What I Watched Over The Bank Holiday Weekend

I've just finished watching Series 3 of True Blood (warning: rest of paragraph contains spoilers). As much as I've been enjoying it, there's part of me that is starting to think it's becoming a little silly. Vampires, then shapeshifters, then Maiads, and in this series werewolves, were-panthers, fairies and witches. I half expected new sheriff Andy to turn around and announce he was a leprechaun. I do think that they handle these new creatures very well, but I think my dislike comes from the frequency in which new creatures are introduced. And I really don't want Layfayette to discover he's a witch or whatever. I loved that, along with Tara and Jason, he was one of the "normal" ones. I am interested to see what they are going to do in the new series, and as always, it is Sookie's relationships that provide the central hook. Personally, I think I'm shipping Sookie with that hunky werewolf guy whose name I never did catch. But anyway...

Loved Doctor Who this week, mainly for the ending. Can't wait til next week, but don't understand why the show is going on hiatus until the autumn. Is this a money-saving exercise by the BBC? A bid to get higher ratings? It's very annoying anyway, especially as it's basically the only TV I watch these days that isn't on DVD or Virgin on-demand.

Jive Bunny

I've taken the plunge and have got myself cast in Return to the Forbidden Planet, which for those of you who don't know, is a jukebox musical based loosely on The Tempest and The Forbidden Planet. It'll be on in February at the Concordia Theatre, Hinckley, Leics. I am in the chorus, and I am trying very hard to silence that inner voice inside my head that is ambitious and attention-seeking and wants me to audition for a lead role. I don't have time to be a lead (assuming I'd be cast of course). Monday was the first dance workshop, where we learned to jive. It's been years since I've been to rock n'roll nights, and so I was a bit rusty, but it was really good fun. Good exercise too!

Our TV digibox has been broken since Sunday, and it's sad to say I'm feeling a bit lonely without it. The technician is coming Friday, so all will be well, but if any one has any suggestions about what I can do to fill up my TV-less evenings, they would be most appreciated. I don't really watch telly, but it's nice to have it there in the background.

I have been reading more, possibly as a consequence but maybe not - the books I'm reading are very mind-absorbing. I'm reading Trudi Canavan's The Black Magician Trilogy, and have read the second book and half of the last book in 2 days. It's a really good book, in my opinion. For those who scoff, I think it's important to read popular fiction, even if your goal is to write high-brow literary fiction, just to see what techniques are employed to hook a reader. Even if you are looking to write literary fiction, surely the aim of the game is to sell a few copies as well as winning hundreds of awards? So, this series is action packed, but also has central characters that you care about.

I'm rubbish at plotting. Anyone have any advice about how I can improve? I'm still working my way through Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots, which is very interesting and insightful, but not particularly practical. I guess the answer is the same as the answer to how anyone gets good at anything - with practise!

Elsewhere: Damien takes on the Paranormal Romance fandom not quite single-handedly here:http://damiengwalter.com/2010/06/30/who-reads-urban-fantasy/

A plug for my friends' new Edinburgh show, Stitched Up!: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/stitched-up

My current favourite twitterer (is that the right phrase?), my old school pal Marc Burrows (now a stand-up comedian and musician): http://twitter.com/20thcenturymarc

And the web-strip that I follow on a semi-regular basis, Hark, A Vagrant - check it out! http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php

Good Female Roles in Stories

My life is completely boring right now. At the weekend I did nothing but watch series 4 of How I Met Your Mother and play The Sims 2. Hardly worth telling the internet about, but I feel like I must update regularly or else what's the point?

Tonight I'm off to the library to try to finish Inter Vivos. I just want to write something where the plot of the story isn't "girl trying to get boy to like her". I do enjoy romantic comedy, but I've been getting a little bit annoyed that most films with a female protagonist tend to be about relationships. Now, Alien is an obvious example of a film with a strong heroine who doesn't spend the entire film wondering whether her crush will ask her out, but that part was famously written for a man before Sigourney Weaver was cast. Is that telling? Can anyone suggest some good non-horror movies that aren't about women bitching about men (or their lesbian crushes)?

Anyway, my heroine Nox is more concerned with the fact that she's murdered folk, rather than trying to win the heart of some handsome prince, so that's alright then.

Monster Story

Hello all. How've you been? I've been feeling pretty tired of late, so haven't been up to much. Been watching Men In Trees on Virgin on Demand, which I'm really enjoying. A less sexy Sex and the City, with some nice characterisation even if I can predict not only the plot but also some of the dialogue (which I'm finding kinda comforting - weird?).

I finished a new short story last week, and I'm just putting the finishing touches to it. Well, I say "new" - I actually started it last November during Damien's writing class, and have only just gotten around to completing it. It's currently called "The Eye That Came To Work", though the more I type that, the less I like it. Still, I think I'll be sending it off shortly to see if I can find a home for it in one of the e-zines. Fingers crossed.

As per usual, Scary Duck's condensed movie made me chuckle. This one's The Hobbit/LOTR: http://scaryduck.blogspot.com/search/label/Condensed%20films

Inter Vivos is still ongoing. Going to head off to the library tonight to do some more. Must work on The Maiden not being a very bad pantomime villain. Think it'll help though when I have a completed first draft, so I can look at her role the whole way through, and decide what to do with her. Gotta stop her monologuing - that's for certain.

Hallowe'en is coming up, and I'm having a Mary Shelley party, where we all have to write a horror story to read to the group. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to write. Hannah said she'd do a comic, which sounds excellent. If only my drawings didn't look like those of a five year olds...

Buffy Revisited

Yesterday I watched the first three episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series 1, and I think they've held up really well. Sure, Buffy's hair and heels are slightly dated, as is the mid-90s Grunge, but the writing feels as fresh as ever. The opening sequence, in which a boy and his date break into school, breaks conventions right from the beginning - it's not the sex-crazed jock who is the threat, but his jumpy, hesitant blonde date (who turns out to be a vampire). And I was shocked that Angel, in those first two episodes, has a personality! Maybe I'm just too saturated by the bland Twilight vamps, but it actually took me by surprise that Angel was sarcastic and charismatic, rather than brooding and mournful. Just shows that both the male and female characters can be strong at the same time - one doesn't supersede the other. The Angel I'm most familiar with is the pouting one from (I think) Series 3, so Angel series 1 is actually really refreshing.

I'm still not finished with my Corrie Flint story - I'm just tidying it up a little bit now. Plus, I can't think of a title. I wanted to come up with something witty and clever, maybe some sort of pun based around fire and talent, but I can't think of anything good. I think the latest draft is called "Burning Talent", but I think I might go with "An Unusual Talent". I can't really decide - neither are right. Suggestions on a postcard please...

Hmm...

I think I'm suffering from "blog block" at the moment. I just can't think of what to write on here. I know lots of gossip, but it's about other people and so can't relate it on here (that's cruel). I don't feel like my life is dull right now, more like I'm just gently bobbing along on the ocean that is life, and there's nothing to report, not even the odd seagull.

I read a really dreadful book the other week, called Marked by PC Cast and Kristen Cast. I read it to the end though, which is more than I can say than some books, but it was truly awful. It was written in first person teen-speak, which in itself is annoying, but in this instance made the narrator and lead character extremely annoying and unrelatable. I mean, kudos for PC Cast getting her daughter to help her with the lingo, but her daughter isn't a teen neither - it's like it's been written by someone who watched Clueless and has attempted to copy it verbatium. Like, totally.

On the other hand, I watched Torchwood: Children of Earth on Virgin on Demand over the weekend (the first whilst still drunk at about 2:30am). This was excellent. I've only seen a couple of episodes from the first series of Torchwood, and it never really grasped my attention - it was too much like a Doctor Who episode, but with added gratuitous sex/violence, just because it was post-watershed. This story though, which was self contained over 5 (I think) episodes, was really tight, and everything there felt planned out - not a single line or sfx wasted. I hope they do more Torchwood episodes like this. Very good (and perfect for my hangover the next day).

Dr Horrible

I have a major crush on Neil Patrick Harris right now. I mean, come on! How friggin' talented is this man? He sings, he's hilarious, he looks good in a suit, and he says "awesome" better than anyone I know. I'm counting down the days until How I Met Your Mother season 4 is released on DVD. I watched Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog in one sitting on Saturday night - highly recommended. Here's Act One, Scene One as a taster for you, courtesy of Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=apEZpYnN_1g -it lasts 7 and a half minutes.

(I tried to embed the video here, but for some reason couldn't copy and paste the whole of the text code - anyone know why?)

I'm still enjoying Dollhouse - wish the Sci Fi Channel had its own On Demand service. Get onto it, Virgin!

Have finished my Corrie Flint story. Wrote it in one sitting the day after the idea came into my head. Sometimes it's just like that - idea comes, pretty much fully formed, and explodes out of you. It was good to be able to write it like that, rather than having to wait until I found a second, like what usually happens. Have to snatch those opportunities when they appear!

Film Geekdom

Interesting Film and TV news:

1) New Ghostbusters. I'm glad it's not going to be a remake of the original starring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan, et al, so I'm glad it's going to be a ghostbusters film with the originals in it, and hope they're getting back together to fight a new baddie. The "passing the torch" thing, well, I just don't want them to continue the franchise if the originals don't have anything to do with it. Especially as it'll probably be Zac Efron playing the grown-up Oscar. And I'm a little bit anti the 'all girl' ghostbusters idea Dan Akyroyd mentions, simply because Hollywood seems to believe that if a film has several female leads, then it has to a) be a love story b) involve a cat fight and c) involve said girls in their underwear/some pervy costume at some point during the film. Not really want I'd want from a Ghostbusters movie.

2) They are remaking Footloose starring a guy from Gossip Girl and possibly Hannah Montana. Eek.

I just don't think they can get away with doing a straight remake any more. Star Trek was great, and what they did was create an alternative dimension to set it in, therefore not shitting over the former TV show and films. I think Footloose 2009 will be a standard remake, but why? Is there any need to remake the classic that was pretty much perfect?

I have another pet peeve, and that's when sequels are basically remakes of the original, but with a different (less attractive/talented) lead and sometimes different location (Poison Ivy II, S Darko, The Rage) - especially when the events in the first film were so extraordinary that no way would that happen again.

I watched Dollhouse last night, and it was really intriguing. It doesn't have the same pizzazz that Buffy had - it's more grown-up, less wit and more action (well the first episode anyway), but I enjoyed it and will be watching it again. It posed more questions than it answered, which is a pretty good start to a series, so we'll see how it progresses. I've just got to remember that it's on, as the Sci Fi Channel isn't in my "On Demand" services I don't think.

I don't normally watch TV, so it's gonna be an experience having to tune into something every week and waiting patiently for the next episode. I used to watch The Big Bang Theory, but I think the schedulers moved its time at some point, and then I had no idea when it was on, so subsequently missed it. Am waiting for the second series to come out on DVD, and will watch it all that way instead. The future is "TV On Demand", definitely. Not sure what that will mean with regards to TV writing, etc. It'll be a nightmare, no doubt.