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greygirlbeastThis really needs to be short. Too much to do today, so that I can get back to The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, and begin Chapter Four tomorrow.
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Yesterday was, indeed, a day off, and we saw the Coen Bros. remake of True Grit (or perhaps we should say their adaptation, since both films have been based on Charles Portis' 1968 novel). And I was nothing but pleased. I actually almost cried at the end, in part because the Coen Bros. adhere much more closely to the novel's ending than did the original Henry Hathaway film (1969). Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges nail their roles, and are an absolute joy to watch. I'm too groggy to do anything but burble kindly adjectives, but it really is an excellent film. Beautiful cinematography. Wonderfully bleak soundtrack, including vocals by Iris DeMent. Yes, this goes on my list of best films of 2010, as I knew it would. Even though we had to see it in a freezing closet on a smallish screen. At least the screen was flat. All the good screens were given over to crap like Tron and Little Fockers (shudder). Never mind that True Grit is performing better at the box office than Tron. Anyway, yes. See True Grit, whether you like westerns or not.
Last night, we waded back into WoW (rather literally), and Shah and Suraa made a bid for Level 83. We fell a few bars short, but tomorrow's another day I'll squander on MMORPGs and all that rot. Having finished with Mount Hygal, we were shipped of the to sunken subcontinent of Vashj'ir. At first, being underwater and riding seahorses was a novelty, but it very quickly became tedious. I never would have imagined I wouldn't love a game set under the sea, but there you go. The quests are horridly repetitive, even by WoW standards. Kill nagas, find lost stuff, kill nagas, find lost stuff, rinse, repeat. But we'll see it through to the end. I just wish this section were as well designed, questwise, as was Mount Hygal. The environments are beautifully rendered, but...once you realize you can ride any mount at the bottom of the sea, well, it just all sort of gets too silly after that. Also, I was very disappointed that the Vashj'ir stuff begins as an expedition to thwart the Alliance, but immediately becomes this other thing instead.
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A weird time for me right now. I have some fear that my meds aren't working, which means upping the dosage, which means more of the bad side effects and more expense. But when they work, they work, which is infinitely fucking better than before. And I'm slipping into one of those places where it becomes almost impossible to see any value in my own writing. Here are the hundreds of stories, all these novels, and have I done it right even once? I can hardly even make a living, and that might be fine if I could look at my writing and know that I've done a good job. Right now, I can't. Most times I can't. It's worse now than usual.
Sorry. Enough of that.
---
Yesterday was, indeed, a day off, and we saw the Coen Bros. remake of True Grit (or perhaps we should say their adaptation, since both films have been based on Charles Portis' 1968 novel). And I was nothing but pleased. I actually almost cried at the end, in part because the Coen Bros. adhere much more closely to the novel's ending than did the original Henry Hathaway film (1969). Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges nail their roles, and are an absolute joy to watch. I'm too groggy to do anything but burble kindly adjectives, but it really is an excellent film. Beautiful cinematography. Wonderfully bleak soundtrack, including vocals by Iris DeMent. Yes, this goes on my list of best films of 2010, as I knew it would. Even though we had to see it in a freezing closet on a smallish screen. At least the screen was flat. All the good screens were given over to crap like Tron and Little Fockers (shudder). Never mind that True Grit is performing better at the box office than Tron. Anyway, yes. See True Grit, whether you like westerns or not.
Last night, we waded back into WoW (rather literally), and Shah and Suraa made a bid for Level 83. We fell a few bars short, but tomorrow's another day I'll squander on MMORPGs and all that rot. Having finished with Mount Hygal, we were shipped of the to sunken subcontinent of Vashj'ir. At first, being underwater and riding seahorses was a novelty, but it very quickly became tedious. I never would have imagined I wouldn't love a game set under the sea, but there you go. The quests are horridly repetitive, even by WoW standards. Kill nagas, find lost stuff, kill nagas, find lost stuff, rinse, repeat. But we'll see it through to the end. I just wish this section were as well designed, questwise, as was Mount Hygal. The environments are beautifully rendered, but...once you realize you can ride any mount at the bottom of the sea, well, it just all sort of gets too silly after that. Also, I was very disappointed that the Vashj'ir stuff begins as an expedition to thwart the Alliance, but immediately becomes this other thing instead.
---
A weird time for me right now. I have some fear that my meds aren't working, which means upping the dosage, which means more of the bad side effects and more expense. But when they work, they work, which is infinitely fucking better than before. And I'm slipping into one of those places where it becomes almost impossible to see any value in my own writing. Here are the hundreds of stories, all these novels, and have I done it right even once? I can hardly even make a living, and that might be fine if I could look at my writing and know that I've done a good job. Right now, I can't. Most times I can't. It's worse now than usual.
Sorry. Enough of that.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:48 pm (UTC)I hope that one of those things is getting back to me about the galleys of "The Collier Venus" :-)
Oh shit. I forgot
I mean...why yes! It is.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:51 pm (UTC)I hope you've tried to open the file and succeeded. A couple of people can't seem to open them without problems.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:54 pm (UTC)I hope you've tried to open the file and succeeded. A couple of people can't seem to open them without problems.
Um, yeah. Check your email.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 05:59 pm (UTC)Doing it "right"
Date: 2011-01-05 07:09 pm (UTC)I don't think there is any "right". But there is "outstanding", which you have done repeatedly.
--Fred Cleveland (cleve)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 04:18 am (UTC)Gush, gush, gush, all over your journal. Sorry about that. But seriously. You're kickass.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 05:06 pm (UTC)For what it's worth, I love your writing and think you do it right.