I have an important annoucement to make.

I believe humanity has taken a step closer to perfection.

Today, my grandson (yes, Dace)...

...changed an empty roll of toilet paper for a new one without being asked!!!!!!

This is a breakthrough for men the world over.

Or it could be the first sign of the End of Days. :)

 

PS: Got picked for a jury... for a case I really don't want to sit and listen to. It's icky and by no means a slam dunk. :(

Aha!... Thanks to Kath I have the total word count target doovey thing working now...

Want to hit the 20K mark by the end of the month. That's my plan, you see... 20,000 words a month. That way the 1st draft of The Undivided will be finished 3 months before the final MS is due.

That's not writing too fast is it? Saw a 2003 blog comment the other day (hey... the Google thing ain't perfect:) that said "Fallon has produced 2 books a year for the past couple of years. They must be utter crap. How can any writer produce quality work when they're writing at that sort of pace?" Mind you, they hadn't read a single word, basing their entire opinion on the release schedule of two unrelated publishers, publishing two unrelated series at the same time.

I was tempted to go back and tell them it was the publishing schedule, not my writing, they had an issue with, but hey... responding to a post put up in 2003? Not even I'm that neurotic...LOL

Still, it's an interesting point. I wonder how many other readers out there diss an author without reading their work because the author seems to be churning them out like a production-line hack?

I've written 2 books in a year and it nearly made my brain explode. These days it's nice to have the luxury of some time (and the funds) to write, put it down for a while, go back and rewrite, and then rewrite again, and know you're sending in the best draft possible, not the best draft you can produce in the time permitted.

Smartest thing I ever did was ask for a 14 month deadline on The Undivided:)

I am having way too much fun for this to be called work:)

You probably have to be an Aussie to get this, although I'm sure the Kiwis think it's us with the wacky accents...

Quentin Tarantino’s latest outing starts in Nazi occupied France in 1941 where a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Walz). Narrowly escaping the massacre with her life, she gets a chance for revenge years later when German war hero, Fredrick Zoller, develops a crush on her (unaware of her identity) and arranges a movie premiere for the Fuhrer at the theatre she now owns. The premiere also attracts the attention of British intelligence and the "Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers led by the merciless Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). As the Basterds make their plans, they are unaware of Shoshanna’s planned revenge, while Hans Landa is closing in on both Shoshanna and the Basterds, threatening to derail the whole mission.

This is probably the most straightforward, linear story, Tarantino has offered so far, which worked for me — who isn’t a big Tarantino fan —  but may be a little disappointing for those expecting something out of the ordinary. On the upside, the film offers some wonderful characters — the sweet, but vengeful Shoshanna, the ruthless Aldo Raine, and the diabolical Hans Landa, who is probably the most amoral, evil character to grace the screen in a very long time. Brilliantly acted, the mostly European cast speaking their native languages (subtitled) give the film an air of authenticity, despite the liberal disregard for historical fact that gets increasingly absurd as the film nears its climax.

There are a few jarring moments (the previously mentioned twist in history being a case in point), like the appearance of Mike Myers playing it straight as a British Colonel and a more than a few rather pretentious and overly-long scenes where the characters go on and on about German cinema in the 1920s. One gets the feeling Tarantino is showing off, just a little, to prove he knows his stuff, and the scenes quickly started to get on my nerves.

There were a couple of other Tarantino affectations, like writing the names of characters on the screen with a light pen instead of introducing them as part of the narrative, which I thought was not only unnecessary, but downright lazy, and couple of clips relating the back-story of individual Basterds that were kind of fun, but felt like they ought to be introduced by the guy who does the Pushing Daisies voice-overs and they should have started with “the facts are these…”

But they are minor complaints really. The film is brutal and absurdly violent, but nobody who goes to a Tarantino film really expects anything less. The dialogue (except in the scenes full of boring exposition) is generally clever and believable, and in the end, despite the high body count — another trademark Tarantino device — you do get the sense of a everything ending the way it should.