Derry, Northern Ireland

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

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Lack of blogging

The last few days have been long and tiring, and when I"m done all I want to do is sit in a tub for the rest of my life and think of nothing. I'm currently reading an okay mystery -- The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker. It's an incomplete followup to another mystery I read by the same author; same characters but not as thought-through as the first. What's good about it is I can put it down and go to sleep. I couldn't with the first one. What's bad about it is how there seems to be no emotional connection to the deaths that happen, even though everyone in the town knew both men. And one guy's dog is missing but no one's really looking for it. Feels lazy and uncaring.

But another good thing about reading this mystery -- it's making me acutely aware of how meandering can become boring. I'll need to watch that with Owen Taylor. I'm still making notes in my monster binder, and I finally agreed with Jake's wanting to change the bad guy. It simplifies things and still draws in aspects of the story I want. Which is a whole new version...rewrite...whatever...

And Carli's beginning to win about making CK a screenplay. I was talking with some friends about it, Sunday evening, and as I explained the story, it did work better as a movie. Shit. This will be my 33rd screenplay. Talk about going nowhere fast...

Something that surprised me is there are people who are afraid to read my writing, even my more mainstream work like The Lyons' Den. There's less sex in that than in a book by Danielle Steele (who was never in the same sex-please-and-often camp as the likes of Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz). I wasn't able to find out why, but it was a visceral reaction...like they thought all my writing is as raw and brutal as How To Rape A Straight Guy. And this is from someone who loves horror.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. On a shoot I did some years ago, this kid from Tennessee (who'd recently graduated from Film school) was helping out and during lunch we talked about favorite films. He hated The Bridges of Madison County "because it glorified adultery" (which was nonsense), and when I mentioned my favorite was The 400 Blows, the first thing out of his mouth was, "Please tell me that ain't porn." I nearly hit him, but restrained myself enough to say, "It's a classic French film." His response? "You like French movies? I didn't know anybody did."

I didn't speak to the little prick the rest of the shoot...not that he could be bothered to notice.

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