Derry, Northern Ireland

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

Saturday, April 9, 2011

The end of an era

Sydney Lumet died, today.  He's the director behind a huge number of seminal films -- Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Twelve Angry Men, Fail Safe, Prince of the City -- as well as some real misfires -- The Wiz, and enough said about that.  But this guy was working as a director from the early 50's in TV, when it was live and just getting started.  He helped 17 actors and actresses gain Academy Award nominations, he was so good at working with them, and four won - Ingrid Bergman, Beatrice Straight, Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway.  He was TV and film history, and "Network" is more relevant today than it was 35 years ago.  He will be missed.

I finished "The Lyons' Den" and sent it off to the publisher.  It wound up being 276 pages long and very nearly 60K in words.  I went through my usual, "Let's put it aside for a little while and see how it reads, then" and realized if I do that, I'll never finish it.  I could easily tweak this story for the next year and not be 100% on it, but the fact is, I never SHOULD be.  When the day comes that I'm satisfied with my writing, that'll be the day my creativity has died...well, what little creativity I have.

Besides, I was falling in love with Van and that's not a good thing.  I could easily make this a gooey love story instead of the farcical-psychotic-break it really is.  I never knew I could go as far as I did with this story.  Here's hoping this publisher likes it.

Now I can get to my reading and prepping for "Place of Safety."

On a side note -- Obama let the country get raped by the GOP and he's calling it a victory because they agreed to use a condom.  I may talk to some of the people I know in England and see if anyone will sponsor me for a job over there, since I'm not winning the lottery and I'm incapable of writing a script that will sell.  I'm not above applying for citizenship.  The UK doesn't require I give up my US passport, nor does the US.  But this ludicrous dance in Washington is just plain pathetic, and the scum on the Right are only going to get worse, thanks to this capitulation by our power elite and the asinine pundits who support them.

Where's an FDR or Harry Truman when you need one?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Obama was to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, instead we are now involved with Libya and worse, with a ragtag militia that seem to think shooting in the air in front of journalist is what civil war is all about. We're funding ammunition to be shot for the cameras.

These Middle Eastern countries, including Israel all work on tribal unity. Who runs the countries is not important, it is the dominant tribe that governs the rest by fear and intimidation. Yet we keep treating them as if they were a Western-European style of government. They are not.

Gitmo is still active, the rich are awarded tax breaks while the rest of us are asked to carry the debt burden.

Where is the change? Where are the new ideas? What can we believe in?

JamTheCat said...

Obama's done exactly what I expected him to do...only worse. I never suspected he was really just a closet Republican.