disgruntledowl

Writing under of the influence of the dreaded ‘Quil. If you ever want nightmares about taking a pop math quiz written entirely in alchemical symbols, try the ‘Quil.

Stuff on Screens

The Boss (Falcone, 2016).  I suspect this movie was a lot more fun to act in than it was to watch. Melissa McCarthy plays a ball-busting mogul who gets put in jail for insider training and has to decide what kinds of sacrifices she’s willing to make to get back to the top. McCarthy gets to spar with Peter Dinklage and show off her grade-A physical comedy, but all the characters (even hers) are so thinly drawn and the stakes so low that not even the gags make up for it. Which is a bummer, because I like McCarthy and want her and her husband Ben Falcone to succeed. I hope they at least got some epic backstage shenanigans out of the experience.

Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? (Aitkenhead, 2016). I guess this movie was the right kind of trashy, although its messages were pretty garbled. Lesbian vampires + overbearing moms + date-rapey douchebags + criminally unmonitored college drama departments + James Franco ogling the whole damn thing. Every major plot point of this movie felt like the characters were playing D&D: someone declared an action and then rolled a 2, and then everyone had to play out the worst possible version of that action, be it coming out to a parent or turning someone into a vampire. Still, I would have watched a full length performance of the characters’ Skinemax version of Macbeth with a bottle of cheap Shiraz. And it's always fun to eat snacks and boo at feckless scumbags with the ladies of Fangirl Movie Night.

I have high hopes for the sumptuous-looking My Cousin Rachel, and The Beguiled later this summer. I’ve also been watching Season 1 of The Borgias while putting in eardrops or waiting for cold-and-flu meds to kick in. It has its Game of Thrones pretensions, although with better weather, less dirt, and way more Catholic overtones (each episode is a new round of “how can we abuse this confession booth?”). So far I am enjoying following the members of the dastardly family around and watching Jeremy Irons snarl, growl, and chew scenery as the Pope. And, as a person writing fic set in the 1480s with an elegant, holier-than-thou but fundamentally corrupt villain, the show is a godsend.     

Projects

I’ve kept up with writing for a half hour every morning for over 2 weeks now, except for yesterday. Sometimes it's made me late for work; other times I’ve given in and taken a Lyft to work and gritted my teeth at the expense. I’m propelled by a terror that if I stop doing it, even for a day or so, I won’t pick the habit up again. I’m also driven by a [conflicted] rush to finish this story, but that’s a subject for a lengthier post. The words come, or don’t come, in varying degrees each day, but I’ve toughed my way through Chapter 9 of my (sigh) 17-Chapter HoND fan novel. This was one of the more challenging chapters to write; it’s hard to convincingly portray protagonists doing dumb things and making bad choices. I’m trying to celebrate getting through this part of the murky-middle slog and powering my way through to the end.