held and dyed and skinned alive

[greygirlbeast]

On this day thirty years ago, Star Wars opened in US theaters. I was twelve, which was probably the perfect age for Star Wars. I think what I find most amazing now is that is was made for a mere $11 million dollars, whereas the last of the six films was made for $113 million dollars. Also on this day, but forty years ago, docbrite was born. Normally, I would not reveal an age like that, but I know it's something Poppy's exceedingly happy about, reaching the the big four-oh. For my part, I'd gladly go back to 1994 and the gentle age of 29, thank you and please. Anyway, Happy frelling goddamn birthday, Poppy and Star Wars.*

I think eBay has finally managed to make of itself more of a hindrance than Spooky and I can tolerate. The final straw was this new business about requiring you to use their photo-uploading/hosting thingy, and charging 15¢ for every photo beyond the first one. Likely, we will hold one last auction sometime next week, the hand-corrected and "illuminated" copy of the Gauntlet hardback of Silk (which we've been meaning to auction since early March), and then part ways with eBay for good. I don't yet know what we'll be using instead. Spooky's taken with Etsy, but I'm not (and they don't seem to allow auctions, at any rate). Alas, eBay, we hardly knew ye.

Subscribers should have received Sirenia Digest #18 yesterday evening. Comments welcome.

I don't think I have the stomach for butchery today. Yesterday, I cut and hacked and spliced. Today, I may take a bath and wait for Byron, who's joining us for a Toho Kid Night. I do not often abuse the so-called "privilege" of being "my own boss," but today, I believe I shall make an exception. I'm tired of intentionally breaking things I worked so hard to build. It can wait until tomorrow or Sunday, this unwriting business. Spinning gold to straw. Well, no, not gold. Not even silver. I'm not quite that much of an egomaniac. But you get the picture.

---

I did not awaken until the sun was setting. Suregait was near, but there was no sign of Radagast. A dry wind was blowing through our rocky eyrie here at the southeastern end of the Mithrim Spur, and at first I did not recall the dreams that haunted my sleep. Would that they had never come back to me. I rose and started a small fire, and as I was brewing tea, Radagast returned, quickly shedding his hawk form and taking a seat across the fire from me. The news he brings is almost as dire as were my dreams. The man setsuled has gone to Seregost, and there are rumours among the grim folk of this land that he has sent word of my coming to the orc tribes encamped on Gorgoroth. Radagast believes that a bounty has been laid upon my head and that it would be suicide to try to reach the plateau. The orcs are hungry and easily bought. But there are darker tidings still. Radagast has been told by a raven that a call has gone out from Seregost to Khamûl, the Black Easterling, the last of the Nine, and that even now he stirs from out some secret pit. The elves of East Lórien believed such powers history, and that I would face only goblins and Uruks and such men as struggle to survive in these lands.

"The shadow has not entirely passed from our midst," Radagast said and frowned at the fire. "Perhaps it never shall."

He wants me to abandon the quest, Inwë. He says we can not proceed to Gorgoroth nor again try to make the pass below Seregost. All roads are watched now, and he does not imagine that I could ever reach those dread plains south of the Ash Mountains — not even with his aid. He wants to call Gwaihir, King of Birds, to bear me safely to the old capital at Osgiliath. He has volunteered to travel with Suregait, but I do not know. How do I turn back now? What the elves have done, might they now undo? This thing has been made a part of me, until I deliver it down into the Fen of Worms. If I turn back, another would only be forced to return in my stead, and the Black Easterling will surely begin to marshal an army, even if he has not guessed my purpose.

I have told Radagast my dreams, and they only made him more determined I should return to Gondor. But I do not know, Inwë. I do not know what course I must now take.

---

There was a Silk question from reverendcrofoot, who asks: I am re-reading Silk and I noticed something a character by the name Jen Dare I do believe. Is there anything else with this character? Is she a left over? Is there something up with her?

I never meant Jenny Dare for anything more than that one scene, a "ghost" to get Niki's attention. The character was, of course, inspired by Virginia Dare, the first child of English parents born in the Americas. She vanished with the rest of the "Lost Colony" at Roanoke. But really, I never meant to do more with her and never have.

* Han shot first.

Comments

[scrnwrtinghack.livejournal.com]

Re: the ebay thing, so even if you host the eBay Pictures on your own server and just link the pictures in the auction to your server they're still charging the additional charge for the additional pictures? That doesn't make any sense.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Re: the ebay thing, so even if you host the eBay Pictures on your own server and just link the pictures in the auction to your server they're still charging the additional charge for the additional pictures?

You can not (as fear as I can tell) any long link directly to the images you've uploaded to your own server, but pay to must use eBay's hosting "service." That seems to be the case.

[stardustgirl.livejournal.com]

You can still host your own - it's just more idiotically complex now. I put a link the the old form in a comment in Spooky's LJ, or if you are OK with the new one, you need to pick the Show/Hide Options box in the upper left corner and tell it there that you'll be hosting your own photos. There are a slew of other options to set there too.

They claim the new form is shorter. It is not. They just collapsed the extra pages into stupid javascript boxes that run slow and make the whole process more annoying. It's like saying you swept when you really just pushed the dirt under the rug.

eBay does suck with all their changes. And don't miss the new user agreement, which has a content clause similar to the old one on MySpace before they finally wised up and said "we don't own your images and words, you do". eBay apparently now thinks they own your auction ads, About Me content, and any other stuff you write there - and claims they can reassign the rights to any of their subsidiaries.

Someone just needs to slap everyone involved with this new eBay.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Han shot first.

Damn right he did!

I think the process of slowly and systematically breaking down what you have built, not by removing the screws and nails and joints and veins, but sawing at the middles, and reconnecting the new pieces, again, and calling down the lightning storm into something that, while it may be just as strong, or stronger, is Not what you initially intended, is metaphor enough.

Rewriting sucks.

Enjoy your Kid Night. You deserve it.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Rewriting sucks

As does unwriting.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Happy Birthday.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Martian Birthday Present (http://www.openthefuture.com/2007/05/here_be_dragons.html). :)

[cause-catyljan.livejournal.com]

* Han shot first.

Damn fracking straight...

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

'I think what I find most amazing now is that is was made for a mere $11 million dollars, whereas the last of the six films was made for $113 million dollars.'

And there you have the problem with the prequels in a nutshell. On the first film, Lucas had to think around obstacles and use his imagination. On the prequels, he had all the money he needed and all the CGI his money could buy.

Lucas has been saying for years that he wants to go back to making smaller, artier films. Assuming that isn't complete self-serving bullshit, he needs to set himself an $11 million budget, write a script that can be realized within that budget, and go to it. Nobody's gonna say no, and $11 million is about what he spends on razors per year to shave his neck wattle.

I get the sense that he'd almost like to say 'fuck you' to SW forever, but the hundreds (or thousands) of people who work for Lucasfilm/Lucas Arts might have a different opinion, so now he's stuck with the franchise for the rest of his life. Even if he never writes or directs anything having to do with SW again, he still has to oversee the books and the video games and the toys and the TV series. For the same reason, I do believe the only reason Indy IV is being made — since nobody involved remotely needs the money — is so Lucas can have a reason to repackage all those Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episodes on DVD and kit 'em out with supplemental educational materials as he's always wanted to do.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

And there you have the problem with the prequels in a nutshell. On the first film, Lucas had to think around obstacles and use his imagination. On the prequels, he had all the money he needed and all the CGI his money could buy.

Well, in fairness to Lucas, there's no way that the original Star Wars could be made today for anything close to $11 million dollars. Doing a quick and sloppy job of the math, adjusting to 2007 dollars, it would take something like $40 to $50 million. It does not gall me so much that Lucas spent what he spent, but that he ultimately had so little to show for it (though I do still think that Episode III is a better film than was Episode VI — which, by the way, only cost a paltry $32 million).

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Well, for me it's not so much the expenditure as the leaps of imagination made necessary by the lack of money. Lucas' 1997 remix of A New Hope is a good example — the changes he made amounted to nothing special.

What I had in mind was Terry Gilliam (around the time of Munchausen) yearning for the old Python days where he had to use coconuts for the sound of horse's hooves. A funny, imaginative solution. But when he got into Munchausen territory he needed actual horses, which someone has to train and feed, and actual horse riders, and actual trainers for the actors who would be riding the horses...

I guess my point is, when directors with no money make their first feature, they have to use their imaginations in ways that can make their debuts more energized. (Not necessarily rookie directors, either — Aronofsky did some weird, on-the-cheap stuff for The Fountain that was more enthralling than anything Lucas and his ILM army could come up with.) As those directors get more clout and bigger budgets, and are told the sky isn't even the limit, their work becomes less about writing and directing than about a high-tech version of 'we'll fix it in post.' This is why I find Peter Jackson's work in Bad Taste leagues more fun than his work in King Kong.

Then again, I believe creativity works best when it has barriers — barriers of budget, barriers of genre, whatever — to bump up against, and possibly, if the artist is good enough, to break through. (As an audience, you root for the artist to break through his/her constraints; if there are no constraints, you're just witnessing a monarch showing off his/her trophy room.) When someone like Lucas or Jackson has nobody to say no to them, nothing preventing them from indulging themselves at the expense of the story, the result can be a lazily overstuffed experience that gets far away from the charm of the original material (whether A New Hope or the 1933 Kong).

[http://users.livejournal.com/__hecate__/]

Happy new year Caitlin!
And did you see this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/6686933.stm

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Others wished you a Happy Birthday first, but here are my best wishes!

[reverendcrofoot.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the answer to my question. Don't ask why but that little snippet worked itself into my brain. And again thanks for Silk for it still rocks.

[styggian.livejournal.com]

I'm going to the huge Star Wars Anniversary Celebration tomorrow at the LA Convention Center, I will try to take pix :)

[lm.livejournal.com]

Etsy only allows you to sell handcrafted goods, supplies for making handcrafted goods, and vintage items by permission. So Spooky would be able to sell her dolls there but you couldn't sell your books even if you were keen on the site.

(Well, maybe since you wrote the books they might, but I think you'd have to get permission.)

Sirenia Digest #18

[jason-brez.livejournal.com]

I greatly enjoyed Sirenia Digest #18.

Outside The Gates Of Eden was very erotic. A nice exploration of the need for more flesh, when one's body isn't enough for all the lust.

You write very scary fiction and Houses Under The Sea is one of your scarier pieces. Almost as spooky as Threshold, which is one of the scarier novels I've ever read. The way you build up tension is marvelous.

Thank you for writing both pieces.