Star Trek

Oh Star Trek, I will forgive you these things, because you move so damn fast and your characters are so damn good.

This is a Star Trek remix, and it's wonderful. That said, here's what actively annnoyed me (noet these aren't plot points. I could give a crap about handwavey Star Trek plots. This is a soap opera in space):

1) Uhura should have totally decked one of the guys in the bar. With how awesomely they re-did her, I was actually surprised this didn't happen. Uhura is pretty awesome. It made me teary eyed to see how far she's come. That said:

2) She is one of three female characters. One of them dies, and it is kind of boring. The other is Kirk's mom, who has this ridiculous giving-birth-in-an-evacuation-shuttle scene. At least she didn't die. It reminded me of Padme. I grit my teeth and bore through the thing, cause I knew the rest of the movie would be awesome. As J. pointed out, in Star Trek the families come with the crew, so it was not ridiculous for her to be there, just a ridiculously laid out scene. Would have much preferred her in uniform being rushed to a shuttle where she *then* goes into labor. Also, cut the fucking com with her dying husband. That was overmuch for me, even in a Start Trek movie. I wanted her to firm up her jaw and accept the sacrifice, teary eyed but tough. It was a little smarmy for me.

3) Gods, why do they go on with the overlong creature chase and Scotty-in-the-pipes hijinks? These scenes are both about 2-3 minutes too long. Not 7 minutes too long thank god, but they're still running long for "wacky hijinks."

I am so happy these characters didn't suck. This was well written and very well executed. A perfect reboot. If they did this to every series they reboot, I'd be a lot happier with them. They didn't sacrifice the heart of the show for special effects, and they had a great team of actors. It is, effectively, a soap opera, and without those character quirks, tensions, relationships, unique skills, weaknesses, foibles, and snark, you've just got elves in space.

This is why Firefly was so loved: it's about building great characters and letting them run wild.

I didn't even pay attention to the absurdities of the plot until later, because I just didn't care. I loved the people.

At the end of the movie I thought, "Wow, Gene Roddenberry would have crapped his pants to see this."

Because it felt a lot more like what he was trying to do. It actually *felt* like a diverse cast. It felt more like the future. Hell, it felt more like *now* than most tv shows and their lily white cornbread casting. And yes, everyone is young and beautiful, and our two primary protagonists are still white and male, and we only have three female characters, one of whom dies, but:

It's come a long way.

Thank you for building a cast for Star Trek that doesn't suck. Now don't screw it up.

Money Shot:

"For some men, the only thing more intolerable than the sight of a powerful woman is the sight of a powerful woman they don’t want to sleep with."

Zing!

Runner up, from the end of the article:

"Still, nonsense about women, weight, and “health” is particularly pervasive and destructive. Indeed, if we were really concerned about medical risk factors that actually do have a significant negative correlation with a candidate’s life expectancy, the most relevant is one that has afflicted 108 of America’s 110 Supreme Court justices: being a man."

Srsly, Why Am I Deadlifting 125 lbs?

The sounds I make when I lift this weight are not sexy.

The work trainers have upped the ante for me this training round, as said a while back, which is nice. I'm feeling stronger, and I needed it: I put on about 6 lbs in 4 weeks when we moved into our new place (for some reason, the increased amount of sex does not even out the increased amount of eating out one encounters when cohabitating).

Things here are starting to fall into routine, tho, and the weight is slowly going back to normal (my goal, as ever, is to maintain my weight). I'm biking to work every day, hitting the gym twice a week, and maintaining my morning weight routine. I do need to get in two more days a week of regular structured exercise, and I'm working on that.

We're also cooking a lot to save money. J. is planning on returning to school properly next quarter, which means I'll be the breadwinner for a bit (student loans will help, too), so we're looking to cut costs across the board.

Concerns over my A1c has curbed my interest in those tasty English muffins with peanut butter at work ("But they're low(er) carb!" just isn't a great excuse when they wreck havoc on my blood sugar all day. But man, that's been a tough habit to crack. I tend to be really hungry when I get into work now that I'm biking in).

Last week was an awesome sugar week, in no small part because I snacked mainly on string cheese and peanuts and didn't bake any of my low-carb cookies. I don't know how other diabetics eat complex carbs regularly (OK, I don't know how they can eat them regularly and maintain A1c's below 6. My goal is 5.7-5.9. But then, I'm ambitious like that).

Good to be back at the gym *properly* as opposed to in a non-structured way. I'm much better with structure.

Off to eat some meatballs and asparagus. Mmmmm mmmmm.

Then, as ever, to write and write and write.

I have a lot of work to do this month.

Escape Pod

Just sold a story to EscapePod. For those who prefer to listen to their fiction instead of reading it, I'll let you know the day it's available for download.

Huzzah!

And Sometimes You Stand and Fight

A 17-year-old high school marching band student beat up two assailants who tried to mug her as she walked to school in this high desert community about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, sheriff's officials said Tuesday.

My martial arts teacher once said that the cowards are the ones who attack you from behind. This means that if you show any amount of backbone, they're more likely to back off than somebody who, say, punches you in the face. These are the sorts of people who are also less likely to be armed, which definately helped our heroine.

I would have liked a little more back story on this student, tho. I'm always interested in why some people fight back and some people don't (again, them not being armed and her knowing how to use a baton probably helped).

Why We Love Stories About Sparta

With key Greek city-states in submission, Philip of Macedon turned his attention to Sparta and sent a message: "If I win this war, you will be slaves forever."

In another version, Philip proclaims: "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."

The Spartan ephors sent back a one word reply: "If."

(from here)

Why Lazy Writing Screws Women Over

Hollywood at work:

Kevin and I started with a concept: What if we did the entire thing in one shot? We follow a girl from her bathroom mirror, to a car ride, to a convenience store, to a seedy party where she finally shoots and murders someone. All in one shot. Problem then, became exposition. Was this just to be a conceptual idea? Or were we going to explain why she kills this motherfucker? And who exactly was this dude anyway? The words "seedy party" though, definitely got us excited. We began to see a pimp. Picture Roy Scheider from Klute or Gary Oldman from True Romance, mixed in with a little Alfred Molina from Boogie Nights and Willem DaFoe from Wild At Heart. And who was the girl? Just some scorned chick? Nah, how about something more interesting. Like a beautiful young woman hellbent on killing the pimp that murdered her sister. No! How about her identical twin sister. And how about, these weren't your normal twins. But two girls who shared a strange, abnormal bond. And how about this guy is a real class act. He's a suburban brat who thinks he's smarter than he is. Oh, and he's utterly psychotic.

You see how they start out all right:

We'll have this great female protagonist, yes... and we'll follow her... and she kills someone because... because...

And that's where it all seems to break down. After all, what reason could a woman possibly have to kill someone?

Wait, I know!

She'll get raped! OK, but she should be a super assassin, so we'll have her twin sister get raped, but she can feel the things her twin sister feels, so she'll actually be getting raped!

AND THAT'S HOW WE'LL OPEN THE MOVIE!

This is the same kind of lazy writing Joss Whedon is doing with Dollhouse.

"Not sure what to do next? Have somebody get raped!"

Sweet God, people. You do know that women have lots of traumatic, story-worthy things happen to them that don't involve rape, right?

Because opening your story with your protagonist getting raped? It's just not interesting. Your story is full of cheesy caricatures, but not in a Kill Bill way, in a stupidly LAZY way.

What drives me bonkers is that these are supposedly experienced script writers. I realize they're writing under deadline, for fun, but sweet fuck, you guys, it's not hard to write a good script with awesome characters who don't suck. It's really not.

But hey, let's try something else on for size, for fun. We have to write a script that follows the same constraints these guys did. Low-low budget, that can be shot in a week, preferably in one shot (but can take or leave that). So instead of:

We follow a girl from her bathroom mirror, to a car ride, to a convenience store, to a seedy party where she finally shoots and murders someone. All in one shot.

How about:

We follow a girl as she suits up for "work." Black stockings, black boots, black leather jacket, duel pistol holsters, knife strapped to her ankle, extra bullets and brass knuckles in her bag. She gets on a motorcycle and heads off to a seedy pool party. She pulls a shotgun from her side bag, shoots in the door, kicks her way in, and aims at the Big Bad and says, coldly, "This is for my brother." She shoots him. He goes over. She leans in close to blow his whole head off and we hear him say, "Your brother's not dead." She says, "I know," and kills him. Then she opens up a can of whoop-ass on the whole pool party with all her sweet-ass weaponry and kills everybody there. Then we see her start to torch the place. She gets back on her motorcycle and stops at a bench in what appears to be a park. A man is sitting on the bench. She sits next to him. "Didn't think you were coming," he says. "I don't think they'll be a problem getting that cancer drug approved," she says. "The big wigs are out of the picture. Just watch who you piss off next time. I can't clean up all your messes. We're not kids anymore. The stakes are a lot higher." She checks her cell phone, stands. "I may be out of touch for awhile. Say hi to dad for me." She walks away, we pull back, and we see that they're at a cemetary. On the headstone is their father's name and a eulogy indicating that he died of cancer.

Blah blah.

Slightly syrupy? Sure, but I wrote that in all of ten minutes. I'm uncertain as to why Hollywood can't come up with something more original than, "Chick gets raped, let's make a movie about it," in an hour, ten days, ten months or ten goddamn years.

Come, guys. Lazy writing is boring, and I'm sick of your boring-ass, victimized, brutalized female characters. Think outside the fucking constraints of your fucking institutionalized sexism.

Lazy, lazy, lazy.

"How many real adult times have you been in love?"

Inquiring minds want to know.

Why am I Deadlifting 125 lbs?

Well, I did tell our trainers I wanted to work on strength training.

Ooof.

Barbarella

That was... that was... that was a special, special film.

Oh, and they're doing a remake.

DEAR GOD WHY???

There are few films that are totally iconic of their times. This is one of them. You can't remake this movie. Outside of the context of the late 60s, early 70s, it makes no sense.

I mean, it made no sense anyway, but that was the point. It was just like the 60s.

No results found... Because most authors' webpages suck...?

Under Construction

Story of my life.

Jane Austin & Zombies Has Arrived

I bought a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for J., secretly knowing that I could steal it from him when he wasn't looking. Then Steph called dibs on it when we all went out to dinner, and now I'm 3rd in line. Still, I've been sneaking peeks, and I can say this much:

Reader, it's awesome.

These are the stories - and heroines! - I wanted to read about 20 years ago.

Why Other Cool People Like "The 300"

WIN!

I'm always delighted when I find women who thought fan-"boy" movies like The 300 and Fight Club were full of awesome.

Because they were.

"I've never met a writer..." The Writing Life

Me, Steph, J. and The Old Man went out to dinner last night to celebrate The Old Man winning a shiny Fellowship that will make it possible for him and Steph to eat come January.

Talk inevitably turned to Jim Butcher's new book. J. and The Old Man are big fans of Butcher.

"Are you coming with us Wednesday?" J. asked The Old Man. "You know Jim Butcher's going to be at The Greene."

"I don't know... probably not. I have a big test Thursday."

"You don't want to see Jim Butcher?" I said, incredulous. The Old Man bought Butcher's latest book the day it came out and finished it four hours later.

"Oh, I don't know..." the Old Man said. "I've never really met a writer before."

J. and Steph just kind of looked at him for a minute. I snickered.

Then we all burst out laughing.

"To be fair, you weren't a writer when I first met you (ten years ago)," the Old Man protested, turning to me. "You were just a wanna-be."

Quote of the Day

"A moron writes words. A moron flails about for telling details--declarations, clichés, sentence fragments. A moron owns a frying pan. A moron has an extensive collection of pornography. A moron makes assumptions--about gender roles, about sexuality, about class. Or he fantasizes--about sports cars, Rolexes, cash. He prefers the company of men, but not in a gay way, REALLY. Irony escapes him. A moron pretends that women have no interest in the martial arts because the thought that they might hit him is scary. A moron is not good with words. Not words, not ideas, not talking about men. He is paid by the word. Two-fifty. It doesn't matter what words he puts down, because those who do not agree with what he says are not men."

From here, and context.

Wiscon

For better or worse, I won't be able to make it this year. I owe bunches of taxes this year and I needed to put my book checks toward furniture, heat, and a car.

So, no Wiscon.

Next year, tho, I'll be peddling a pretty sweet-ass little book. So I think attendance is mandatory.

The Roots of Urban Fantasy

An interesting history of the "urban fantasy" (AKA vampire porn) novel.

As an aside, I'm kind of embarrassed to say out loud that, shit, man, Rusch is a really terrible writer. I'm sure she writes good *story* (which would be why she sells so many), but she really doesn't have a lot of technical skill. Lots of interesting stuff to chew on here, just not articulated as well as it could have been.

Sorry. I had to say that out loud.

Now go forth and create the next reimagined gothic, people! I'm bored with vampire porn.

4 to 46

I do wonder when we'll hit the tipping point. Think it'll take as long as 10 years? The buildup, sure, I understand that taking 10 years, but once you hit the tipping point, the rest should come on down just like dominoes.

Til then, keep on truckin.

Spring 2010

I was editing an RFI at work today that mentioned the date, "Spring 2010."

My immediate thought was, "My book comes out in Spring 2010."

I've started to associate that ENTIRE PHRASE "Spring 2010" with the release of God's War.

Heaven forbid when I actually get a solid release date.