action < reaction

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Caravaggio, probably my favourite ever painting.

I have a postcard of it pinned to the wall above my desk, partly because everyone needs decorative inspiration, and partly because I love what it says about storytelling.

The focus of the picture should be the throat-cutting. That's the most important thing going on at that precise moment. And yet whenever I look at it I can't help thinking the gout of blood doesn't look... right. Certainly not as good as Caravaggio's usual exemplary style. At times it looks almost cartoony, or tacked on as the end.

That's because the real focus is the reactions of the participants. Even if you know nothing of the legend of Holofernes (which I didn't, first time I saw this picture), you can see so much of the story just by the expressions of the three people. Without their reactions, this would just be a beautifully painted moment of violence.

What I always take away from this is: Action is important. It's the focus of the story. But more important is how the characters react to the action. Their emotional response is the heart of the story. It's what draws people in, and draws them back to look closer, again and again.

swearing at 11

You've all seen Glengarry Glen Ross, right? If not, don't worry, you probably already know that you're missing out on one of the best films of the last twenty years.

*counts*

Twenty-five years, sorry. Damn I'm old.

But anyway.

Glengarry Glen Ross, as well as being brilliant, is also full of swears. You likely already know that too. It's a film I'll never be able to show my dad, for example, because he'll spend the whole time tutting at the language.

Having said that, my absolute favourite bit is when Al Pacino breaks out the c-word.

You can probably guess I'm not a fan of the c-word, and 99.9% of the time I don't think it's warranted. However... when Pacino uses it here, you can tell he's saved it for a very special occasion. He spends the entire movie swearing at people, but keeps this one word in reserve for when he needs to turn things up to eleven. If there was a more liberal sprinkling of c-words throughout the movie, it would have diluted the effect, but here it raises eyebrows, despite the vast sweariness that preceded it.

The lesson, I guess, is that if everything is already at eleven, you've got nowhere to go when you need emphasis. Always keep something big in reserve for when you really need to hurl it at Kevin Spacey.

just quickly

A thought for a Friday:

If the universe can take away Lemmy, Bowie, and Alan Rickman in the space of a week, then all bets are off. We're none of us here for a long time. So that thing you've been meaning to do, the one you've been putting off doing? DO IT NOW. Get it started, get if finished, get it done. Your excuses are looking increasingly weak.

And don't forget to hug the people you care about. Also, hug your cats. They'll act like they don't appreciate it, maybe even with claws and biting, but trust me they'll secretly love you for it.

2015 - end of year writing stats

That's a boring heading, isn't it? Anyways, fresh from the Rakie-spreadsheet, some stats about my writing progress in 2015:

Total Word Count: 359,224
(Total for 2014: 295,670)

I'm happy with that. The main projects I worked on this year were:

Finishing The Extra (my Nano novel from November 2014 which I finally completed in March and have ignored since).
A small amount of work on YA superhero story Search & Destroy.
Rewriting and editing Fourth to the Devil (including dreaded synopsis and query letters).
Finally redrafting my YA time-travel, haunted house bonanza 2114, which was started for Nano 2013 and has now been renamed 2116 in honour of how unnecessarily long it's taken me to complete.
Notes on a supernatural crime story, White Death, that I really want to start work on.
Completed NaNoWriMo 2015 with Animal Bones, a rewrite of one of my earliest stories.
And the first draft of Floor 156, a dystopian thriller which I'm pretty sure no one will ever get to read, ever (some things are only written for our own funsies).

Oh, and the ebook of Home Ground came out. :)

One resolution for last year was to write every day, which I just about managed, although it was a close call on a few days and frequently I achieved only a few scribbled notes. Even so, I appear to have averaged approximately 980 words a day (allowing a margin for my shoddy maths), which is very respectable if true.

I also resolved that drawing counted as writing. This was to encourage me to devote more time to drawing, and I assigned an arbitrary word count to time spent (given a picture's worth a thousand words, and all that). I didn't finish anything major, aside from some wedding invites for my sister that turned out okay, but I'm happy that I spent a little more time than usual on a skill I've sadly neglected.

Soooo... projects for 2016...

First and last I need to finish the rebranded 2116. I'm at the horrible stage of editing where you read everything aloud and agonise for hours about word choice ("Do I mean bright or do I mean clear? Is spiderwebbing a real word? Is a culvert what I think it is?"). After that I need to redraft all the crap I wrote last year.

And then I have a stolen idea about dragons that I want to pursue...

In 2016 I will write. I will read. I will draw. I will blog. It's also likely I will drink too much wine and shout at cooking shows on TV. In my spare moments I might sleep. Also, Fallout 4.

Best wishes to you all for a shiny 2016. ("SHINY! That's the word I want!")