ShoStoWriMo - Week 2

Well that was a bust.  Didn't get anything done.  My goal this week is to try writing a scene as a story rather than what I traditionally call a story.  That probably makes sense to no-one but me.

Short Story Writing Month: Week 1

A while back - not sure when exactly - I pondered the idea of doing a short story writing month.  Well, I decided to do it this month, with the basic rules being that no matter what state the story is in, it gets posted in a public place immediately following the end of the week (i.e., post last week's story today).

Well, I failed spectacularly in the first week.  I started with good intentions, but things got in the way (read: the Excuse Monster came for a visit).  I did manage to write something, though:

"I winced as I watched the events unfold on the monitor to my side."

Yeah, seriously, that's it.  So, lacking an actual story, I thought I might talk about what was supposed to come out of that sentence (which, I can admit, is actually not that great on its own).

I had a few ideas; my first idea, and one I don't think I'm going to run with anymore, was going to be a superhero story told from the villain's point of view.  I don't think I had any specific direction beyond that, aside from attempting to garner sympathy for the "villain".

The next idea, when I was going to just try and finish the story in a hurry, was that of a museum security guard who encounters ghosts of some sort at night.  I'm not too great at writing "horror" or suspense, but I might have had a little fun with that.

So, back to the drawing board, as they say.  My goal this week is to at least get a coherent story written.  I'm not going to overthink it, but rather I'm going to find a writing prompt somewhere and just run wild and see what I get.  Who knows, I might like it!

Review: Black Sheep

So the reason why I didn't immediately post my review of Black Sheep was because I got invited on to do movie reviews over at http://www.moviemarker.co.uk.  I decided to throw that review (and use any future movie reviews) over there.

You can read it here: http://moviemarker.co.uk/?p=2151

DVD Survivor: An Introduction

Alright, so in my last post I mentioned my concept of "DVD Survivor", wherein I have a list of DVDs that are teetering on the chopping block, and I watch them to determine whether or not they stay on the shelf.  Simple, right?  In Part 1, I will not only list all of the movies I'll be watching, but also do the first review.  Everything is listed in alphabetical order, which is also how I will be watching the films.

The List

1. Black Sheep* (1996)
2. Ed Wood (1994)
3. Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
4. Hero (2002)
5. The Last Samurai (2003)
6. Lost in Translation (2003)
7. Saw II (2005)
8. Shaolin Soccer (2001)
9. Syriana (2005)
10. Taxi Driver* (1976)

Some quick stats: Oldest movie: Taxi Driver (1976); Newest movie: Good Night and Good Luck / Syriana (2005). Percentage of movies with George Clooney in them: 20% (tied with 'Movies with Bill Murray in them).
* - Denotes a movie I haven't watched yet

Well, this should be interesting.  The first review up is 1996's Black Sheep (not to be confused with 2006's film about zombie New Zealand sheep)!

My original plan was to actually put the review here on the blog.  I've watched it, and written it, but for some currently secret reasons I am holding it back.  So how about we play a little game?  Let's go through the list and see which I think I'll Dump or Keep.  Even though I've watched Black Sheep, I can still give you my initial opinion when I first made the list.

1. Black Sheep* (1996) - DUMP
2. Ed Wood (1994) - KEEP
3. Good Night and Good Luck (2005) - KEEP
4. Hero (2002) - DUMP
5. The Last Samurai (2003) - KEEP
6. Lost in Translation (2003) - KEEP
7. Saw II (2005) - DUMP
8. Shaolin Soccer (2001) - DUMP
9. Syriana (2005) - KEEP
10. Taxi Driver* (1976) - KEEP

So, we shall see in the coming weeks/months!

A Problem With Being Creative

Here's the thing.  There are currently a lot of things going on in my head creatively, and I find I am thinking about them constantly.  This is both a blessing and a curse (and not one of those cool superhero curse type of things); on the one hand, this is way better than being in a creative funk where you can't think of anything.

On the other hand, I feel sometimes that I've put too much on my plate.  There's so much that I'm trying to do, when I probably should be doing One Thing, and putting my focus on that.  Ostensibly, that One Thing should be my Podcast, but I think I should be trying to relegate that back into hobby territory.*

I don't mind that I'm working on several things at once.  What I would prefer is to set aside specific times in the week where I can just switch this on, rather than be thinking about it all the time and become frustrated when I can't do anything about it, or have no time to work on it.  Also, I have a lot of things going on at work right now, and I probably should be focusing on that, you know?  Instead, I am writing a random blog post to eat up some time at work.

Once again this comes back to time management.  I think I made that a resolution at the start of the year?  I'm not sure.  In any case I'm not going to re-visit my resolutions until June.  In the meantime, I plan on watching the first DVD of my "DVD Survivor" series soon...I just need to find some time in my week to do it.

* - This will help in my feelings of "wow this is not nearly as good as it could/should be" re: the Podcast.

DVD Survivor, Baseball, + Other Creative Stuff

Today's post isn't really meant to be thought-provoking, unless it provokes the thought of "why does he think we care?"  Anyway it's another "update" post of things I'm working on / will be working on.  Or you may want to call it, "Things I'm Writing That Aren't Actually Stories".  Or "This is What I Write Instead of Fiction".

DVD Survivor
I'm not actually working on this yet, but it's an idea I had while (of course) on my lunch time stroll around the block at work.  The basic premise is this: I have a bunch of DVDs that I bought a long time ago; in most cases these were movies I hadn't seen before, and rather than rent them, I bought them.  In most cases, I probably ended up liking the movie; but in some, I haven't watched since.

We recently got an HDTV; even more recently, a Blu-Ray player.  I'm going to want to be buying some new movies - some as replacements for movies I already own on DVD (Star Wars, Back to the Future, and a few others).  Obviously those DVD copies will be out the door once they're replaced.  But we'll also be picking up new copies of Blu-Ray movies we don't own, and we really don't want to run out of space.  This is where we get to "DVD Survivor".

This isn't going to be something where I pit inanimate objects on Britannia Beach or something.  "Survivor" is just a catchy name to me.  I will watch each movie that is on the chopping block, and decide on each viewing whether to keep or toss said movie.  I don't have a full list of what movies I'll be watching, but I can tell you it includes Hero(2002), The Last Samurai(2003), Lost in Translation(2003), Taxi Driver(1976), Good Night and Good Luck(2005), and Syriana(2005).  I can tell you I can picture myself keeping at least three of those movies (I won't tell you which!).  And of that list, there is only ONE which I haven't even watched yet.

I don't know when I'm starting this, but I do know these things: 1) It will be soon 2) I will be watching the movies in alphabetical order.

Baseball
Oh, baseball.  The pre-season matchups kick off next month as teams across the league try to figure out how their roster will shape up for the 2012 season while pretending that they're really not enjoying the beautiful weather in Arizona and Florida.

I am a "regular" writer at my brother's Blue Jays blog, Blue Jays Luddite.  Well, I was "regular" last year, but I think I'm going to make an effort to give him some more contributions.  So if you like baseball, or at the very least want to read about the Blue Jays, be sure to keep an eye out next month for what's sure to be exciting training camp stories.

Other Creative Stuff
I think I've been letting all of this stuff take over my work on Alternative Airwaves, but I feel like it's okay.  At the moment I don't feel overwhelmed, so I'm going to take that as a good thing.  You see, it wasn't too long ago I was complaining about wanting to do something creative but not knowing what to do.  I won't take it as a bad thing that now I have tons of ideas and they're all flowing.

I think the favourite thing I'm doing right now is my page-by-page review of Planet X, a Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men crossover novel written in 1998.  I found it in Value Village, and I had to buy it.  You can read it over at tngxmen.tumblr.com.  I have a friend, Xyloart, who is doing the illustrations.  And they are awesome; probably way better than my writing.

Speaking of Alternative Airwaves, as I said I've been stagnating a little.  I'm coming up to the 50th episode (that'll be in May), and I'd like to put a bit more work into it to get it sounding really great.  We'll see what I can come up with, but mostly the work will involve putting more time into finding music than anything else.  Too often lately I've been picking music last-minute and only from 1 or 2 sources.  Something I need to work on.

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Dark Mirror

I finished this book a week ago (just in time to get Win Tie or Wrangle from the library), and I meant to write a review immediately after.  But then I forgot.  Woopsie!

Here are the basics: the USS Enterprise D, while exploring a really boring area of space in the outer reaches of the galaxy, gets pulled (sucked?) into the Mirror Universe.  If you're unfamiliar with the Mirror Universe at all, it would behoove you to do some reading before continuing on with this review.

To be honest, if you want to enjoy this book, be prepared to do a lot of waiting.  The beginning of the book takes a long time to get going, talking about nigh-uncomprehensible things like "hyperstrings" and some dolphin-like alien which makes very little sense whatsoever.  Seriously, Diane Duane, why not pick an alien species we're more familiar with?  All I could picture from the descriptions was a super-happy dolphin floating around in a space suit with robotic arms.  The scenes without him were much better.

Once we get into the meat of the story - which, to me, is when Picard beams over to the Mirror!Enterprise and help LaForge and Troi with their mission (which is to get them out of the mirror universe).  Once we get to this point, the plot moves around at a very good pace and the action is fun.  And then, where the novel should have ended, we get a chapter of the crew enjoying some sort of opera on the holodeck.  Uh...maybe that would work as a coda in the TV show, but it is utterly boring here (and I skipped it outright).

I only have two main beefs with this book.
1) The characterization seems a little off.  They talk completely different from how they would in the TV series.  This brought me out of the story a couple of times.*
2) The Mirror Universe is the same as we saw in the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror.  This is a beef for me, because the extrapolation of the MU's history seen in the Deep Space Nine episode Crossover is much more believable than what we get here.**

Other than that, I felt that the characters' actions were much more realistic than what we see on the TV show.  It feels like they're actually military officers (sorry, explorers) operating aboard a very complex starship.  I don't know how to describe it, but I guess it doesn't really feel like these guys are on the bridge 100% of the time.  Don't you find it odd in the TV show that we see the same bridge crew every episode?***

Anyway, it was an interesting enough read.  Three out of Five stars.  ALSO!  This ties in directly to a new creative project I'm working on.  Head over to http://tngxmen.tumblr.com/ for more details!

* - Granted, their personalities were almost bang-on for all the characters.  They just didn't talk properly.
** - I will grant that perhaps the mirror universe we see in this novel is a branch of the mirror universe we've seen on TV - where in this particular universe, Spock's efforts to bring civility to humans doesn't work and they remain as they were.  I think I'll take that explanation over the fact that they're the same universe as on TV.
*** - I think both TNG and Voyager have attempted to address this; the only episode that comes in mind is Data's Day and I think there's one episode on Voyager that puts Ensign Kim in command of the night watch or something.