We survived the cold snap of 2010. It never seemed to be quite as bad as forecast, although it probably was. The worst of the low temperatures were overnight. By the time we got up and about it was usually hovering around or even above the freezing point. No problems with the water pipes, but some of the yard foliage may have succumbed. We tend to be rather mercenary when it comes to shrubberies. If they can’t survive on their own, they’re easily replaced.
I’m having a strange experience with a short story submission. You think you’ve heard it all, and then something new happens. Early last year, I submitted a reprint story to a themed anthology that seemed a perfect fit. In due course I received an e-mail saying that my story had been accepted and that I would be contacted regarding contracts, and other matters pertaining to the sale. As things hadn’t been moving particularly quickly on that project, I didn’t think anything was amiss when I didn’t hear anything for a couple of months. Then, this weekend, a colleague posted that he had a story in the anthology and included a link to the table of contents. Lo and behold, my story wasn’t there. I e-mailed the editor asking what was up with that? (In more professional terms, of course!) He responded almost immediately, saying that he couldn’t find a copy of my story on his pile and there was a chance he’d mislaid it. I’ll get back to you, he says. That’s where things stand at the moment. Weird.
This weekend I finished a new draft of a story that is part of a neat project coming out in a few months. I’d received a lot of feedback from the editor and took it to heart, pruning and honing the story. Though it had swollen by about 1000 words on an early revision, I managed to trim about half of that back out again this time. It’s still not exactly svelte, at 5800 words. I’m not sure about the ending at the moment, so I’m awaiting the editor’s response once again.
This morning I returned to an old story that’s been around the block a few times. A new market opened up that seems ideal for it. I also came up with a new approach and a new metaphor for the story and have revamped it to such an extent that it even has a new title, a deadly clever two-worder that has at least three implications I can think of (in the same way that A Dark Place by Peter Straub has multiple meanings, not that I dare draw any comparisons between my work and his!). I hope to get that story tidied up this week before tackling my submission to the next MWA anthology and then I plan to get back to the novel, which has been lingering too long.
We watched a British movie called Dangerous Parking this weekend. It’s an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Stuart Browne about an enfant terrible movie director who enters rehab and turns his life around, only to get kicked in the unmentionables by repeated bouts of bladder cancer. Written, directed by and starring Peter Howitt, it has more inventive swearing per minute than just about any film I’ve seen lately, including today’s subject line, which comes from one of the film’s funnier moments. The main character and his best friend (played by Sean Pertwee, son of the actor who was the third Doctor Who) are so stoned that they think they’ve been dinged for speeding when in fact they are stopped in the fast lane of the — as the cop puts it — M Bastard 6 motorway. “You weren’t speeding,” the cop says. “You weren’t going any speed at all!” The judge comes up with the inventive charge of “dangerous parking.” The film also stars Saffron Burrows (Boston Legal). It suffers a bit from non-chronological storytelling (though the main character’s fortunate decision to bleach the front of his hair helps orient viewers) but it’s pretty hilarious–except when it isn’t.
Yesterday afternoon I stumbled upon a film called Separate Lies starring Tom Wilkerson (Michael Clayton), Rupert Everett and Emily Watson. It’s about a couple whose lives are upended after their house cleaner’s husband is killed in a hit-and-run accident. They become enmeshed in a cover-up that becomes increasingly complicated as additional lies are revealed. Powerful acting and sophisticated motivations, although it sort of falls apart at the end.
Last night we found an old Hugh Grant / Sarah Jessica Parker / Gene Hackman film called Extreme Measures (not to be confused with the forthcoming Extraordinary Measures) about a medical resident who stumbles upon a cover-up in his Manhattan hospital where homeless people are being forced to participate in a research project. It’s not the usual Grant fluff (we were bemused to note that it was produced by Elizabeth Hurley). It has this tense scene in the tunnels beneath NYC that is totally irrelevant except as a way of increasing tension, but still it was an okay thriller.
I’m currently reading Lee Thomas’s collection In the Closet, Under the Bed. His publisher, Dark Scribe, kindly sent me a copy and I have been enjoying it greatly. I haven’t read much of his short fiction before, so this is a treat. I noticed a character named Nick Hoffman who works at a video store and suffers an unpleasant fate…
