“… Language itself is a form of virtual reality.”
internet
Two quick writing links
StandardFirst, I’m sure Nick Mamatas will mock this article as soon as he hears about it. I haven’t finished it yet (I’m at work) but so far it looks interesting.
This Letter to an MFA is a very interesting little treatise on creating a story. It’s short, too. Check it out.
Both links above are from here. You’re welcome.
And, because I know you’re all dying to know, I received my notes on the book three proposal today. They’re good, too, and not at all what I was expecting. I can’t respond to them here, though, so I have a lot to do tonight.
Side effects of reading this post may include: dismay, fury, or despair
StandardUgh. I was going to collect a couple of links to post together, but this one is so ugly that I’m going to let it stand on its own.
Anyway, I’m not sure how I missed this story about a ten-year-old Yemeni girl who filed for divorce from her abusive husband. One thing that stood out for me in this story, aside from the genuine awfullness of human animals, was that the girl wanted to cut her trip to Paris short so she could go back to school. At first, I thought it was sad that she was going to miss out on seeing more of the city, but then I read the last sentence in the article and I thought “Oh, fuck, I’d want to get away from those assholes, too.”
We learn more from failure than success
StandardThat ten-day fast I was on? It turned out to be a one and a half day fast. Excuse-making, rationalizations and other specious pseudo-arguments will be made later. Meanwhile… Look! People who are crazy about cats!
For all you MST3K fans out there…
StandardDial up users need not apply
StandardSuperbowl=fun. However, in two weeks I’ll have forgotten about the game and won’t be able to tell you who played. I’ll still be able to tell you about the fresh lemon/limeade we enjoyed, burning out my decade-old juicer in the making. Those are my priorities and I’m sticking with them.
Now that that is done with, let me offer something fun to take the place of all those football games you barely cared about:
It’s 1754, Covent Gardens, London. John Fielding has just hired you as his newest Bow Street Runner–in a city filled with crime of every sort, Fielding and his now-deceased brother Henry are trying to form a police force of sorts. It’s a dangerous job, and no one believes it’ll work, but if you can solve crimes and bring criminals to justice, you just might institute a new social order.
Such is the setup for Bow Street Runner, a free online flash game created as a companion to the TV series City of Vice. And where most flash games are goofy animation of one sort or another, this is a live-action mystery game, with real actors and excellent costuming. Hell, they even have professional lighting.
You, as the newest runner, are given a murder to solve. Is it a simple robbery or is it something more? You click around the screen to find clues, interview bystanders and defeat simple puzzles (mainly by clicking a tracing shapes on screen to represent feats of dexterity like picking locks or pockets).
It’s not perfect. You can’t leave a scene until you’ve collected all the necessary evidence, and the game environment is so rich that it can take a while to load (note the subject header of this post). It’s tremendously fun, though, even if it is a little grim ‘n’ gritty. If you get stuck, though, you can find a walkthrough here.
Really, this is impressive in many different ways.
Caution: not kid-safe. If you want kid-safe, play Aether, which is beautiful and fun.
And now I’m off to stimulate the economy. Also, still waiting to get notes about my proposal.
There’s still time!
StandardSuperbowl Sunday is tomorrow, but there’s still time to make this epic snack!
The picture has to be seen to be believed.
Four things
StandardA routine traffic stop in Florida turned up a man who faked his own death in 1989. He isn’t being charged with a crime and claims to have abandoned a fiancee and a child twenty years ago because he has grown paranoid about his “narcotics-related activity.”
Two men in New Zealand, after being convicted and sentenced, were being taken to jail when they made a break for it. Handcuffed together, the men fled across a parking lot, only stopping when the men tried to run on opposite sides of a light pole.
There’s video at that site.
The men had been pepper sprayed in their escape attempt, so I’m guessing they were running blind.
And, watching SUPERNATURAL, I realize I have no interest in seeing Sam and Dean’s high school years.
Finally, I just listened to Michael Pollan talk about healthy food and healthy eating. Interesting stuff, and not the usual “low carb/low fat” dumbosity.
Check it out
StandardThis is very much how I’ve tried to live my life and solve my problems. It’s not easy. In fact, sometimes it feels almost shameful to continually adjust adjust adjust.
But it works.
Five things make a post
Standard1) My back is still painful, but I expect to be able to go back to the day job tomorrow. Heating pads, ice, and body work have me doing pretty well. Although I still wouldn’t try to climb a ladder.
2) On the web, James Enge takes the latest episode of Criminal Minds out to the woodshed. Don’t miss that one.
3) Elseweb, Agent Barbara Poelle posts five story ideas she wish someone would submit. Obviously, I’m not going to be working on any of these–I have an agent already and a contract, too–but it’s interesting to see what people want. Her list is nothing like mine would be–in fact, number 2 sounds like it would be appalling. Still, it’s pretty interesting to see how people think about they books they’re looking for and how they frame their interest.
4) and 5) While I was trapped at home on the couch, I had a chance to watch two of the movies I borrowed recently from the library: WANTED and HANCOCK. Weirdly, one was adapted from a comic book and one was about a superhero, and they weren’t the same movie.
Now here’s a chance to see if my WordPress plugin can put in the LJ cut. Spoilers!
WANTED was actually the stronger of the two movies, as sad as that seems. It was based on a comic book of the same name, which I’ve read in trade paperback. From what I’ve heard, producers bought the rights to the story after the very first issue, which ended with the scene where the shlub shoots the wings off a fly. In the comic, the next story beat was that the protagonist learned he was the son of a supervillain in a world where the villains has defeated the superheroes years before, and now ran everything in secret. He came into his powers, embraced evil and consolidated his power through a whole lot of killing.
In the film, his father was a superhuman assassin from one of those millennia-old assassins guild that movies seem so full of. Our Hero learns to use his powers and hunts the dude who killed his father.
It was mostly an excuse for ridiculously over the top action scenes, which are decidedly out of style now. And it was kinda fun. I just wish they’d left out the fat snark.
HANCOCK is the superhero movie that came from a spec script titled TONIGHT, HE COMES, which I haven’t read but have heard is amazing and wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that it had to be made, and had all the misery and desperation drained out of it.
Really, as soon as Charlize Theron turned out to have superpowers, too, the whole thing comes apart. It’s like the scene in DEJA VU where the protagonist climbs into the time machine–the reality of the story came apart and stopped making sense.
Disappointing, both of them.