Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Winding down

I joined Netflix, again, and have "The Big Sleep" coming to watch tonight. One of my favorite Bogie and Bacall films and a fun twisty little mystery that even Raymond Chandler couldn't follow -- and he wrote it. There's an infamous story where Howard Hawks and either Jules Furthman or Leigh Brackett were working on the script (William Falukner also worked on it) and they couldn't figure out who killed this one character, so they called Chandler. He snapped that the explanation was in the book...then a few hours later called them back and said he couldn't figure it out, either. So rather than actually SAY who did it, they strongly indicated who they thought the killer was...and it worked out. Makes me feel good about my sneakily intricate style of writing.

I'll be watching it on my computer. I don't have a TV or VCR yet -- I left mine in San Antonio -- and actually haven't needed it, really. I've been so locked into writing RIHC6v2 my nights and weekend have been taken up. Now I'm kicking back for a little bit, I guess I need something to do...and reading is great but not for hours at a time. Not with some of the books I'm slogging through for POS.

Of course, I COULD just let myself be a workaholic and jump into the next book without thought. I'd get it done fasterish.

2 comments:

Michael said...

I'm addicted to Netflix myself.
I'll add "The Big Sleep" to my queue - it sounds intriguing.
I hope it won't be too long a wait for RIHC6v2 to be published. I read through volume one again in anticipation.

JamTheCat said...

Be sure to get the 1946 version and not the first cut made in 1945 or the 1978 remake. The 1945 version is not very good; they did reshoots and added in this famous scene of Bogie and Bacall discussing racehorses in a seedy bar, and the 1978 version shifted the location to LONDON instead of LA.

The DVD I got from Netflix has a fun little doc showing some of the changes between 1945 and 1946. VERY kewl.