This is a bit random...

Two of my friends and former roommates at Rice University are out there making their way in the entertainment industry, and I just want to do my little part in getting their names out there. I can't remember if I've done this before, and I'm too lazy to check through all of my old posts. Anyway, I have new things to link to, so who cares if I did it before. Besides, it's easier than talking about myself...

The first is my man Mike Macrae. Now, if you're like me, you love a good standup comedy act. And that's exactly what Mike Macrae will give you. He has his own website, but it seems like he hangs out more on his myspace page. And what did I just discover today when I randomly surfed over there? He was on Letterman, and has a clip of the video there! It's really good stuff, you should check it out. I haven't spoken to him in years, but I know he's a good dude, and a truly gifted comedian. His impressions in particular, as you'll see, are awesome. Check out his tour dates on his myspace page and see if he'll be performing near you in the future!

I'm going to try to embed the video:



Then there's Elbert Traister. One of the greatest guys I know, and an aspiring actor in out in Hollyweird... he's got a myspace page, too, which I just discovered, and it's got links to several trailers of upcoming independent movies that he's in, and some of them appear to be pretty big roles. The two trailers I saw, Vengeance and Fists of Righteous Harmony, both seem to be action flicks; the trailers contain some violence/gore and maybe a curse word here or there, so be warned, if you don't want to see that. However, that being said, give 'em a look! I have no idea what these movies will be like, but I can honestly say that my interest is definitely piqued. Put that together with the fact that Elbert's in them, and I definitely want to watch!

I know the acting business is a tough business, and it's hard to get anywhere in it... but if anyone can do it, it's Elbert. So just keep your eye out for him in the future, is all I'm saying. And if you have the opportunity, throw him your support - he's definitely a guy who deserves it.

So yeah, I'm totally feeling semi-important because I know these guys. I know it's dumb, but I can't help it. But I'm also just really proud of them, that they're out there chasing these dreams. And that's not to say I'm not proud of all of the awesome people I know who are doing all kinds of amazing things with their lives - and believe me, there are many of them. I've had the good fortune to meet a lot of amazing folks through the years... but I guess there's something unique about being able to say, "that guy who was on TV - I knew him before all of that!"

In other news. My fiancée recently got me onto Facebook, since many of her school friends were on it and convinced her to join. And of course she needed me on there, so she could list that she was engaged to me... So anyway, in spite of myself, I'm finding that I'm really liking the site so far! And I actually found a few of my friends on it already, imagine that! It seems like a decent way to keep in touch with people who you don't talk to often - and there's ways to play around with those friends you do keep up with, too. SO, if you're someone I know, and you're on Facebook, find me and friend me! And if you're not on it - go sign up so I can increase my network. I'm only half kidding... (Do it!)

The fact that both Elbert and Mike (yeah, I'm back to those guys) have myspace pages is actually making me consider whether I should sign up for that thing too; but myspace just seems too chaotic. I guess I'll think about it, but I don't think I'll go jumping right away into signing up for yet another site. There's only so much I can keep up with, and I do a pretty lousy job already with what I have, most of the time. Still, there's something enticing about being on one of those sites and saying "yes, I'm this person's friend". I dunno. Maybe I'm just weird...

Oh, and I finally reserved Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at the nearby Barnes and Noble. They'll be open at midnight; I wonder if I'll go then or if I'll just go in the morning? I have no idea what to expect, I've never waited for a book to be released before...

Do my real life friends know about the Harry Potter side of my life? I guess most of them do by now, although I wonder if they understand just how much of an impact it's been. I don't really talk about it all that much, but it sort of has to come up eventually, particularly insofar as how the heck I met g_smarmy in the first place! Ah, Harry Potter, my life would be a lot less excellent if not for you.

Somewhat related to that - I've written two essays, pulled mostly from my own experience as a fan and in the online fandom for Harry Potter. They're both hosted at the Leaky Cauldron. The first was for the first issue of Scribbulus - and you can find it here. (That's the low-bandwidth version of the site; the main site does evil things to my computer. They need to improve that...) The other was for the Harry Potter Seven project, which was originally supposed to be a chapter of a book that would be sold to raise money for Book Aid International, but... eh, something happened. I was disappointed, but they still made it into this snazzy looking collection attached the main Leaky Cauldron site. And they set it up with a donation button, but I have no idea how successful that ended up being. I just wished I could have had one of those books to hold in my hand, and put on my shelf, and know that yes, something I wrote got published in a book! Anyway, here's a link to it (I couldn't figure out if there was a low-bandwidth version of this). I'm fairly proud of these, but fair warning: if you're not involved in the Harry Potter fandom, you might not really appreciate them too much. I'm not discouraging you from reading them, per se, just giving you fair warning (and covering my backside, in case you hate them!). Of course, I don't think there are many people reading this journal besides those who might have me on their LJ friends list, and nearly all of those are HP people anyway.

What a rambling, crazy, entry. Should I put it under a cut? Ehh... too lazy.

Peace.

'Allo Slothwatchers!

BIG TIME CONGRATULATIONS to thessalymarley and atschpe for winning NaNoWriMo (and Witherwings from the Leaky Lounge as well)! If you know any of them, they deserve your absolute praise for what they accomplished!

As for me, I guess despite my attempts to convince myself and others, I never succeeded in really getting myself fully devoted to NaNo this year. Oh well, I'm not too broken up over it, although I would have liked to make a bit more progress on my latest project. But that's OK, I continue to plug away, and it will get there in the end! And perhaps I will try my hand at another NaNoWriMo sometime in the future.

I watched Chungking Express a little while back, perhaps a week ago or more. It's a great film out of Hong Kong by Wong Kar-Wai. It's basically two stories connected in a very small way (but perhaps sharing more thematically). I tend to have trouble explaining why I like movies without giving away lots of plot - not that the plot necessarily is so secret in this movie, but I generally just don't like to give summaries. There's just - a lot of life in this flick, I guess would be my take on it. It made me happy, and also made me a bit sad or wistful - but it's good to watch a movie that encourages one to feel something, but doesn't beat you over the head with it either. Perhaps its the method that Wong Kar-Wai uses to make his films - as far as I know, he never works from complete scripts, instead writing them as he goes along - so there seems to be this sense of "I don't really know where this is going" to the stories. Which can be very refreshing. Anyway, just thought I'd give my little rave about the movie! Check it out if it sounds interesting.

All right, that's enough for today. Happy December!

Peace.

( Some Yankees Ramblings )

I watched The Royal Tenenbaums last night... I really like that flick. Wes Anderson has a style that really appeals to me... I love the quirkiness of his characters, the little worlds he creates for his films. And his use of music in his movies is outstanding. Anyway, I blabbed so much about baseball, I'm not going to write up a big movie review... just needed to rave for a line or two.

Shame on me for not knowing about this Spider-man 3 trailer until sue_tlc posted an entry with the link. I hate waiting! I wanna see Spidey 3 right now! Grrr... As always, it's hard to tell much from these things, but I think it's an interesting twist that they've apparently made Flint Marko (aka Sandman) the criminal who killed Ben Parker. That should certainly make things a lot more personal for poor Pete. And SWEETNESS! Harry's goin' Goblin on us, baby... that's my boy... the Goblin lives on!

So NaNoWriMo, I've changed course (which is actually what I've been planning since probably day five, but I've finally implemented it): I'm using the month to finish an old, half-completed draft I started over a year ago. So this makes word counts kind of irrelevant - I'm not going to win NaNo this year, and I don't mind in the least. But I am still trying to stay in the spirit of the month, and just bang out a rough draft without worrying too much about editing as I go. And I still have a very concrete goal to shoot for, which seems to help me. So I'm in the middle of Chapter Five, of Eight. That's more or less how I'll be tracking this thing as I go forward.

Oh, and I liked this Quiz - "Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?" ( Another cut to hide the Blogthing )

Peace.

Thanks to kimmyblair I have something simple and dumb to start this post with:


How White and Nerdy Are You?

Yeah!

So yeah, NaNo is not going well... or just, not going. I've been chatting with thessalymarley and g_smarmy about it; I think I made a mistake choosing the story I did at this time (and really, as evidenced by earlier posts, I hardly thought about the choice at all, which was a bit careless). Yes, I realize this is an excuse, but it still makes a lot of sense to me... I'm not sure what I'm going to do, my heart's not in it because this story is supposed to be a fantasy, and I didn't do any of the character-building and world-building I should have done beforehand. Last year I was able to kind of wing it, because the setting was so easy, I knew the two main characters well, and I knew where the story needed to go. Here I only know the characters, really (and only two of many), and some vague idea about the context but nothing about this land I'm making up, the people there, the conflict, etc. I'm glad I've written what I did already; whether I have a total change of heart and try to dive back into this now, or save the story for later when I've had more time to plan, having this prologue written is invaluable as a resource for me, whether it (or something like it) stays in the eventual story or not; it's good background material for me.

So anyway, the point is, I don't have the motivation I did last time to just plow ahead without much idea of the early plot; here, in every other sentence, I'm running into something I need to make a decision on, and I'm just not ready to commit to those things yet for this story. *sigh* I'm not prepared to let NaNoWriMo go to waste this month for me, but it's probably too late to do it the way it's supposed to be done. I'm thinking about alternative challenges for myself that can keep me in the spirit of it and still get something nice accomplished. And in the meantime I may be pretty wrapped up in other things for the next few days, so this might get pushed off further...

So I dunno. It stinks that it's not working out the same this year as last, but whatever. There's still a lot of month left... and I am charged up about writing again, which is nice. So if I can turn that energy into some productive writing time, then that's great, and I won't feel bad if I fall short of the NaNo challenge this time.

Oh, and I voted today. It felt good!

Peace.

Just a real quick check-in... mainly so I can post with a non-zero word count. I had two solid days of writing, after not writing at all the first day. So I've got the deficit from that day to overcome, but since then I've kept pace just fine. It's coming a little slowly right now, although today's was a bit better. I wrote something like a prologue, which might never actually prove necessary to the story in the long run. And if it does, it will need major work. But I think it's helpful that I wrote it, anyway, as it kind of sets the story in motion and can serve as a reference point for me. Also, it assures me that I'm just embracing every fantasy cliche possible, so I might as well not worry about that when I see it happening, and just do my best to keep going anyway (and if I'm lucky put a slight new spin on things).

I'm drinking broth, and for some reason it's totally hitting the spot right now. I wanted to eat something, but it's late, and besides, I know I'm not really that hungry. Still, my taste buds wanted something food-like, something salty. So this seems to be doing the trick! It's good broth, too, from this vegetable base that is like a paste in a jar that you need to keep refigerated. Much better than those packets or cubes of bouillon - this has a lot better flavor, and seems somehow more natural.

Finally, a quiz I grabbed from kelazma.

( My American accent, apparently: )

Peace.

Well, the zero in my post title might be somewhat disheartening, but the fact that I listed the word count at all should tell you something. I'm going to give it my best effort, within reason. Hopefully I'll try to write some tonight. I think I've got my story idea. Now I feel like I'm wasting precious words on something other than my novel... hehe...

In other news... hmm, I have nothing else to say, really. I might start putting up locked entries. I know I've threatened this before and never really followed through, and this might be the same old story. We'll see. If I do, I'll still probably try to post publicly from time to time. But I'm just sayin'... if you're reading this journal and you don't have an LJ account, it's possible you'll be missing things. It's also possible that you won't. Who can say? Maybe I'm just trying to get people onto LJ...

Enough of that. That's it. Short post. Laters!



Peace.

Erm... it's like an hour away from the beginning of NaNoWriMo. And I still haven't really made a commitment to do it. But I haven't decided not to do it either. I would have been panicking at this point last year, but I'm really calm about it right now. I think I'm going to do it... but I'm still not sure. I have no idea what I want to write about. That seems bad, but it's not a huge problem yet. If I wake up tomorrow and decide that I'm going to do it, then I'll give it my best effort. But if the rest of my life gets too full, and makes it too costly to devote my time to NaNo, then I won't be afraid to ditch it and I won't feel like a failure. But I'll try not to let that happen; as I mentioned before, if I approach it right, it shouldn't take an inordinate amount of time. I can find plenty of ways I waste time right now that I can replace with NaNo-ing. So it would have to be some significant thing demanding my attention to make me give up the NaNo attempt. Otherwise, it's just a cop out, if I say I don't have time for it.

I was re-reading my NaNovel from last year... it's weird, I feel like I shouldn't like it, but I really do. I mean, of course there are mistakes and problems - it was a rough draft written at a pace that didn't allow time for fixing things or thinking everything through. But the important elements of the story... they really grab me. I don't know, I'm not saying this means anything at all, there's no way I can be objective about my own writing. But I would have expected that I'd hate it afterwards, and I don't. So at least I can be happy that I wrote the story I wanted to write, (at least the rough draft of it) - whether anyone else thinks it's good, I did what I set out to do. That's pretty slick, really. I think I need to let people read it... I wanted to fix a million things before I did, but I think it's going to be a while before I have a polished draft of it. We'll see... I'm still very wary of sharing my work with people.

So maybe I'll have another post soon to give my final decision on the NaNo thing. Of course, if I go silent again, you can assume I decided not to after all. But I think I will... I think I will... (I blame thessalymarley by the way, if I do... hehe...)

Before I go, I'll put the answer to my music meme (remember that?) behind a cut, and also another random meme I did a long time ago and saved. ( Check check it out. )

Peace.

I'll have to decide pretty soon if I'm going to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) again. It was a great experience last year, and it helped me to get a lot of good writing done. It certainly livened up my livejournal for a good month or so, too... Well, I'll have to think about it a little bit. As far as time commitment, it's really not as bad as it sounds if I do it right. That's a big if, obviously. But throwing out all of the planning and plotting, worrying and stalling, the actual writing per day only comes to about an hour and a half. That gets me to 50,000 words at the end of November.

Anyway, if I'm going to do it, I need to do a few things before November 1:

( The Things )

So, we'll see how this goes, but like I said, I just need to think about this a little bit and see how I'm feeling, and if I can settle on a story to write.

In a somewhat related note, I found a link to this today in one of the threads on the Leaky Lounge. If you're a fan of fantasy stories, you'll probably enjoy this "guide": How to Write a Best-selling Fantasy Novel. It contains helpful hints such as "Anyone who lives in a hut is simple and good."

And yeah, I know I posted twice today and zero times in about the past three forevers. I guess today is just a weird day.

Peace.