Month: January 2007

Dreamchild

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 45 Comments

What do people do when they’re done reading a book they’ve purchased?

(1) Do you put it on the shelf like a trophy, “See, I read this!” perchance to read again?

(2) Or, if the book was all right, but not really your thing, do you donate it to a library or second-hand store, or trade it in for credit at a used bookstore, hoping it will end up with someone who might like it better?

(3) Or maybe the thing is absolute drivel and you can’t believe someone actually killed a tree to bring it into the world. So you take the book and say, “No more trees shall die on thine account! I cast thee into the recycle bin!”

(4) Or maybe the damned thing is so offensive, it’s not even worth that, and you dump it right in the trash hoping it ends up smooshed with dog shit in some landfill where it will ROT!!!?

Well, this last book I finished yesterday, “Dreamchild”, almost got the number #4 treatment. It wasn’t a badly written book, it was even sort of intriguing. It was definitely pulp fiction–someone’s take on the whole Roswell/Dreamland/alien/Majestic mythology, explored from the POV of people involved in the whole aliens-are-among-us events in different ways. So I was eating it up like movie popcorn until they introduced the villains of the piece, the Evil Lesbians. Oy. Basically, these two women are conspiring to kill the aliens who are, as it turns out, the saviors of mankind, and killing any humans that get in their way/whom they need as Guinea pigs. Eventually, one of the pair (’cause they’re usually a pair who of course use remorseless killing as foreplay) sees the error of her ways and betrays her lover. The only reason this drivel isn’t going in the trash is they didn’t take the Evil Lesbian cliche to its usual end point and get the redeemed woman together with a man.

But it’s already in the recycle bin.

Now I’m hankering to watch “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and Steven Spielberg’s “Taken” to get the taste of this out of my mouth.

Next up on the list: Laurell K. Hamilton. I know, I know, but it’s early Hamilton, and I’ve never read her before.

“A Wizard of Earthsea”, Ursula Le Guin
“Proven Guilty”, Jim Butcher
“Dreamchild”, Hilary Hemingway and Jeffry P. Lindsay

Proven Guilty

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 9 Comments

Finished The Dresden Files “Proven Guilty” yesterday (which reminds me, note to self: remind brother to tape first TV ep tomorrow!!!!). I have to admit, I do love this book series. The action! The snark! The supernatural coolness! The morally ambiguous arciness! Thanks to buffyannotater for reccing it.

I am moving on now to a book called “Dreamchild” by Hilary Hemingway and Jeffry P Lindsay. It’s one of those little paperbooks I found in the basement of some used bookstore somewhere–either Guerneville or Santa Cruz–that’s been sitting on my shelf for a while. I thought I should read those before getting into any of my flist recs.

This weekend, I’m in. Polishing up TD 206, contemplating talking to the Mom about the Phoenix thing. And at some point, starting my L Word season 4 reviews. But right now, I’m off to Walgreens. Later, dudes.

Books of 2007:

“A Wizard of Earthsea”, Ursula Le Guin
“Proven Guilty”, Jim Butcher

Reading progress notes

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 25 Comments

I finished “A Wizard of Earthsea” yesterday, so check one book on the books-of-2007 list. I’m wondering if 52 books is a reasonable goal. “Wizard” was only 182 pages and it took me WEEKS to read it. But then, I only read it on the bus to work because I found it a bit tedious. Two-dimensional. Anyway, made-up Medieval-style lands, not really my thing, although I may put a Tolkien book on my list just for the sake of the classics.

Next book, already half-read but needing to be finished, The Dresden Files “Proved Guilty.” I can whip through those books like butter, because I enjoy them. Now I need to sit down and decide on a few more books for the coming weeks and, if necessary, find them in the library.

Truth & Consequences: The VK-a-thon continues

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 15 Comments

Oh, hey! Check it out…I just popped my Netflix DVD into the player this a.m., and it’s the VK episode of ER! My ancient reruns television motif always brings up something interesting.

Fucked-up Vinnie: He’s broody and sensitive, a tormented artist. He eats his own paints, and he does drugs! I take it back. *This* is his *real* screen test for AtS!

Brat Quotient: 5/10. He’s actually kind of sweet. He loses points for being high-maintenance at the end, refusing out-patient detox when the cute med student can’t get him into in-patient detox.

The hair: Of course he has greasy hair and is yakking all over himself! He doesn’t need to be an emergency room patient to do that!

Bottom line: I didn’t rent season 6 of ER just to see Vinnie, but I was looking forward to his appearance. It was better than I expected, too, in terms of screen time and characterization. Vintage Vinnie.

2006 fic round-up meme

~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 17 Comments

I think this meme is for fanfic, but I’m going to do OF as well. Accomplished in 2006:

– Finished season 1 of “The Destroyer”, started season 2. Eppies included:

121: Heart of Darkness
122: Beneath
201: Dead
202: Knowledge
203: Inappropriately Neurotic
204: Dramatis Personae

Only six episodes the whole year? Well, I traveled a lot. My favorite episode of this lot, I think, was “Heart of Darkness.” Although “Beneath”, the season ender, was about Connor’s inner struggles (which is what TD is, in the end, about), “HOD” had some good Unholy Family stuff I enjoyed writing.

Second favorite, “Inappropriately Neurotic.” I don’t know what it was last year, but I got on this Goth and Noir kick. I wanted to explore things with a darker, kinkier edge to them. So I invented this OC, Alix, and this nightclub setting, Sekhmet, in part to do that. Expect to see more of them in future eps.

– Co-wrote/edited “Reconciliation“, and wrote “Rise” in the AtS Season 6 series.

Those two episodes were the only ones to come out in that series in 2006. The Mutant Existential Scoobies were having lots of RL issues, good and bad. “Rise” was a lot of fun to write, ’cause of the Faith+Wesley. I also enjoyed tinkering with the Connor+Spike and Congel bits of arethusa2‘s Reconciliation script.

– In April, I did my so-called “NaDraWriMo,” thirty original fic drabbles in thirty days. The best of that was posted here.

I was really hoping this effort would kick-start an idea for an original fiction story of some length greater than 100 words, and I did sort of glom onto a character towards the end of the month (who, judging by my commenters’ icons, reminded them of Faith), but I couldn’t seem to get a handle on what her story was about.

– I gave it the old college try, though. For the next couple months (May-July), I posted eight story bits to the community, hoping to get a critical mass that would enable me to participate in NaNoWriMo in November. But the story wasn’t setting fire to my butt. The only thing fueling it was my desperate desire to write original fic, not anything compelling about the story itself. So that fizzled out.

– I did participate in NaNoWriMo in November. With a fanfic WIP! (*headdesk*). And I won, ’cause their word counting machine doesn’t actually check to see if you’ve written a self-contained original novel.

I’m not going to pressure myself by having some New Year’s resolution to “get that original fic story going already!” I think the wiser course of action is what I decided to do, read more, see more films. Feed my muse.