Sunday, November 11, 2012

Good Job, Dr. Watson

In my recent quest to have my girlfriend watch more or less everything on my DVD shelf in our spare time, I recently finished re-watching the Steven Moffat series Sherlock. Besides enjoying the clever - and sometimes a bit cheesy - re-imagining of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle's classic stories and characters, I got to appreciate the performances of some pretty tremendous actors.

For those of you who don't know, besides writing, my dream is to act. I love to act. I love pretending to be someone else and say things and do things that I wouldn't normally do. To make people feel something. To make them laugh or cry or even just smile. I love it. Entertainment is the best thing ever. A lot of the time, when I watch films or commercials or TV shows, I pick out which character that not only I'd like to play but - more realistically - which one would I be cast as. When I watch Criminal Minds, I can see myself in the role of Dr. Reid portrayed by Matthew Gray Gubler. I always imagine that I could do any role given to Michael Cera or Jesse Eisenberg or Jay Baruchel.While watching Sherlock, I liked to pretend that I could play Holmes or Watson or Moriarty. If I just looked older.

But that's not really true.

Maybe I could do a decent job with Holmes or Moriarty (again, given I looked older than I do) but upon re-watching the final episode of the second season, I was struck once more by the simplicity and the haunting of Martin Freeman's delivery of Watson's final monologue in the graveyard. Martin Freeman was not only subtle but delicate, emotional but restrained. In short, it was perfect. Freeman evoked waterfalls of tears by the simplest intake of breath, always stopping himself short of out and out weeping. Because that's not what Watson would do.

I just wanted to say that Martin Freeman is an incredibly underrated and wonderful actor, and I look forward to The Hobbit.

Mahalo.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Week 18 - Catching Up!

Though in previous weeks I've been behind on my short story writing, this week marks a wonderful turn; I'm ahead. Yesterday, I spent most of the day scribbling out stories, which caught me up to this week's quota of 18 in total. I punched out the finish to a story I'd started weeks ago which desperately needed an ending; I wrote a short film which - as it is a short piece of fiction, totally counts - I'd been fermenting in my head for days; and the best one of all, I revisited an old favourite and wrote a new pulp piece featuring the heroic Captain Horatio Silverthorn. Anyone who'd like to read that joy, please just comment and I'll pass it along to you. This one's a doozy - airships!

I even started a new one today. A new story, when I don't have to! I've decided to get a head start on Week 19 so that way I don't fall so behind again.

All of this, of course, means I've fallen desperately and perhaps irretrievably behind on NaNoWriMo - but you know what? I don't care. I didn't really feel the impetus when I started this year's one and so I'm not perturbed by being so behind. It's been good to revisit the old story that I'd started so many years ago, work on that world again, but I think I'm going to do it at my own pace. When I have days where my mind just isn't conducive to writing and yet I am forced to, I just write out schlock that I know I'll have to remove or edit later, and I'd rather not do that labour. So, for now, I'll work on that beast when I feel I have the right reigns.

Mahalo.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Weeks 15, 16 & 17 - And NaNoWriMo

Jesus it's been another intense month. I've been terrible at updating and I apologize. I was doing so well there at the start, too.

In Week 15 I caught up to where I was supposed to be and started a Zombie short story but for some reason I couldn't finish it. It was just going to be too damn long and I didn't have the energy to sit and write a long piece. Then Week 16 rolled around. Just like I knew it would.

I started another story but it, too, I soon lost the taste for. I was losing my impetus. Starting to want to give up on this whole nasty, diabolical business. Sometimes, I still do. I know I did when Week 17 came upon me.

I managed to pump out a pulpy story about an explorer and quicksand and etc, etc. It was fun to write. Really fun. I miss writing pulp, so I think that'll be the case for the next few weeks.

And November started and so came NaNoWriMo again. For the third time. I wasn't going to do it initially - why do that when I have so much Bradbury-ing to do, right? Wrong. When so many people assaulted me with "are you?" and "why aren't you?" and "you should", I said what a madman says when asked if he hears voices, "yes".

I'm seven and a bit thousand words in now and I'm honestly not regretting it. I'm working on a story that I'd given up on a few years ago and it's good to settle into something like this. I'd clearly been reading a lot of Bukowski at the time. That feels good. Fun to write, too.

And then there's the comic. But that's a story for another blog post.

Mahalo.

UPDATE: 
I don't know how I forgot to mention this, but it seems I did and apologies to all those involved!
It was around week 16 that a friend, Mr. David Sander of Surfaces Rendered, came to me with a proposition. He gave me some work on editing his screenplay. I accepted and began to devour and twist and edit! That was something nice and different from my usual fare. With Final Draft open on my desktop each night, it was certainly a fruitful labour that continues!