Who let Jack out of the freezer?

(You know how I feel about spoilers. There may be spoilers in this post. Fairly warned be thee, says I.)

My favourite thing about The Shining (and it's something I was unaware of until it was pointed out a few years ago by my dad) is this: Everything that happens in the movie can be explained in non-supernatural, rational terms, such as hallucinations and general craziness on the part of Jack and, to a lesser extent, Wendy... except for one thing.

When Wendy locks Jack in the walk-in refrigerator and goes to get help, the ghost of the former caretaker lets him out.

It's not the most obvious of moments. The movie never makes a big deal of it. But it remains the only physically impossible action in the story. And I love that Kubrick never felt he needed to make a big deal of it--by the simple inclusion of that one impossible thing, he opens up the possibility that everything in the story is real, and it's not just an isolation-induced madness hallucination.

Watching Pan's Labyrinth for the second time (I'm rarely smart enough to spot these things on the first watch-through), I was delighted to notice that Del Toro had included a similarly impossible moment: The little girl is locked in her room, and draws a chalk doorway to escape. It's different enough that I wondered whether it was a deliberate nod to Kubrick, but the effect is the same--a single impossible act that allows the possibility that everything we've seen is real.

And then, last night we watched The Devil's Backbone, which I haven't seen for years but which is still a wonderful scary little movie. (The CGI looks a little creaky in places, but that's not fatal in this case because Del Toro has always been smart enough to use CGI to enhance a movie rather than structuring a movie around the effects.) (I haven't seen Pacific Rim yet, by the by.) And there it was, right towards the end of the film--the children are locked in a room, and a ghost unlocks the door for them.

It's a little fan-girl moment that's going to keep me happy all day. :)

Displacement Activities

Bored with this story. Fed up of trying to make today's word count. Getting distracted by any and all shiny objects within my eye-line.

So there's nothing for it, I'm going to have to kill off a character in a horrible manner then use his mutilated corpse to inflict havoc on his former companions.

It's probably not the healthiest activity, mentally speaking, but the way today's going it's either that or start flicking elastic bands at random members of the public.

Too, too much

Very interesting article here about the origins of literary revision and how it has altered over the years:

Revising Your Writing

I've never been great at revising and editing. I'm much more a fan of plunging forward with enthusiasm and a vain hope that somehow the work I produce will magically turn out to be brilliant. Over the years though I've started enjoying editing. Taking a big enthusiastic mess and turning it into something I'm happy with (or at least something I don't actively want to set fire to) is a lot more fun than it used to be.

Writing always feels like drawing to me. You start with a sketch, you add lines and shading, you rub out what doesn't work, you add second and third layers and paint over the bits you hate. The finished result rarely resembles exactly what you pictured in your mind. And the big problems you notice straight away in the finished item (bad perspective, misshapen faces, upside down feet) are usually not caused by the last coat of paint, but by a problem deep down in the sketching.

I've come to like editing, especially the stage you reach where you're no longer looking at the sculpture with your eyes but running your figures across its surface and feeling where the lumpy, awkward bits are. You smooth out some places; add texture to others. But at heart it's still the same piece of work you started out with... even if you lose patience, smoosh the clay back down to a single lump, and build something entirely new out of it.

Like most of my metaphors, I'm sure this one will fall apart if I poked at it too long, so I'll leave it at that.

Now is never a good time

The second Camp NaNoWriMo of the year starts today over at www.campnanowrimo.org and, as usual, I'm am both greatly excited to be in a Nano month again and also hugely unprepared for whatever writing project I'm supposed to be undertaking. I like that they've adopted the term "Pantser" to describe those of us who write by the seat of our pants, because that's always been my approach to writing (and to everything else in life, for that matter). I'd love to plan, but who has the time?

Come to that, who has time to write?

I've voiced this opinion before, but no one really has time to do anything. We're all very busy. There's always a very, very good reason not to write, or at least to put it off to tomorrow. For myself, I don't feel like writing at all today - I've just heard some bad news about an old friend, and the last thing I want to do is sit down and write the stupid story I'm supposed to be working on. I would happily put it off till tomorrow or the next day or... how about never? Is never good for you?

Which is one of the reasons I'm writing this blog post, to at least get my fingers moving and get a few words on screen (also, for the purposes of this month's Nano, I'm working on three different projects so have decided that anything I write goes towards my word count, including blog posts), in the hope I might trick my brain into wanting to continue.

So I'll have a cup of coffee and I'll write a procrastinating paragraph and then I'll open that stupid Word document and figure out where the story is going next.

And that's as much of a plan as a proud Pantser like me can cope with.

(320 words! Off I go!)