Why do romance writers abuse adverbs? Why do they slap any 'ly' on any word at the end of a quote and think it conveys any sense of real emotion? I really shouldn't read the books at the Archive. They just make me mental. In my defense, it couldn't be helped the last couple of weeks. The new systems were so slow, all I could do is wait and read while the process moved to the next page. Thus, I was treated to words like acquiescently. I know it's a real word, because it didn't get a red line under it as I typed (and I believe I may have seen it on the SATs. But it didn't give me any real insight into the character.
Silly me complained out loud. That lead to the conjuring of adverbs that even the worst writer would avoid. Though I must admit that I really liked assbackwardly. The ensuing conversation brought Craig back to his ongoing objection to manroot and her sex as adjectives during love scenes. I still concur with his derisive view though I think Jon made a better point that there is no way to use the word womb in a sexy manner. We all agreed that the worst karaoke song Craig could possible sing is I Touch Myself in his lounge lizard Elvis style and that winking during the key phrase made it worse. I understand completely that this had nothing to do with the grammatical debate, but that's how the discussion ended.
Immoveable Forces
Speaking of writing, I finally finished some really important stories this week. I even sent one of them out to be reviewed (I'm uncharacteristically nervous about that one). That one is Dancing with the German, the first story in the memoir about my Mom. Late in the week, I realized that the primary obstacle in finishing the danged thing was me. For some reason I can't really explain (though I suspect it's because the events were important to me), I got hung up with imbuing each sentence with tremendous importance. I should have been simply telling a story like I do in my genre fiction. After all, I have always argued that story telling is storytelling no matter the genre. Leave it the critics or English teachers to assign importance to individual sentences. I believe this vehemently, yet I still managed to get in my own way in finishing this story. I suppose that no matter how many business plans I write or productions I run, I'm still a writer prone to flakiness. Now that I finished that one, I'm moving on to the other unfinished works in the pile. Hopefully, I won't get in my way again.
Updates – Fall 09
While we still await an official green light, we now know that the first of the films to be produced will be Art of Darkness, a horror film. The logic is that it is set completely in Los Angeles and a lot of it in the building we're currently occupying. It's just the easiest to begin and requires the least amount of logistical maneuvering to complete. Also, one of the actors we need to sign for The Gunslinger will not be available for the next several weeks. Since we need this actor for distribution, we have to wait. Besides, we've really wanted to work with him for some time now. On the Blood Oath front, jon is still slogging through post FX editing. I appreciate the advice given to pitch with the rough cut and our concept art, but we learned a hard lesson in selling Demon Under Glass. I will never show anyone rough cuts. No matter how well versed they are in looking at films, I just don't think it's wise. No one can visualize what you have in mind for a finished product. I've seen dozens of them, and I'm always surprised when I see the final films. Thus, I want to give this pilot presentation the best shot possible. However we will be releasing stills from the footage as soon as Jon can color correct them.
Many thanks to those who sent kind notes, cough remedies and videos of naked French rugby players while I was sick. They helped a lot. Especially that last bit. I'm cutting this short, because I still have a lot of chores before the start of the week. As always, stay tuned.
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