Bev Vincent

After a short story was rejected recently, I decided to take a look at it before sending it out, a sort of semi-annual checkup, and I was shocked and appalled by how heavy handed it was. The story was 3500 words long, and about 2000 of those words consisted of introspective naval gazing. I know what I was aiming for with the story, but boy did I botch it. I almost decided to trunk it, but I thought I’d dig the story out of the mess and see what remained. I’m almost done with that part of the job, and I have 1500 words of straight plot. The story is essentially a metaphor, so the next task is to go back at it and lightly sprinkle in a few things that guide the metaphor instead of having the story hit the reader over the head with a sledge hammer.

I hope Boston PD does a better job of maintaining a crime scene than was depicted on Rizzoli and Isles this week. They seemed to have been having a great deal of trouble keeping everyone and their mother (Rizzoli’s mother, in particular) from blundering onto the scene. The perfect little girl turned hooker has been done to death, and having the R.A.-cum-pimp yank out a gun and shoot the only shield he has in the middle of a crowd seemed like bad plotting. The only worthy moment the show had was the last few minutes where Rizzoli talked about why she didn’t go to college. The weakest installment of the first four by far.

The Closer was their annual Keystone Kops episode featuring Provenza and Flynn, who were hooking up with a couple of dim flight attendants when Provenza stumbled across a body in a bathtub mere moments after he popped his little blue pill. I was hoping that the two flight attendants wouldn’t miraculously turn out to be Mensa candidates at the end, and I wasn’t disappointed. Of course, the captain became an obvious suspect because he suffered from familiar actor syndrome—there was no way Kyle Secor (Bayliss from Homicide, Life on the Streets) was going to have just a walk-on part. None of it really mattered a great deal, it was just all good fun. Some very funny moments, including the gay medical examiner describing the murder as “Accidental death in the middle of someone else’s hissy fit.”

Rubicon could be interesting, depending on how they decide to dole out information and how long they decide to string us along. We’re getting glimpses of the people involved in what appears to be a high-power cabal, but none of it fits together yet. I’m wondering if the instructions from high up to concentrate on the guy in Bulgaria are to keep that team distracted from thinking much about the apparent death of their former handler.

Don Draper had a hell of a Christmas on Mad Men. The first one away from his children. He’s drinking heavily, losing his keys, making inappropriate advances (as always). I wonder if his secretary was typing up her resignation at the end of the episode or if she was just covering her hurt by doing menial office tasks. And, boy, wasn’t that client a bastard, the one who kept insisting on humiliating Roger?

The second of three 90-minute BBC telefilms called Sherlock, a 21st century rendition of the famous detective, was called “The Blind Banker,” though the title was pretty arbitrary. I thought this one was weaker than the first episode. Again with the murders staged to seem like suicide. The middle part felt soft and sluggish, and the final confrontation between Holmes and the evildoers felt like something from a James Bond movie. “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” The bit with the arrow was way over the top (if Watson could knock his chair over, why couldn’t Sarah knock over hers? Or at least why couldn’t Holmes?). Someone else commented that it was reminiscent of Fu Manchu. Where was Lestrade? It also took them a long time to tie in the opening scene in the museum with the rest of the story, and the secret code seemed more like a puzzle of curiosity than any real utility, especially in 2010. Only one more left to go—hope it’s a good’un.

Suffering from a summer cold this weekend. It started out with a scratchy throat—a familiar warning symbol. Then my voice turned basso profundo. It’s amazing how little it takes to throw me off my writing schedule. Sore throat and phlegmy throat—that’ll do it.

Eureka is a whimsical little TV show that never fails to amuse me. The show wears its heart on its sleeve, and the “big mystery” about what’s behind the strange goings on each week is never much of a puzzle. This week, for example, when the ditzy girl sprayed a new invention on Carter’s sleeve, it was pretty clear that it was going to be the cause of some hijinx—and it was. The real story of the episode, though, was the interactions between two parents and their respective children. Allison was trying to figure out how to relate to her son, who was autistic in her former reality but isn’t any longer. Carter, on the other hand, is afraid to visit his daughter at university in case she’s changed, too. She has…but not because of the alternate universe—simply because she’s getting older and becoming her own person. It’s not rocket science, but it’s charming.

Haven, on the other hand, is now canceled in my mind. It’ll probably lumber along, but it’ll do so without me. The show is simply silly and lame with bad acting and a derivative concept that’s been done far better by other shows. It’s not enough for a show to rely on weird goings on. There’s no marvel in the characters. A guy’s rage causes food to go bad. Surely that requires a certain degree of amazement from the people around him, even if they’ve seen other strange things before. But everyone just accepts this weirdness.

We watched The Greatest, an indy film starring Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon and Carey Mulligan. Brosnan and Sarandon play the parents of a college-bound teenager killed in a car accident shortly after sleeping with his new girlfriend (Mulligan) for the first time. The movie is a study in grief. Sarandon is devastated and becomes obsessed with finding out everything she can about her son’s final moments. Brosnan is determined to hold it together for the sake of everyone else, including his other son, so he doesn’t ever process his own grief. One of the movie’s most daring scenes is a very long, uninterrupted shot that holds on Brosnan’s face while he sits in the back of the limousine after the funeral, his wife on one side, his son on the other. I don’t know exactly how long it lasted, but it felt like two or three minutes. He goes through a whole range of emotions—it’s an impressive performance, but it calls a lot of attention to the fact that it’s a performance, so I’m not sure it works all that well. Mulligan enters the family when she shows up at their door three months after the accident, announcing that she’s pregnant and has no where else to go. She is the story’s catalyst, causing changes in the parents’ grieving processes. Sarandon wants nothing to do with her and Brosnan is charmed by her. There’s a subplot with the surviving son, who goes to grief counseling because it’s the thing to do. He meets and becomes close to a girl who delivers an odd surprise late in the film. Mulligan, I believe, has the potential to be a fine actress. She already is—her delivery is so natural and credible—but it will be interesting to see her in a different kind of role. Perhaps in Wall Street 2.

The Rubicon launches on AMC tonight. I saw the sneak preview of the first hour a couple of months ago and quite liked it. It’s a conspiracy thriller where the conspiracy is very real and very convoluted. I watched another conspiracy thriller on Encore yesterday afternoon: The International, with Clive Owens and Naomi Watts. Nice, international settings (Berlin, Milan, Istanbul) and a great shootout scene in the Guggenheim that lays waste to the famous museum, but a little over-convoluted and murky. Watts is absent from the movie for huge chucks because her character isn’t a gunslinger—and kudos to the writers for acknowledging that fact and not sticking a Glock in her hands anyway. There’s a nice turnaround at the end when the clock starts running against the bad guys instead of the heroes.

Only once before have I had to submit a short story proposal instead of a short story to a new market. That was in the case of the Doctor Who: Destination Prague anthology, where we had to pitch the story along with that version of the Doctor and the companions who would appear. The pitches were very short, as I recall, about 100-150 words. First time was the lucky charm: I got the green light to write “Leap Second.”

This morning I wrote a 150-word pitch for another anthology being edited by someone I’ve worked with a couple of times recently. I thought I was going to propose one story, but when it came time to put my fingers on the keyboard I realized that story was a little bit too far from the guidelines. Since the deadline for pitches is this week, I thought I was S.O.L. but I came up with another idea on the spot and I liked it a lot, so I sent it off. Fingers crossed. If the pitch is accepted, then I’ll actually have to write the damn thing. At least I came up with a possible title for it later on this morning.

The new series, Covert Affairs, on USA is continuing strong. Episode 3 was set partly in Caracas, a city with which I have a passing familiarity. They must have done some second unit work in Venezuela, or else they picked up some stock footage of the slums on the outskirts of the town, because I recognized some of it. I went there on a business trip many years ago, by myself. Flew into the city on the day before Columbus Day, which is a big holiday in the country. My host arranged for a special driver to pick me up and take me to my hotel. The next day I wandered the city (by myself), avoiding eating all the things I’d read about that might make me sick (fresh fruits and salads, ice in drinks). I enjoyed seeing the place and never once felt a bit threatened but my host told me the next day that what I’d done hadn’t been very smart. Live and learn, I guess. One thing I always remember about that trip is that the same driver picked me up each morning to take me to IVIC, the scientific institute I was visiting, which was a bit out of town. There was this huge circular roundabout on the way up a hill. I couldn’t tell you how many lanes wide it was, because the concept of lanes was a bit moot. It was more like a swarm of vehicles operating under some poorly defined, poorly understood set of rules. We were never in an accident, but I think I saw a new dent on his car every time he picked me up. During one trip he told me the number of car accidents that took place in the city every day. I don’t remember the number, not even the order of magnitude, but it was astonishingly large. Or not, after experiencing the traffic!

I think the new series on TNT should be called Rizzoli and Isles. No slight against Sacha Alexander intended, but the show really is Angie Harmon’s. We know more about her character’s day-to-day job, we’ve met her mother, father, siblings, childhood friends, boss, and co-workers. Whereas Isles has been mostly a character to make fun of because she’s so anal and literal. The writers drag Isles along to places she has no business going just to give her a bit more screen time. In this week’s episode she went with Rizzoli to try to dig the truth out of the culprits, but her only purpose in being there was to confirm the lie Rizzoli planned to tell to trick the killer. Not a very good use of Boston’s resources, one would think. Shouldn’t she have autopsies to conduct? Plus, as written, she’s a terribly annoying character. Still, Harmon’s Rizzoli is enough to keep me coming back to the series.

I finished Mr. Peanut last night. It’s going to take me some time to assemble my thoughts on the book. It’s a strange little creature.

Another rainy day in Texas. Last night we had some of the most impressive thunder I’ve ever heard. One crack was loud and fierce enough to shake the house and make me say a bad word. Several of the rolls of thunder just went on and on and on, lasting for at least thirty seconds, if not longer.

Last night’s The Closer was okay. The drug addled prime suspect was funny. The grandparents were a bit strident. Sanchez’s behavior seemed very much out of character. I have a suspicion that when Brenda put on the earphones she heard something that would have confirmed a conspiracy that she chose to ignore for the benefit of the little girl. The early scene when Brenda and Fritz were fighting while she simultaneously juggled a phone call from Sgt. Gabriel was pretty funny. Next week looks like another hilarious Provenza/Flynn episode. I remember the last one where they found a dead body while they were on the way to a baseball game and decided to hide the body until afterward so they wouldn’t miss the game, only to have the body go missing.

I wish I could take credit for the pun that is the title of today’s post, but it was a retweet by Ian Rankin from someone else who summed up the new BBC miniseries Sherlock in the best, pithiest way possible. The comparison is, of course, appropriate, since it’s written by Steven Moffat. The series pulls Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, (Detective Inspector) Lestrade, Mycroft and Moriarity into the 21st century. Holmes is addicted to his smart phone (as well as the usual addictions—except he’s given up smoking because of the strict bans in London). Watson is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and suffering from PTSD…or is it withdrawal? Holmes is as androgynous as ever. He’s totally oblivious to women who flirt with him and he entertains the possibility that Watson might have designs on him while simultaneously deflecting them. Even Mrs. Hudson is “gay friendly.” Watson googles Holmes to find out more about him, and stumbles across his web site (The Science of Deduction).

Holmes has a love/hate relationship with the police. They love him when he solves their crimes, but otherwise they despise him. A couple of officers think he’s a psychopath who is capable of murder. One even has the gumption to say as much to his face, whereupon Holmes replies, “I’m not a psychopath; I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.” They have an interesting way of conveying his deductions to the audience—pop-up messages on the screen, which is a bit distracting at first, but you get used to it. It works especially well as a way of showing text messages on phones, rather than trying to focus in on the digital screens.

London is a major player in the show, or at least in this first episode. There’s a great caper chase through the streets, with Holmes imagining the street map in his head, along with all the traffic diversions. After the chase ends, Watson exclaims, “That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.” Holmes’s response,” And you invaded Afghanistan.” Which would have been funny enough, except Watson shoots back, “That wasn’t just me.”

As far as the case of the serial suicides, it was intriguing enough to keep things going while we learn the rules of this new universe. There was one overblown bit that threatened to wreck the episode (it happened when a cabbie arrived at 221B while the cops were searching the apartment for drugs) but it didn’t last long, fortunately. Watson isn’t quite as daft as he is often portrayed. Him trying to chat up the beautiful woman in the back of the limo was pretty funny and very Arthur Dent,  perhaps because the actor played Arthur Dent in the movie. I had a suspicion that the guy in the warehouse wasn’t who we were meant to think it was, so I gave myself a pat on the back. The interplay between the two actors is very well done. Just wish there were going to be more than the three episodes.

Apparently PBS is supposed to pick these up for Masterpiece at some point. Check them out if you get the chance. If you were amused or entertained by the Robert Downey, Jr. re-imagination of Holmes, this should be right up your alley.

This weekend I finally finished “The Vengeance” to the point where I was happy to submit it—and did. I had two other stories in the recycle heap so I thought I’d take a glance at them before sending them out again. One of them I was happy with. I touched up a couple of words here and there and got it off to a new potential market. The other was a disappointment. I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I wrote it or when I decided to send it somewhere. It seems disjointed, self-indulgent and severely lacking in focus. I started tinkering with it then stopped–I think I need to start from square one with it. I think there is something there that can be salvaged, but what a mess.

I’m almost finished reading Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross. On the whole I’ve enjoyed the book but it, too, seems to be lacking something in focus. There’s a huge hunk of the book that is only peripherally related to the main story, and it stands there like a brick wall in the way of that narrative. Definitely linked thematically, but, like I said, a roadblock. Reminds me a bit of the way King abandoned his main characters for a few hundred pages in The Tommyknockers.

I downloaded the software update for my Kindle this weekend. It has a few neat features. The one I like best is the ability to create folders (or collections, as they chose to call them). Instead of having page after page of titles listed in the index, I can group some of them together. I have all of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books on the device, so I can put them in a folder, for example. There is also a new pdf zoom feature and links to social networking so you can share passages from books on Twitter or Facebook. Finally, you can choose to share highlighted passages with other readers of the book. Can’t say I have much use for those functions, but there they are.

Wil Wheaton was on Eureka this week as a somewhat cantankerous scientist made even more cantankerous when an experiment goes bad and the anger from killer bees is distributed into all Global Dynamics employees, turning them essentially into Romero-like zombies storming the gates. The only bad thing about the episode was the anticipated departure of Tess, who I thought added a lot to the show. I’m not exactly sure why they brought her back if they intended to just send her away again.

The third episode of Haven was better than the second. At least it had more Duke in it, and I think he’s the best part of the show. Definitely the best actor. I also caught up on the new USA series Covert Affairs and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. It takes itself a little more seriously than Burn Notice. I especially like the blind CIA agent. I’ll definitely be checking it out again. And Mad Men is back. Yay! Don keeps getting even more and more mysterious, asking his latest fling to slap him around, but then behaving like the better of the two parents to their two children. I think there’s a YouTube clip out there that gathers up all the worst of Betty Draper’s parenting advice. This week we got “ow, stop pinching me” as a reaction to the way Betty handled their daughter’s behavior at Thanksgiving dinner. And Sterling just keeps zinging away those one liners. What a great show.

Finally, we went to see Inception yesterday and I was suitably impressed. It’s the sort of movie that you almost have to see on the big screen because there’s so much to look at. I’m not a huge DiCaprio fan. His character in this movie looked and acted like he’d just escaped from Shutter Island. He has these black beady eyes that don’t betray any emotion, and his face fills the screen like a stone plate. I never get a sense of what’s going on more than a few millimeters under his skin. Yet the movie’s innovation and complexity keeps you involved. Layer upon layer upon layer, so that when it all gets unraveled at the end I almost forget what the top level of reality was. There’s a lot to learn about the movie’s reality, so there’s a lot of information to process, constantly, but it feels rewarding to stay on top of it all, as much as Nolan allows. There’s an interesting essay at the Locus web site that theorizes that the movie is actually a metaphor for the shared dreaming experience of watching movies in a theater. I don’t think I buy all of his arguments (the absence of movie references in the movie doesn’t mean much to me–I think that happens far more often than author Westfahl allows) but the absence of technology (computers, smart phones, even televisions) does make one think. Probably a movie that would benefit from a second viewing.

I’m one of over 10,000 people who downloaded Brian James Freeman’s novella, The Painted Darkness, which is being offered as a free eBook in advance of its Cemetery Dance publication. I finally got around to reading the book on my Kindle this morning. It wears many obvious King influences, from the dual, interwoven timeline of It (along with those rubber boots that made me think of poor Georgie Denborough) to “The Boogeyman” to the dangerous boiler from The Shining to the shifting perspective in a series of paintings that made me think of “The Road Virus Heads North” (an also an old Night Gallery episode starring Roddy McDowall. It’s a well-crafted, well-written story. I wonder if Brian wrote the two timelines independently and then wove them together or if he wrote the story as it is presented. The two parallel well, especially in scenes where both the younger and older character are exposed to extreme cold conditions. Check it out — it’s free and it’s entertaining!

At the end of the eBook, there are interviews and a round robin discussion of eBooks, as well as an interview with Ray Bradbury. I was intrigued to note that young Bradbury was interested in looking into the future, whereas modern-day, nearly 90-year-old Bradbury seems more interested in looking back into the past. He uses his TV to watch Turner Classic Movies only, he claims, and rails against every modern day invention from the radio onward.

I received good news about a short story–news that I won’t be able to share until later this year. It was to be published in an anthology, but then the anthology was canceled, but now it’s back on again. Yay!

We watched The Runaways last night, the biopic of the group that launched Joan Jett and Lita Ford. It stars Kristen Stewart as Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, the young (“jailbait”) troubled girl who was plucked from a nightclub and made the band’s singer. I don’t recall the Runaways when they were big, but Joan Jett has certainly been a presence since her solo debut. I didn’t realize that one of the Runaways’ band members, though she left them early, went on to join the Bangles. Roger Ebert comments that the band’s experiences mirrored closely the movie Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which he wrote. The more I read about the early days of certain rock acts, the more I marvel at how they started out with people who had limited or rudimentary skills. It’s scary to realize how these young girls were sent out on the road with limited supervision to perform in front of potentially hostile audiences. If the story is to be believed, though, their manager anticipated the types of reactions they might get and prepared them. Watching Jett bat away projectiles like a baseball player without missing a beat was one of the movie’s best moments. I’ve never seen Stewart in a movie before, but I was impressed, and Fanning has the potential to be a great actress. I struggled to identify the little girl from Man on Fire and failed. And I totally didn’t recognize Tatum O’Neal as her absentee mother.

Our erstwhile tropical depression now has a name: Bonnie. We almost had a Bonnie a few weeks ago, but that storm couldn’t get its act together. For some reason I keep hearing “My Bonnie lies over the ocean” in my head. “My Bonnie lies over the sea.” Current predictions put the storm well east of us, so it looks like I won’t be using my super-duper new solar-powered flashlight. I don’t think I mentioned that—remember that viral marketing kit I got for The Colony? Turns out that the flashlight/radio that was included is a $30 solar-powered radio/flashlight combo that also has a crank on the bank so you can wind up a charge. There’s a USB port where you can plug in your cell phone and charge it, too. Pretty cool.

I reread “The Vengeance,” my new science fiction story, last night and made only a handful of very minor changes. Then, when I reread it this morning after keying in the changes I made a helluva lot more, so I guess I’ll wait until the weekend to submit it.

Burt Reynolds was the special guest star on Burn Notice this week. He played a retired Cold War-era agent who got peeved at a local politician and blew his cover by posting diatribes on a message board, which brought him to the attention of Russian spies who still had a gripe against him. The running gag was that the Russians didn’t believe the Michael Weston was a real person, more of a legend, so they pretty much started shaking in their shoes whenever he showed up. Reynolds did well—it was good to see him back in the saddle again, so to speak, and poignant considering the fact that the agent was suffering mild dementia and eagerly jumped at the chance to relive some of the old glory days.

I wonder if the women contestants on Big Brother have noticed yet that they’re getting whittled away one by one. I don’t know that there’s a concerted effort to “get rid of the women” but that’s the overall outcome so far. I thought Brittany’s taped goodbye sob-fest to Monet was hilarious.

I overheard someone complaining about going out on an unsuccessful errand run. “Came up with only feathers, no chickens” is the quaint phrase they used to describe the frustrating experience. I thought: I need to write that down. Could come in handy sometime.

I did a pen-and-paper edit of “The Vengeance” last night, keyed in my changes this morning and made another editing pass through the manuscript. Managed to whittle away 100 words in the process. It seems I often reach a point where I see how some of the building blocks can be rearranged to produce a better structure. Often this involves combining or re-ordering a couple of paragraphs here and there. Once the language has been improved, clumsy construction stands out, I guess. That’s what happened in today’s editing session. It’s not a huge difference to the story, and someone reading both versions might not even notice the change from one to the next, but to me it’s a matter of creating a more logical, smooth flow within a scene. I’ll read it over again tonight and if I’m happy with everything I’ll find a market to send it to tomorrow.

Most of the models for Tropical Depression #3, which is still out in the Atlantic near the Bahamas, have it coming ashore near the Houston/Louisiana border at the end of the weekend. Of course, anything could happen between now and then. Some models have it increasing all the way to a hurricane while others keep it as an un-named depression. (Are they depressed because they aren’t important enough to rate a name?)

Did a little work on a book review last night while watching Big Brother. I’m reminded of Bruce Campbell’s soundbite from the opening credits to Burn Notice:  bunch of bitchy little girls. Still waiting for someone with a real personality to emerge from the background. My money is on Kristen, but she might stay a floater.

I received a very strange package from Fed-Ex yesterday. Overnight delivery, rush, rush, rush. Before I opened the box, I noted that it came from Maryland, so I thought perhaps it was something from Cemetery Dance. When I opened the box, I found first a white legal envelope with my first name handwritten on it. Instead of foam peanuts, the packing material was a kind of synthetic straw. Nestled in it was a good-sized wooden box.

The letter inside the envelope was from the Discovery Channel. How the heck they got onto me, I have no idea. There’s no name associated with it. The wooden box is an invitation to join a viral marketing campaign for the second season of a show called The Colony. I’m not familiar with the show, but after reading This is Not a Game last year and then participating in the Scarecrow Jow ARG for Under the Dome, I was intrigued.

Inside the box was another letter. It looks handwritten and is addressed to me and mentions my home town, and is in context (I must have heard about the viral outbreak since it started in West Texas). It’s signed simply “Terri.” I have no idea who that is. Also in the box was a 4GB USB flash drive that contains a QuickTime video and some gear to be used in case of emergency. There’s a vial of water purifier, a filtered face mask, some MREs (meals ready to eat) and other food (I didn’t open that bag yet, but I think there are Skittles in there, too!) and a nifty little combination radio flashlight that actually works. Doesn’t look like they spared any expense. It’s an impressive package.

The only fly in the ointment is that the ARG uses Facebook Connect and when I went to join up, it wanted Facebook to share all sorts of information with the application, including family and personal info and friend feeds. Not knowing what the application intended to do with all of that information, I didn’t allow it access. However, if you’re a fan of The Colony, or interested in the ARG, you can visit www.JoinTheColony.com to watch the introductory video. (Apparently what the Facebook connection does is grab posts from your friends’ feeds and puts them into a new stream that makes it seem like they are trying to communicate about the epidemic.) I don’t really have time to devote to this ARG, but I am curious to find out how I got on their list of people to send the neat little box to. I can always use a 4 GB flash drive, and the radio/flashlight will come in handy when the next plague hurricane hits.

The Closer had an excellent episode this week. Whenever Mary McDonnell shows up as Captain Raydor, you know sparks are going to fly. The writers did an excellent job of misdirecting viewers in several ways. I was sure the Man in Black (Lost‘s Titus Welliver) was going to be in some way involved in the killings. He kept acting suspiciously and evasively. It was a brilliant touch. When the culprit appeared on-screen for the first time, there was absolutely nothing to create viewer suspicion toward him. And, finally, Raydor’s background check had an unexpected outcome, too. All that plus a killer confrontation scene at the end made for a fine show. Brenda didn’t get to talk a confession out of anyone, though.

I also liked episode two of Rizzoli and Isles, though Tess Gerritsen fans on a mystery newsgroup I frequent aren’t as fond of it. The show is doing extremely well in ratings, even outdoing The Closer this week. I thought Sasha Alexander would be the show’s draw for me, but I like Angie Harmon’s character a lot. I did guess who the real culprit was the moment he appeared on screen the first time (famous guest star syndrome). Tying in to the Boston Strangler case worked very well, and enlisting Chaz Palminteri as Rizzoli’s father was a fine stroke. They need to find something useful for Lorraine Bracco to do other than whining about the plumbing. The bigoted suspect’s mother was a scream.

I posted my review of Stories: All New Tales on Onyx Reviews last night. Next up: a review of Meg Gardiner’s The Liar’s Lullaby.

Did another edit pass on the story in progress, which is called “The Vengeance.” I’ve reached the point where I’m simply fine-tuning word choice. I haven’t done a pen and paper edit pass yet, so that’s the next step before I send it out.

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.