My husband (T) my older daughter (M-age 11) and I are always looking for TV shows to watch together. It's really difficult to find anything that pleases all three of us. Not too scary or too "adult" for the 11 year old, not too dull or hackneyed for the adults. T and I are not easy to please with television. We have little patience for cliche or poor writing. We are a pretty critical audience.
So, we've been watching Castle for the past couple of seasons. The violence and sex are within M's comfort zone. It has Nathan Fillion, an actor we all enjoy (Dr. Horrible, Firefly). It has been clever, but not over my M's head. When it has fallen into predictable patterns (like when the killer several times in a row was the person you met early in the story but thought wasn't important), it righted itself quickly.
We just watched the first episode of season 3 last night. My husband and I, and to a lesser degree, our daughter, had been really disappointed with the ending to season two. For my husband and me, the issue was all the cliches. The show had successfully avoided falling into a lot of traps, but suddenly in the end of season two, we had a main character turn out to be a traitor and one character's personal tragedy morph into a major conspiracy. We thought "Oh, no. There's been a focus group." The disappointment continued into the start of season three. M felt cheated by the love plot line. A lot was promised, then it was snatched away at the last minute.
As we talked about it afterward (the best part of watching TV--talking about it afterward!), I wondered if maybe the problem is with the medium. The writers need to build a long arc tension in the romance department, but ratchet it up enough episode by episode to keep us involved. That push and pull of when to get the male and female lead together (if at all) has been the bane of many a TV show. Shows have just fallen apart when the leads get together. No one seems to be able to write through that transition from "should we?" to "we shall" and beyond.
So, I think it's about pacing. In a movie, or a novel, the writer knows how long she or he has to play with. In a TV series, the writers don't know if the show will run half a season or twelve seasons, so if they let the couple get too close too quickly, they have to keep pulling it back and if they don't go quickly enough, they might not get there at all. They have to create new roadblocks and believable complications, sometimes in the space of just an episode or two, when the build-up took an entire season.
Sometimes, it's smooth. At the end of season one, Kate almost told Castle how she felt, only to find him on the arm of his ex. Opportunity lost. Poor timing. That played well for me.
Season two into season three, however, we had her nearly die. He confesses his love when he thinks he's going to lose her (cliche!) and she pretends not to remember it and doesn't talk to him for three months. In face, she behaves so badly, that all of thought that Castle should dump her. Kate was crossing that line from "I've got history" into "scary damaged goods." Castle is too good a guy for that.
So, Castle, you've got two more episodes to win us back. Or we'll move to other shows. We're worried you might be damaged goods.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Let's try this again
I like the idea of a blog. As someone who aspires to be a novelist, I should be writing all the time. In a way, I am. But the kind of writing I do in my teaching (lesson plans, explanations, classroom website, etc.) doesn't touch the same parts of my brain as my creative writing.
I like that part of my brain. I'd like to be in contact with it more often. It's a nice place, where unexpected connections pop up and fill me with a glow of epiphany. Like when I realized that Kirk and Sherry (protagonists in my novel--working title: His Other Mother) were dealing with many of the same issues that ended my first marriage. I had no idea, until I read a scene aloud to a group of writings I was spending a weekend with and was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness for Kirk and Sherry, the kind of sadness that is more personal than fictional. See, I don't need therapy--just some writing time!
Obviously, I have not, thus far, written much here. I'm hoping to change that. It's nearly Rosh Hashanah. A new school year has begun. This is the time of year that I feel the urge for new resolutions and self-improvement. So, here's the goal this year: write once a week. Here. About anything.
It's not like I've lacked ideas. I just haven't blocked out the time to do anything with them. I have always believed that the key to success in any endeavor is time invested: practice. So, if I want to get more out of my novel-writing time (a few hours every couple of weeks, assuming everyone in the house is healthy), I need to exercise that "creative writing" part of my brain, keep it strong and functioning.
I like me better when I've been writing. I bet other people do too.
So, let's try this again.
I like that part of my brain. I'd like to be in contact with it more often. It's a nice place, where unexpected connections pop up and fill me with a glow of epiphany. Like when I realized that Kirk and Sherry (protagonists in my novel--working title: His Other Mother) were dealing with many of the same issues that ended my first marriage. I had no idea, until I read a scene aloud to a group of writings I was spending a weekend with and was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness for Kirk and Sherry, the kind of sadness that is more personal than fictional. See, I don't need therapy--just some writing time!
Obviously, I have not, thus far, written much here. I'm hoping to change that. It's nearly Rosh Hashanah. A new school year has begun. This is the time of year that I feel the urge for new resolutions and self-improvement. So, here's the goal this year: write once a week. Here. About anything.
It's not like I've lacked ideas. I just haven't blocked out the time to do anything with them. I have always believed that the key to success in any endeavor is time invested: practice. So, if I want to get more out of my novel-writing time (a few hours every couple of weeks, assuming everyone in the house is healthy), I need to exercise that "creative writing" part of my brain, keep it strong and functioning.
I like me better when I've been writing. I bet other people do too.
So, let's try this again.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Family Life as Germ Warfare
I got strep.
This doesn't usually happen. Usually my children get sick, I nurse them, and then I get sick.
But this time, I started it. I picked it up randomly, at the grocery or the swimming pool or something. No one I know is sick, but I was the first to fall. Then, my older daughter got it. Now my husband has it. We're fighting to try and make sure the baby (age 3) doesn't get it.
I'd never realized before how germy family life is. Once I was recovered enough to think about it (which was right as my older daughter fell ill), I put on my combat gear and set to work.
I wiped every handle, knob, switch and button in the house with clorox wipes. Boy! There are a lot of those. I lysoled the couch. I washed all the bedding and towels on the sanitary cycle. I threw away anything in the fridge that had been eaten from (half finished chicken breast, leftover French fries, unfinished yogurt, etc.). I quarantined big sister in her bedroom, a floor away from the little one.
So, we've been trying to protect ourselves from each other. It's NUTS how many things that entails. We can't buy a smoothie and share it. We can't put the cucumbers in a communal bowl on the dinner table. We can't share a bowl of popcorn (hands in bowl, hands in mouth, hands in bowl, ewwww!) We can't kiss. A hundred times a day, someone starts to do something that would spread contagion and has to stop him or herself.
When we're all healthy, it's amazing what we all share unthinkingly. We all get loco-pops and Little Sister asks to taste mine. I let her. The girls take a bath together. They kiss Daddy in the same spot on his cheek. We pour Little Sister's unfinished stew back in the pot, which Mom and Dad eat as leftovers for lunch the next day. It's a little disgusting when I think about it too much. Maybe in this case, the unexamined life is better. Family life is gross. And that's not even bringing poop and snot into the discussion. EEEEWWWWW!
This doesn't usually happen. Usually my children get sick, I nurse them, and then I get sick.
But this time, I started it. I picked it up randomly, at the grocery or the swimming pool or something. No one I know is sick, but I was the first to fall. Then, my older daughter got it. Now my husband has it. We're fighting to try and make sure the baby (age 3) doesn't get it.
I'd never realized before how germy family life is. Once I was recovered enough to think about it (which was right as my older daughter fell ill), I put on my combat gear and set to work.
I wiped every handle, knob, switch and button in the house with clorox wipes. Boy! There are a lot of those. I lysoled the couch. I washed all the bedding and towels on the sanitary cycle. I threw away anything in the fridge that had been eaten from (half finished chicken breast, leftover French fries, unfinished yogurt, etc.). I quarantined big sister in her bedroom, a floor away from the little one.
So, we've been trying to protect ourselves from each other. It's NUTS how many things that entails. We can't buy a smoothie and share it. We can't put the cucumbers in a communal bowl on the dinner table. We can't share a bowl of popcorn (hands in bowl, hands in mouth, hands in bowl, ewwww!) We can't kiss. A hundred times a day, someone starts to do something that would spread contagion and has to stop him or herself.
When we're all healthy, it's amazing what we all share unthinkingly. We all get loco-pops and Little Sister asks to taste mine. I let her. The girls take a bath together. They kiss Daddy in the same spot on his cheek. We pour Little Sister's unfinished stew back in the pot, which Mom and Dad eat as leftovers for lunch the next day. It's a little disgusting when I think about it too much. Maybe in this case, the unexamined life is better. Family life is gross. And that's not even bringing poop and snot into the discussion. EEEEWWWWW!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
On Second Chances
When the universe is kind enough to grant you a second chance, you need to grasp it with both hands and squeeze. You need to appreciate it while it's there in front of you and never never never take it for granted.
This time of year, six years ago (amazing that it's already been that long), I thought my life had fallen apart. I was divorcing, moving, changing jobs, everything that comes with starting over. I was 32. Until about a month before this, I thought my long-suffering marriage was on an upswing. There was talk of a second child, a vacation, renovations to the house. But, in one clear moment of lucid honesty, it was over, as it should have been many times before.
For a few months, I lamented. Even at the time, I realized it wasn't the marriage I was grieving for. It was the other things I would be losing: a house I loved, a life in a wonderful small community, a job with great people, my opportunity for a second child, a VW Bug, my independence (temporarily), the ability to do anything at all without my oldest child in tow, my community theater group. There were a lot of things I loved about my life at that point, but none of them were my husband. Him, I really wasn't going to miss. About his absence, I felt relief.
So, since I don't do actual spring-cleaning, I'll do some soul spring-cleaning. I'll remind myself how very lucky I am, after hitting that bottom six years ago, to again have a home I love, in a lovely small town, a good job in a pleasant place with good colleagues, a second child, a sweet if kind of stupid dog, and the very best husband there is.
That last part, that's the balance. That's what I missing before. It's one of those things that, once you have, you can't understand how you lived without it so long. So, I'm keeping him, and encouraging him to keep me in return.
It's both wonderful and terrifying, having what you want. And I'm holding on tightly. And telling them all every day how lucky I feel to have them.
This time of year, six years ago (amazing that it's already been that long), I thought my life had fallen apart. I was divorcing, moving, changing jobs, everything that comes with starting over. I was 32. Until about a month before this, I thought my long-suffering marriage was on an upswing. There was talk of a second child, a vacation, renovations to the house. But, in one clear moment of lucid honesty, it was over, as it should have been many times before.
For a few months, I lamented. Even at the time, I realized it wasn't the marriage I was grieving for. It was the other things I would be losing: a house I loved, a life in a wonderful small community, a job with great people, my opportunity for a second child, a VW Bug, my independence (temporarily), the ability to do anything at all without my oldest child in tow, my community theater group. There were a lot of things I loved about my life at that point, but none of them were my husband. Him, I really wasn't going to miss. About his absence, I felt relief.
So, since I don't do actual spring-cleaning, I'll do some soul spring-cleaning. I'll remind myself how very lucky I am, after hitting that bottom six years ago, to again have a home I love, in a lovely small town, a good job in a pleasant place with good colleagues, a second child, a sweet if kind of stupid dog, and the very best husband there is.
That last part, that's the balance. That's what I missing before. It's one of those things that, once you have, you can't understand how you lived without it so long. So, I'm keeping him, and encouraging him to keep me in return.
It's both wonderful and terrifying, having what you want. And I'm holding on tightly. And telling them all every day how lucky I feel to have them.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Point of View and Reading like a Writer
My writing group met this past Sunday. It's always so invigorating to go--to talk about wordsmithing with others struggling to make words do what they want, too.
This week, we got mired in Point of View. It turned out we have some pretty diverse opinions about what is and isn't "allowed" in point of view in a novel.
My novel, for example, is in multiple 3rd person point of view, changing which character we are close to chapter by chapter. However, in workshopping, I've found that there are times when I let that lapse and went into the wrong head during the wrong chapter. Some are okay with this; others are not.
Another writer in the group has a complete novel in first person. Another, in third person omniscient. Another is trying to alternate between first person and third person, wanting the best of both worlds.
As we discussed, we talked about examples and I realized that I don't read like a writer. When I read a novel I like, I should be able to article what I like about it, what it is that makes it work for me--techniques used, characters, sparkling dialogue, narrative humor . . .
So, now in February, I've found my new year's resolution: Read like a writer.
This week, we got mired in Point of View. It turned out we have some pretty diverse opinions about what is and isn't "allowed" in point of view in a novel.
My novel, for example, is in multiple 3rd person point of view, changing which character we are close to chapter by chapter. However, in workshopping, I've found that there are times when I let that lapse and went into the wrong head during the wrong chapter. Some are okay with this; others are not.
Another writer in the group has a complete novel in first person. Another, in third person omniscient. Another is trying to alternate between first person and third person, wanting the best of both worlds.
As we discussed, we talked about examples and I realized that I don't read like a writer. When I read a novel I like, I should be able to article what I like about it, what it is that makes it work for me--techniques used, characters, sparkling dialogue, narrative humor . . .
So, now in February, I've found my new year's resolution: Read like a writer.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Pleasures of Old Movies
This morning, my husband kindly took the Tater Tot with him on some errands and left me to watch something I picked on the TV (at least until the Tween wakes). So, I am watching The 39 Steps, an Alfred Hitchcock, on Netflix's Watch Instantly through our XBox 360. I'm rather enjoying that idea that I am using such up and coming technology to enjoy something from another era.
I'm pondering what it is that I so enjoy about movies that are so much older than I am. My favorite movies of all time are found under "classics" on Netflix: The Quiet Man, Bringing Up Baby, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Key Largo, Pillow Talk, The Thin Man, The Egg and I, Roman Holiday. (As soon as I click "Publish" I'll think of 10 more I should have listed).
It's not that I don't like more contemporary movies. I do. But, if you leave me alone for some "me time" I will undoubtedly choose a movie that is more contemporary for my grandmother than for myself. I do have cut-offs though. I don't generally like silent movies, or movies that were made when sound was too new and the soundtrack is hard to listen to, garbled or just badly recorded. I don't find much to revisit that's from the 70's.
But what is it about these films?
The storytelling was different then. The effects were less special, but the relationships were stronger. There's something striking about black and white, something that stays in mind's eye longer. The influence of radio was still there, making voice and sound into different instruments than they are now. I don't get attached to contemporary actors particularly, but have often watched an older movie just because it featured a "face" I admire: Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Cary Grant.
Maybe it's my resistance to things that are popular--probably beginning way back when I was a less than popular girl at my high school. Generally, if "everyone" likes it, I probably don't. I like my clothes to be different than everyone else's, my meals to be inventive and interesting, and my entertainment to be quirky and "different" too. I'm not a "follow the crowd" girl. I take a geek's pleasure in knowing about more obscure things.
Or maybe it's a golden age myth--a belief that things were better "back then," a nostalgia for times before my birth, a desire for a different vision of glamour or beauty. I like the beliefs that are evident in many of these films: that the good guys will win out in the end, that smart is better than born with advantages, that honest people will be believed and rewarded, that there is true love and the world cannot keep deserving lovers apart.
I guess I don't really know what exactly the appeal is for me. Just that there is "something" in these older movies that draws me and keeps me coming back. Something as indefinable as the star quality that made these faces great when they were living.
I'm pondering what it is that I so enjoy about movies that are so much older than I am. My favorite movies of all time are found under "classics" on Netflix: The Quiet Man, Bringing Up Baby, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Key Largo, Pillow Talk, The Thin Man, The Egg and I, Roman Holiday. (As soon as I click "Publish" I'll think of 10 more I should have listed).
It's not that I don't like more contemporary movies. I do. But, if you leave me alone for some "me time" I will undoubtedly choose a movie that is more contemporary for my grandmother than for myself. I do have cut-offs though. I don't generally like silent movies, or movies that were made when sound was too new and the soundtrack is hard to listen to, garbled or just badly recorded. I don't find much to revisit that's from the 70's.
But what is it about these films?
The storytelling was different then. The effects were less special, but the relationships were stronger. There's something striking about black and white, something that stays in mind's eye longer. The influence of radio was still there, making voice and sound into different instruments than they are now. I don't get attached to contemporary actors particularly, but have often watched an older movie just because it featured a "face" I admire: Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Cary Grant.
Maybe it's my resistance to things that are popular--probably beginning way back when I was a less than popular girl at my high school. Generally, if "everyone" likes it, I probably don't. I like my clothes to be different than everyone else's, my meals to be inventive and interesting, and my entertainment to be quirky and "different" too. I'm not a "follow the crowd" girl. I take a geek's pleasure in knowing about more obscure things.
Or maybe it's a golden age myth--a belief that things were better "back then," a nostalgia for times before my birth, a desire for a different vision of glamour or beauty. I like the beliefs that are evident in many of these films: that the good guys will win out in the end, that smart is better than born with advantages, that honest people will be believed and rewarded, that there is true love and the world cannot keep deserving lovers apart.
I guess I don't really know what exactly the appeal is for me. Just that there is "something" in these older movies that draws me and keeps me coming back. Something as indefinable as the star quality that made these faces great when they were living.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Buried in paper
"And the schoolyear starts, and she disappears." I hear this from my friends all the time.
Unfortunately, it's true. Once school starts, I have my two children to get to their various things and 150 of other people's children to take care of.
It's overwhelming and by this time of year, I am always exhausted and wondering why I thought teaching would be a good career choice.
So, the lack of digital me comes from the overabundance of the non-digital parts of my life. I get a break Wednesday-Friday--I'll try to write something interesting.
Love,
-S
Unfortunately, it's true. Once school starts, I have my two children to get to their various things and 150 of other people's children to take care of.
It's overwhelming and by this time of year, I am always exhausted and wondering why I thought teaching would be a good career choice.
So, the lack of digital me comes from the overabundance of the non-digital parts of my life. I get a break Wednesday-Friday--I'll try to write something interesting.
Love,
-S
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