My Storytellers Unplugged essay, Gap Year(s), went live on Saturday. It’s about my “lost decade” from writing. Check it out!
My mini-seminar for the Houston Writers Guild went quite well on Saturday. I got to Sugar Land in about an hour, with plenty of time to set up my laptop, figure out the best orientation for the projector and prepare myself to face over 40 people for a couple of hours. No one snuck out during the first break, so I guess I must have been doing okay. Quite a few people came up to me afterward to tell me how much they enjoyed my talk, and a couple of them called it inspirational. I’m not really used to talking at that length–I joked that I’d used up a month’s worth of words in those two hours–but I think it went okay.
Fortunately the rain held off until I got back home. The last couple of days have been sort of rainy, especially in the late afternoon and early evening, and I think today is supposed to be the same again.
I received my contributor copies of Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 1 on Friday. I haven’t had much of a chance to look through the book yet, though. I made a few editing passes through the story in progress, but it’s still sitting at 4300 words and an idea I had this morning after I was done working on it for the day promises to add a little bit to the text.
On Saturday evening, we watched The Hurt Locker. Interesting movie. It’s not structured like an ordinary movie, and has more of a documentary feel. Tense, suspenseful scenes, and the developing relationship between the ordinance expert and Sgt. Sanborn is well conceived and executed. The scene where he thinks he recognizes the body used for a body bomb is terrific, as is its payoff later on. James is an enigma, an addict, and completely understandable once the film is over. Highly recommended.
The second episode of Eureka makes it clear that his is the new reality for our characters. It doesn’t matter what came before–there’s no way to get back to that reality. However, they do have to worry that they might somehow continue to pollute the time-space distortion, especially with the presence of someone who doesn’t belong in the 21st century. The positron storm was something of a distraction, giving the characters something to do while they tried to figure out what their new lives were like. Good, solid episode.
Can’t say the same for Haven, though. The second episode was terrible. Wooden acting, stupid, predictable plot, just lame over all. At least the scenery is nice, with Lunenburg standing in for coastal Maine.
