Musings

I guess thesemay as well go under Hollywood. So, Friday night I went off and saw 300. And for the first thirty minutes I was impressed with what clever people can do with computers. But then it became two solid hours of people stabbing each other — often in slow motion, and people declaiming to each to other IN CAPITAL LETTERS FOLLOWED BY MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! And you know, one good beheading just about does it for me. The art design and the technology were stunning, but, for me, this was not a satisfying movie going experience.

Then last night just to add insult to injury I loaded up The Brother’s Grimm. In was in my netflix cue, and oh, my God, I should have sent it back before I opened it and gotten another movie. The premise is very cool — what if the brothers Grimm were con men — but the movie was a mess. Characters appear for no reason at all. Our heroine is tied up and then she’s free. Wonder what happened to that scene? Finally I just started fast forwarding and stopping when it looked like something remotely interesting might be happening. The only other movie I’ve watched using this technique was Thelma and Louise — another movie I despise.

It’s sad when an interesting director has good stars and a clever idea, and you get The Brothers Grimm.

Melinda

Somebody asked me when it’s the right time to write a story or their story. That’s a hard one to answer. Sometimes you can’t postpone them. They’re burning inside of you, and you need to get it down on paper. Of course if there are issues with a relationship or friendships that might be impacted you ahve to take that into account. I think it’s a very personal choice and you have to weigh all the factors.

Also, I’m loving this entire blogging experience because I’m “meeting” people with so many different and interesting skills, and some of you have offered me help on various topics. Thank you all very much, and believe me I will shamelessly pick your brains, and utilize your expertise.

Melinda

So, a friend of mine got a bunch of trees and bushes from the Forest Serice, and put out the word that cheap vegetation was available. Sage Walker (a wonderful writer, author of WHITEOUT), picked up 14 tiny, tiny aspens for me. I’ve spent the morning swinging a pick, digging in horse manure and sawdust, planting ten of the little suckers, and muttering encouragement to them as I poured on water laced with Thrive to help them live — and maybe even grow.

I have this hill feature in the center of my driveway designed to create a turn around area, and hopefully there is going to be a stand of quaking aspen on it in a few years time. I’m going to research how much the drip irrigation system is going to cost, and hope to have it in by summer. And then I can start planting things. Unless the New Mexico drought returns.

Melinda

No, Michael, you didn’t go on too long. This is cool. Let me amplify a bit more. I don’t mean that you get big, known facts wrong. That would be sloppy and lazy.

I guess what I’m talking about it trying to figure out what was the name of the London tailor who made suits for the upper class in the 1930’s and 40’s, or who was the chef at the Savoy in 1937. Giving the name of the tailor would certainly add to the verisimilitude, but if it’s going to slow you down for days while you research that point is okay to just talk about the fineness of the material, and how well the coat was cut across his shoulders, and dispense with the tailor?

And even the big “known” facts can become slippery. I started my book because I read several reports about how Heinrich Himmler was well on his way to crossing the border out of Germany at the end of the war when he suddenly walked up to the British guard at the checkpoint, pulled off his eye patch, and said, “I’m Heinrich Himmler.” I thought, how interesting. Why did he do that? My solution was because my character was travelling with him, and convinced him to turn himself into the Brits. Then I started digging deeper, and I found an equal number of sources who said that never happened, that an alert young Englishman spotted Himmler and recognized him despite the disguise. I ended up sort of splitting the difference in the interest of giving my main character a satisfying arc, and I talk about the different versions in the afterword.

Melinda

So, I was having a writing conversation last night with someone in Critical Mass, and I realized my mouth was about to say “be a lazy writer”. That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but let me outline the situation. I’d be interested to get other writer’s input. Years ago I wrote and completed a WWII thriller. It took a lot of research, but eventually I decided that me obsessing about the exact placement of furniture in one of the guest houses at Auschwitz was making me crazy. I decided to do some mighty hand waving, and try to keep the focus on the characters and their conversation, and just skate past the other stuff.

My feeling is that if you really, really set the mood and evoke the feel of an era in the first part of a book you can slack off a little in the later sections. You’ve established your “cred” with the readers, and (hopefully) you have them so invested in the characters and the story that you don’t need to sell every little detail. You don’t have to be Ian Fleming where you can give the brand of every fancy lighter, or kind of brandy. Of course Fleming had it easy. He was writing about his own era. It’s tougher when we’re removed by a number of decades, or centuries.

What is our obligation as writers to be absolutely true to the historical period? Some of this laziness may come from the fact that I’m also a Hollywood writer, and we’re the kings and queens of “ah, close enough”. I guess I’m so eager to write the book, and see how the characters are going to behave, and where they’re going to end up that I start to resent the really detailed research.

Thoughts? Advice?

Melinda

I had a hectic day yesterday, and didn’t manage to have enough brain cells firing in sequence or enough physical energy to post.

Peter, that is such a moving and painful post. There is a certain bitter irony that the “family values” crowd who are _so_ big on marriage have perpetrated a situation that has made it impossible for you and your lady to be married. You guys have a great celebration on Saturday, and let’s keep calling and writing our representatives. Maybe someday they’ll hear us and help us.

Melinda

I’ve had a few requests for pictures of the horse. I’m working on it. I’m going to try and get some one to snap a few photos of me riding Pi this coming week, and I can try to grab a few frames while he’s out playing.

I’m also looking for my cd of the clinic I rode with Christine Traurig (Olympian). I was riding Steppi, and I think enought time has passed that I can look at it without crying. I expect I’ll go to my grave missing this horse.

Melinda

So, I’m back from a long day down in Albuquerque. The best parts of the day were lunch with Daniel Abraham and Walter Jon Williams, and coffee with Victor Milan, but in-between the two pleasant events was a stop at the dentist’s for a routine teeth cleaning, and the annual mammogram. I bring this up not because routine medical and dental proceedures are interesting, but because of the stress level engendered from these appointments. You see, for years I’ve been covered with the excellent insurance provided by the Writer’s Guild of America, but that coverage is ending the end of March. So, I’m frantically trying to get as many medical tests out of the way before March 31st, and when Blue Cross Blue Shield kicks in on April 1st. (Something symbolic there).

I’m a screenwriter. I manage a natural gas and oil company (yes, really, and I’ll post about that some other time). I have a few dimes to rub together, and I’m sick to my stomach, and find myself waking up at 3:00 am to walk the floors and worry about health insurance. So, how does a family of four working low end jobs that don’t provide health coverage manage? I expect not well. And it makes me crazy. We’re the wealthiest country in the world, but we spend more on health care than any other industrialized nation. Our major companies are staggering under the burden of providing health care or in some cases just reneging on the promise they made to their workers. It’s a crises, folks, and it’s getting worse. And just to add to the fun I have a friend who works at a hospital, and she says no insurance is actually better then shitty insurance. Of course if you own anything you’re going to get wiped out before the state will step in and help you out.

I’m hoping the Dems will tackle this issue, and I think we have a chance for the Democrats to be seen as supporting business. I want national health care and I want it yesterday. As for all the scare tactics used to argue against a single payor system — you won’t get to pick your own doctor. Heck, I don’t get to pick my own doctor _now_. You’ll have to wait for service. Really? I have to wait months for an appointment _now_.

Whew. Okay. I’m back now. So, tomorrow I get to ride my horse, and think about my books, and that will be a lot more fun.

Melinda

So, I had a day that’s a pretty good snapshot of a day in the life of a working writer. I wrote all morning. Some was preparing the groundwork for a new project that I’m hoping to sell. It’s a mosaic novel format (where you get a group of writers together. They each create a character, and then we weave the storylines together into — we hope — a seamless whole. I’m going to try and run this rather like the staff on a television show. I have found that a lot of the skills I gained working in Hollywood translate very nicely into prose work.

Anyway, I did that, and I made notes about the third book in my EDGE series. I have some set pieces in mind, and themes I want to explore. I’m also trying to decide who needs to be a view point character. I like to keep the number between three and five. More than that, and the book becomes unwieldy. Steve Stirling made the point in one meeting of our Writer’s Group that when you add a new viewpoint character you add 150 pages to the length of the book, and I think he’s spot on. I also got the notion that it might be interesting to have all the viewpoints save my hero’s be the viewpoints of the women in his life.

After my brain turned to oatmeal I made (from scratch) some cream of mushroom soup, and then headed down to the horse. They were working on the indoor arena so I just turned Pi loose in the giant jump arena, and watched him run and squeal and buck and roll. I just wish he had a buddy to play with. After that I tortured him. If he could talk he would tell you that I tortured him because I washed his tail and mane. He hasn’t had a bath in months given the extreme cold and amount of snow we’ve had in New Mexico. The shampoo lather and the water turned adobe brown. It was gross. But after slathering on the cream rinse and the avocado detangling spray (yes, it’s absurd what we lavish on our horses) he has a beautiful black mane and tail. I guess I should mention that Pi’s a 17 hand bay with a single white sock, and a really absurd blaze. I’m going to get some photos done when the winter hair falls out.

This evening I joined George Martin and Parris for a quick dinner and then we went off to see BREACH. Chris Cooper is _amazing_. It was an incredible performance, and the screenwriter and director had the good sense to leta great actor carry the scenes without a lot of blather or fancy camera tricks. I highly recommend this film. It’s a good lesson in how understated can be powerful, and how less can be more.

I’ve ended the evening watching my beloved Keith Olberman (the Walter Cronkite of our generation), and writing this post. Just an aside; I kept a journal for many years. I’m finding some of the same satisfaction in writing here that I found in those silly spiral notebooks.

Melinda

You’re inspiring me, Steve. I really do want to post the script, but Paramount can be tough. With the show cancelled maybe no one would notice, but they’ve got this new Star Trek movie in the works. Dither, dither.

I had an interesting conversation with David Gerrold at Boskone. He’s done a script for this group that makes new Classic Trek episodes to show on the internet. He was urging me to redo Ensigns for Kirk/Spock and let them film it, but I think it would lose a lot of the juice if it’s Spock rather than Data.

I do think it’s interesting that the fans chose to make Classic Trek rather than episodes from any of the other Star Trek franchises. As someone who grew up on Kirk/Spock/McCoy I do like the old show the best.

Melinda