amount of research online—meaning more than just a simple Google search) would be an excellent fit for me. They’re the ones I want. But I have to sell myself and my novel to one of them, make them see that they want me too.
At the moment, my query, um, skills, or lack thereof, are much too amateur to effectively manage that. If I submitted anything now, they’d likely give me the proverbial pat me on the head and a dismissive, “aw, that’s cute”. Like when a three year-old spells out “K-A-T” with letter blocks. It’d be like Luke facing Vader before he was ready, and we all know how that turned out. I need my hands intact, thank you very much.
No, I’ll have to do it wrong a few times before I begin to figure out how to do it right.
The question is, how long will it take until I know what I’m doing? How long should I wait until I submit to the agents on my Christmas list?
Because in this, as in so many other things in life, timing is everything.
Well, that and maybe a lucky penny or two.
Pud’n
Like this:
The Novel Query (or, How NOT to get a prom date)
So it’s come to this, finally. Two years ago, I wrote this post about a guy waking up by himself. Now, nearly 25 months and 97,434 words later (well, a lot more than that, actually, when you consider revisions), I finally have the novel I always swore to myself I’d write and try to get published. Now, then, it’s time to send my precious baby manuscript* out amongst the horse traders to have it’s teeth checked, it’s height and weight gauged, and its tires kicked.
What? It’s, um, mixed metaphor Friday. Get over it.
Anyway, the point is that it’s high time to put together my query package**.
*Duh-duh-duh*
Holy burnt melba toast, Batman, where does one begin?
First things first, the query is not one single thing, it’s several things, typically including, at minimum (for a novel), a pitch letter and synopsis. And every agent, editor, and Dark Lord of the Underworld waiting to trade for your soul has different submission requirements. And you must observe them all if you want any kind of shot, even if they demand you hollow out a sheep’s stomach and send your manuscript bundled within.
In other words, if you think you’re going to slam together a quick email and mass merge it, replacing the “Dear <publishing gatekeeper>” with “Dear Ms. Mcgillicutty” just like a bulk spam blast pimping CHEAP MAKE-IT-HARDER-LONGER pills, well, odds are good the only people likely to ever read your life’s work will share your last name.
That’s not so much the goal, here, right?
So, yes, doing this querying thing and doing it right is going to take some time, thought, and effort. But, really, after wrestling with 90-100k words and bending them to your will, that’s not such a task, is it?
The hard part, though, is that putting together a successful query isn’t quite as simple as doing your taxes or trigonometry.
Let’s break it down. First, the pitch letter. In a perfect world, a pitch letter would be straight-forward and to the point:
Dear Mr. Agent,
I wrote a novel. My mom and my wife like it. I’m pretty proud of it, especially as finishing it was more work than pushing a 13-lb baby out an opening the size of a plum. It’s got some people in it and they do some stuff that many readers will probably find interesting. Plus, jellybeans. Everbody likes reading about jellybeans. Sorry, no sparkly vampires this time. That’s okay, though, right?
So, anyway, like I said, my mom and wife like it. So please sell it to a publisher for 18 gojillion dollars so I can quit my day job, choke on my sophomore novel, and start abusing drugs and women with daddy issues.
In closing, please please please please please please please please please!?
Thanks,
Clueless Debut Author
Sadly, my sources indicate such an approach might be, um, less than effective.
All joking aside, it seems to me that this query business is a whole lot like trying to get that special prom date in high school. There you are, sure of how you’re a great dude and would make an excellent date for some lucky girl, even if your love for collectable science fiction action figures is misunderstood. The thing is, you’ve only got one chance to prove you’re the fellow to make her the Belle of the Ball. When the time comes, then, for laying out that question to her, you’ve got to be smart, clever—but not too clever, confident—but not an arrogant asshole, and above all, yourself.
If you’re standing in front of a girl with nervous, shifty eyes, a pained look as if you’re weathering some serious intestinal distress, and a case of flop sweats that would make Chris Farley proud, you might as well skip asking her out and instead just explain about how your mom still picks out your clothes and cuts your Salisbury Steak for you. Instead, what you need to do is talk like a normal person, keep it calm, be sure of yourself even if you don’t feel sure of yourself, and get the important question across without becoming a pile of blubbering jello.
The query seems like it’s kind of the same way. Be yourself: use your writer’s voice, so the agent/editor/queryee will know what to expect from your writing. Be confident, but not arrogant: if you don’t think your work is good, no one else will either. But don’t go too far, it’s not as if anyone who reads it will immediately begin crapping solid gold. Above all, stick to the point and get the important information down: hook, pitch, author bio, done. No one who might want to represent you or buy your book will care that you foster feral ferrets.
In additional to the pitch letter, your query will require an synopsis of your novel. A synopsis is a (relatively) short summary of your book, again, using your voice. The writer’s voice, that is, not the one tells you to stab your spouse with a fork when she tries to steal a bite of your nachos. More importantly, the synopsis should not sound like a book report for Mrs. Hausdingle’s 5th grade English class. In other words, avoid this:
In, “Anderson meets Molly”, Mr. Anderson is a regular guy. And then he meets Molly Maureen getting his oiled changed. She steals his car and he chases after her. He catches her, and then they rob a bank together with nothing but marshmallow fluff and packets of fast food hot sauce because Molly tells him she need 10,000 dollars for a cockular transplant. Then the cops chase after them all over the city and the cars go ZOOM and the crashes go “CRASH” and the horns go “HONK” and the school kids and the nuns and the grandmothers going to liquor store for their whiskey all dive out of the way. And then Mr. Anderson and Molly get away, but break up because he finds out the stolen money is actually to open a custom doll making shop, which really, dolls? Creepy. Then he realizes he loves the creepy doll-making thief anyway, so he goes back to her and then they do it and live happily ever after.
So then, I’m crafting my query and building the first list of agents who’ll be getting my submission. It should be noted that any advice I might have inadvertently provided above should be taken with a grain of salt. I’ve done plenty of research about this, but to date I’ve successfully queried the same number of times as the plastic clown that pops out of a jack-in-the-box. I think I know what not to do, but I’m not sure what I’m going to provide will be quite right, either.
Again, it’s like getting a prom date; you never know if the question’s going to work until someone says “Yes”.
Here’s hoping I don’t end up going alone.
And if you’re querying, I hope you find a good date too.
Pud’n
*Thank you, Keri Stevens, for the perfect description
**Huh-huh-huh. He said “package,” Bevis.
Like this:
A little more on Waiting, plus (bonus) Breaking Dawn, Part I
The Puddinette, being wise and smart and, well, Just. Plain. Awesome, pointed out to me last night that I had unintentionally trod upon ground long ago surveyed by Dr. Seuss. The good doctor, by the way, is a personal hero of mine. And I don’t mean like, it’d be kinda cool if he gave me a stinky, bloody, grass-stained, game-worn football jersey in exchange for a bottle of Coca-Cola. I mean that he sits so high upon a pedestal in my mind that the ancient Babylonians, when attempting to build their tower, didn’t spec it tall enough to reach up there.
Is that laying it on a bit thick? Hey, look, everybody’s got role models. Mine just happens to have had a wonderful imagination and made up nonsense words. I say that’s better than being held in great esteem for the ability to score points or make music while abusing either women or controlled substances.
But I digress…
Anyway, in one of my favorite and perhaps most meaningful of his works, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss gave us this.
:
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place……for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.NO!
That’s not for you!Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
*squeals with fanboy delight*
Ahem. What I mean to say, there, is that if you ask me, it’s pretty cool I happened to lay down the same basic idea he did, independently and years later. If only I’d written it so well.
Speaking of wishing things were written a bit better, I watched The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I last night, which is nearly as big a mouthful as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Sadly, I’m betting the baseball team is more exciting.
And we all know that baseball can be the dullest sport on Earth sometimes, with the possible exception of televised bowling, right?
Why did I subject myself to that on a Thursday night, you ask? Well, I’d had a good day so I was in the mood for a beer or two and a movie, and hey, look, there it was, ready on my DirecTV Cinema playlist. It was either that or something certifiably terrible like A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas. I don’t, um, smoke, and Christmas is, well, over, so that wasn’t hitting me in the sweet, tickly spot, if you know what I mean.
Of course, glittery, uh, vampires, don’t usually either, but if you’ll recall, I do have a personal responsibility to watch the entire “saga”. Also, I figured if I fell asleep, as I’m wont to do, I could just pretend I saw the whole thing and call it day.
Surprisingly, I did manage to stay awake the whole time.
But not because the movie was really all that compelling.
I expect that I’m going to take a bunch of crap for this, but Breaking Dawn just wasn’t terribly impressive. I will admit that I thought it had potential, but after sitting through the thing, I felt like I should go make one of those funny posters that says something like, “Renehenesamumblecoughixpialadocious (or whatever): It’s a baby, not a 118-minute plotline”
I mean, I suppose watching a recently married and newly knocked-up 18 year-old waste away as her progeny devours her life is possibly entertaining to some, but I figure those people already have 16 and Pregnant DVR’d. No reason to make an entire movie about it.
The film needed an Andre the Giant-sized dollop of additional conflict. Sure, there’s some weak effort at in the whole Jacob vs his pack thing and, of course, the glittery set against the overgrown growlers, but neither was really set up to any degree. It seemed like those adversarial positions were just suddenly there, and the viewer was expected to go along for the ride. Which kind of lost me, because didn’t the wolves and the shiny, sparkly Cullen people play nice against the mean vampires just one movie ago?
The thing is, I get what they were going for, but the whole thing felt too much like it was made with the book readers predominantly in mind. Guess what? I haven’t read the books. So, yes, I felt some underlying tugs of what was supposed to be going on, but it all seemed glossed-over at best.
And as Part I of a theoretical two-part adventure, I would assume you’d lay some groundwork for the upcoming film when you could. You know, kind of prime the pump and get Suzy Moviegoer all a-twitter for the next one? In other words, at the end of the this one, I totally should have been, “Oh, dude, I’m all tingly in my cockle parts and can’t wait to see the next one to find out what happens with blabbity-blah-blah”. At this point, though, if something else is supposed to happen to blabbity-blah-blah, I don’t really care. The series could be over as far as I’m concerned.
Which seems an odd way to end a “Part I”.
I guess maybe the two are entwined somehow with one overarching plotline and conflict. If so, though, I missed it completely. At the end, all I thought was, “Whoopee, more sparkly people with makeup that ends at their neck.”
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I wasn’t awful, but it could have been better. Hopefully Part II will deliver more compelling plot points and conflict.
Now then, fangirls and boys, flame away. My comments are at your disposal.
Pud’n
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