C. L. Norman

April is almost here and with it my list of movies I want to see.

Clash of the Titans on April 2nd: When I was a little girl I lived for the original Clash of the Titans to air on TV. It had mythology, action, and a princess who needed saving from a giant monster. The original was one of my favorite movies and I am excited to see what they do with the remake now that there are better special effects to aid in the storytelling. Sure, I am a sucker for eye-candy but Liam Neeson as Zeus and monsters and gods make this movie a must see.

Date Night on April 9th: Steve Carrell and Tina Fey make this movie look hilarious. A simple date turns into a wild ride for their lives. This movie should be a laugh riot, maybe even with a touch of romance. Fun.

Kick-A$$ on April 16th: As a girl I had dreams where-in my teddy bear and I could fly like Superman and we saved many people from evil. Who hasn’t dreamed of being a super-hero? In this movie some ordinary comic book geeks try to become superheroes which is totally relatable. This movie also pops on the screen (in the trailers) promising excitement and fun.

A Nightmare on Elm Street on April 30th: I had to at least mention this movie since my brother made me watch the originals as a teen to “toughen me up”. I am still not sure I am tough enough to watch this movie even now but it should be good and scary. Monsters attacking from your dreams is a scary thought to begin with.

You looking forward to any movies this month that didn’t make my list?

        

Howdy Folks! How was your week? Do anything wild and crazy? Try that hot chocolate with the dark cherry or discover some other yummy treat?

Movies

Last Sunday I went to see The Bounty Hunter with my oldest daughter. I have to say having a kid I can drag with me to romantic comedies whenever my checkbook and time permits is very cool. As anticipated Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston had me laughing and rooting for the big kiss moment and I wasn’t disappointed.

As a side note, after seeing this movie I started brainstorming how I could write a bounty hunter story myself, in a fantasy setting, of course. You see a lot of assassins and pickpockets in fiction but not as many bounty hunters and they deserve to wear the rogue mantle too. So keep an eye out and maybe one day you will see a bounty hunter story from me.

Reading

Remember how I said I had to fix the lack of reading I’ve been doing last week? Well I did. In spades. I’ve read the thee Mortal Instruments books by Cassandra Clare and the first two Blue Bloods novels by Melissa de la Cruz.

It all started when my daughter and I stopped at the bookstore after the movies and I got her a book and me a book with the idea we would swap when we finished. I finished the first of the Mortal Instruments book by the next day and of course I had to go right out and get the next one and the next. By then my daughter finished her book and I read that one and had to get the next. I stayed up super late reading three nights this week and even though I feel a bit sleepy I feel a lot more like myself now.

I probably don’t need to tell you after all that that I thoroughly enjoyed the books. The pacing, world-building, characters and their relationships were spot on. I even have to say that the way the Blue Bloods is set up I could believe that they might exist. Makes a lot more sense than nocturnal bloodsucking pale people.

Gaming

I was suppose to run the second session of my Night Below campaign last night but Monday I decided I just didn’t have the time to work out all the conversions necessary. So instead I am going to run the Kingmaker adventure path by Paizo. The first adventure didn’t arrive before last nights session but it turned out ok as 2 players didn’t show up and another 2 were later than they anticipated. So we worked on characters, building some background and personalities, even generated birthdays. The next session should be fun.

Writing

As you probably guessed I didn’t get much writing done. Balance is not a specialty of mine. I have decided to try to participate in the #fridayflash social event on Twitter as a result. Maybe the structure of having to have something written and posted every Friday will help out poor pathetic me who spends way more time talking and writing about writing than actually doing it.

So, next Friday, if you don’t see a story posted here, feel free to beat me about the head and shoulders with a boffer weapon. I will deserve it.

Have a good week, friends.

        

I’ve been playing make-believe for as long as I remember.

As a child, empty wooden cable reels were tea tables and carriages. The potato harvester was a castle with secret doors and chutes. A stack of roofing tiles was a rock star’s stage or a landing platform for fairies. The usual childish stuff.

Around nine to ten years old recess at school became magical. We were unicorns and pegasuses (pegasi?) and galloped through magical forests fighting evil wizards determined to harvest our magical natures for their nefarious purposes.

In middle and high school, we became people again. Heroes of stories we acted out in parks and the dunes among the sagebrush and tumbleweeds. With our wooden swords and daggers, cloaks made of black tricot, and pencil-drawn scars, we defeated evil plots and saved many a damsel. Once or twice we were even mistaken for devil worshippers by witnesses. If only they knew of all the evil we defeated in their neighborhoods.

When the ringleader of these expeditions moved away, those games ended. We began to exchange letters which sounds pretty normal until you realize that we made up a world complete with a map and characters who lived in that world. Those characters exchanged letters about their adventures. I even had one character kidnap another and send ransom notes to one of my friend’s characters.

Now I don’t get the opportunity to dress up and haunt the local parks and I’ve lost contact with that friend but I still play make-believe when I play D&D and when I write. I have lost the fun of it though. I feel trapped by the rules and it is taking the character out of the game. It is time to throw out the rulebook when I play and assume that voice and costume again. Play with my handwriting to make it someone elses.

I need to stop being the good girl who never breaks the rules of the game. I need to leave the rules behind when deciding what my character will do. Just as I need to stop worrying about if other people will “like” what I am writing and creating. And at this point in my career, those sorts of worries is liable to make everything I write pale copycats of everything I am reading.

Next time I sit down to write, I will get out my cloak and wrap myself in it. I will get a couple colored pencils and draw a few scars on my skin and make-believe a story onto the paper. And have fun doing it.

        

Howdy folks. Let’s order a hot chocolate with dark cherry (my new favorite drink from the cafe) and let me tell you about my week. Then, maybe, when I’m done, you can tell me about yours.

Reading

This week was a very reading light week which, of course, leaves me feeling out of sorts. Since I was 4, I have always been an avid reader or even more accurately, a bookworm. If my nose isn’t in a book, on vacation or at work or school, then something is wrong. I have to fix that this week. 

I bring up the topic of reading though for a very specific purpose. I checked out Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov this week for two reasons. The first reason is that it is about a rogue and we all know how I love those skulking-in-the-shadows, lockpicking, sticky fingered dwellers of the night-shrouded city streets. The second reason is that every since I discovered my Russian ancestry while working on my geneology several years ago, I have had a fascination with every thing Russian. This book was originally published in Russian and is only recently released in English for American audiences.

I started this book very excited to discover the adventures awaiting within. Very quickly I was derailed and not because the book was bad or boring or confusing but for the opposite reason. This book reminded me of everything that I want to write about. I became more excited about my own stories while reading this than I have been in a long time. I didn’t want to finish it because I didn’t want to know how Mr. Pehov wrote the story, I want to write my own.

I will get back to the book when I can check it out again but for now I will keep working on my own stories and hopefully get as excited about them as I did while reading the first 100 pages of Shadow Prowler.

Writing

It was my turn to submit some manuscript pages to the writing group this week. And as usual I procrastinated. Sorta.

I wanted to write a short story for an anthology with an open call for submissions and I wanted to use the group as my beta readers. I started the story very excited for the protagonist and his situation and every word I wrote made me more uncomfortable. It became harder and harder to continue. A thousand words in and I realized I didn’t want this to be a short story.

I didn’t and don’t know where this story is going or where it will end but I didn’t want to straight jacket myself into ending it in a couple thousand words. There is so much more to explore and discover and to end the story early would be a crime against this character. So I decided not to fence my story in without seeing where it went.

But I still needed a story to turn in for group.

Last fall I had written a short story and set it aside without looking at it again. I had been trying something new and it felt awkward and strange and frankly, I thought the writing sucked. I got out my draft and did a quick rewrite and turned it in. While rereading it, I realized that the story was actually good. Time and distance had removed the patina of grime and dirt and I enjoyed the story again.

So how was your week? You should try the dark cherry hot chocolate. Tastes like cherry cordials.

        

Reading

I am not a big reader of media tie-in books but I occasionally dabble. This week I decided to try a Stargate SG-1 novel. I ran into the same problem that keeps me from reading those kinds of books more often. The main characters don’t seem to match up with who I think they are. On TV those character’s thoughts and motivations are open to interpretation by the viewer. In books, those thoughts are spelled out and in many cases make the character into a stranger. I may read more SG-1 novels as I miss seeing new episodes on TV but I have to go into it expecting a different cast.

Illness and Worry

My daughter got a vaccine on Monday and had an odd reaction to it. She was sick for the rest of the week and many calls went back and forth to the doctor’s office while we were figuring things out.  In reality, this ordeal was very mild compared to those I know others go through but the bottomless fountain of worry that exists in the pit of my stomach was a scary thing to live with.

Theater Flashbacks

I went to see the high school production of The Sound of Music with my daughters last night. The show was put on in the same theater I spent four years in when I was in high school. I was an orchestra and drama geek and I knew just about every nook and cranny (if it didn’t involve heights) of that theater. Being in it again last night was a trip down memory lane. I have a craving for memorizing lines, trying on costumes, and the powdery smell of stage make-up.

How was your week?

        

Walking home alone last night I had the vivid sensation that someone was following me in the dark through my quiet neighborhood. Phantom footsteps echoed on the sidewalks. Shadows reached for me from hedges and rose bushes along my path. I even imagined I heard an audience screaming at me, “Look out behind you!”

All of this resulted from watching similar scenes over and over again in movies and television shows.

Years ago a bank near where I worked was robbed and the only clue the FBI had led them straight to our store. I remember standing at the counter waiting to ring up the next customer. The next person in line was a gentleman in suit who got out his wallet and flipped it open showing me his FBI ID.

Something happened to my hearing as phatom bullets started flying and I worked out where I would take cover from the violence that would soon follow. My heartbeat sped up and my breathing altered slightly as my imagination put me through a shoot out in the space of a few seconds.

When the events finished playing out in my head (ending up with me wounded and of course selflessly administering first aid to another wounded customer) I came back to actual events and had to tell the agent that I couldn’t help him with his question and directed him to the assistant manager.

Again this was the result of too much TV.

Driving down the road alone at night, I can see the specter of a person running into the road in the rain and freezing in the headlights. A police car barrelling down the highway with lights on becomes involved in a car chase with a lot of explosions and cars crashing in its wake. Folks waiting in line at the bank have guns in their bags/pockets and are waiting for the opportunity to take hostages and rob the bank.

These are the things that run through my imagination as I go through life. All as a result of watching TV. That’s right. I blame my paranoia on TV.

What things do you imagine as a result of watching TV?

        

This year I was really excited to watch the Oscars. I had missed them last year and I wanted desparately to see them this time around. The strangest thing about it all is that I didn’t see any of the 10 movies nominated for Oscars this year. Because of that I didn’t care a whole lot about who actually won the Oscars. If you are interested in seeing the winners list go here.

Here are the highlights that I enjoyed about this lavish tribute to the movies.

• The fairytale like dresses. I love the fancy ballgowns. This year they were more traditional–flowing skirts, fitted tops, shimmering and sparkling fabrics–the way I like them. Of course the dresses always look better against the neat, black tuxes. I always think of princesses and princes when I see people dressed up in that way.
• Tribute to John Hughes. Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Cryer, and Macauley Culkin all together on one stage was a trip back in time to my teen years. It was wonderful to see the montage of some of my favorite films. I have an urge to break out my John Hughes collection of DVDs and rewatch them.
• The Horror Segment. I am not a horror fan but my brother use to make me watch them to “toughen me up.” I had fun playing “guess the movie” with no answer sheet so, of course, I got all of them right.
• The Intro Song with Neil Patrick Harris. The fun and pageantry of that opening number reminds me of the theater scene in the original Annie movie. Full of pomp and fun and pointing out everything that makes folks go to the movies. I watchted it with a grin stretched across my face and wished it went on longer.
• And the Oscar goes to… That moment when the presenter says those 5 little words and everyone in the Kodak Theater holds their breath in anticipation. That moment when the family sitting around the TV shouts out their guess for the winner. It is the moment the whole 3+ hour long show is all about.

Did you watch the Oscars? What parts did you enjoy the most? Did your favorite movie/actor/director of 2009 win any awards?

        

Reading

This week I read Caitlin Kittredge’s Street Magic. I am an avid fan of her Nocturne series and have been wanting to try out this other series for a while and finally broke down and bought a copy.  I tried to be all responsible and read it only at night after I had finished the things I needed to get done but by the third night I was heading to bed earlier for more time with my book and the next morning I finished the book before getting anything else done. It was different but exciting. The central mystery of the story was engaging and well thought out. I really enjoyed it.

Tax Season

We finally filed our taxes this week and I learned a valuable lesson. We have always had H&R Block prepare out taxes and I have always been satisfied with their work. This year, my writing is in the shady area where I might be able to claim some deductions because of it and the tax preparers were not prepared to handle those questions. I learned that I can’t trust professionals to know everything about their fields. A good lesson to know. Hopefully I keep this information in mind when I meet with other professionals in the future.

Dr. Suess

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess. It is such a wonderful thing that children across America celebrate the birth and career of an author every year. I helped with this tradition by reading Green Eggs & Ham and The Foot Book during this week’s storytime. The children never seem to tire of the words of this wonderful writer. A personal thank you to him for One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I was reading this book when I was 4 years old. Dr Seuss is the author that launched me into the world of books that I live in today.

Revising/Rewriting

Up to this morning I always thought there was something wrong with me that I never rewrote on as massive a scale as everyone else I have heard of. I touch up grammar and word choice, delete repetitive sentences, and in general only clean up my first draft. I don’t delete huge passages or shift around large blocks of text or any of those other drastic measures revision seems to involve. This morning I read an entry in Dean Westley Smith’s Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series and am now in the process of letting go of that feeling of wrongness, embracing my method, and working up the confidence to believe in my words despite them being the result of only one or two drafts.

Birthdays

My second child turned 13 this week. That brings the number of teens in the family up to two. I am bracing myself for the fallout of that event. Two teen daughters and only two parents. Things could get wild and crazy around here for a few years. I’ve been told my kids are easy and others are jealous, I have my fingers crossed that that trend continues.

How ’bout your week? Did it go well? Learn anything new?

        

Some days my brain takes longer to wake up. Add to that the cognitive processes I’ve devoted to a couple new writing projects and details slip through the cracks. This morning at 6:30am I slipped on some foot coverings, jumped in the car, and drove to work.

At the store I clocked in and went to my locker to store my coat and purse and a strange thought went through my head.

“My feet are comfy-cozy. And I’m at work.”

I looked down and realized that I was wearing my slippers. My cushy, brown leather moccassin type slippers. At work. Slippers aren’t usually part of the semi-pro look but for today, I made it work.

I think only one out of ten customers noticed.

        

Alice in Wonderland on March 5th: Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, and Anne Hathaway to name a few, this new Tim Burton film is lush and colorful as a Wonderland should be. It looks different and new but familiar enough that fans of Lewis Carroll’s original works should enjoy it. The trailers have everyone in the house from my 6 year old on up saying “I want to see that one” and I am no exception.

Remember Me on March 12th: Yeah, I know, it has Robert Pattinson in it and maybe that would turn hard-core geeks off of this movie but I am interested in seeing what he can do when his character has a pulse. It also has Emilie De Ravin in it and the last time I saw her it was in Roswell. The presence of Lena Olin and Pierce Brosnan seals the deal.

The Bounty Hunter on March 19th: Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler in one movie? It is bound to be funny. And the premise is just ridiculous enough to work.

How to Train Your Dragon on March 26th: Originally a children’s book by Cressida Cowell, this movie is computer animated and fun and most importantly has dragons. Who doesn’t like dragons?

What movies are you looking forward to in March?