This weekend is probably the last quiet summer house sitting weekend of the summer. House sitting all summer has been like a long writer's retreat. I get to be alone with my thoughts, hammer out plot points out loud and
Mystery Theatre 3000 my way through films both good and bad.
Writing has been the focus of my time here, and I've gotten a lot done. Some of Broadcast 7 has already been scrapped, but that happens when you're writing off the map. There's always waste in experimentation. Most of what I've written is being kept, so it's going well. My white board tells me that I have one chapter to draft this weekend, so I'll be finishing that and then having a "Part Three Marathon" where I watch the final parts of trilogies.
On the list so far I have Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (I liked part 4, but I see it as a glorious addendum, and the word quadrilogy isn't in my vocabulary), Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Matrix Revolutions, Return of the Jedi, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and maybe something else if there's time. Why these films? Well, they're on hand, I saw each of them in the theatre, and they're different kinds of adventure films that sum up their stories pretty well.
When I was in the middle of Broadcast 6 I did the same thing, only with middle movies, or part twos of trilogies, and a funny thing happened. I realized that nothing I saw reminded me of what I was writing, but it gave my brain a nice long break. That break led to the Wheeler appearance, and for those of you who have read Broadcast 6, you know how important that was. Sadly, watching middle movies didn't accomplish what I was hoping for: a kind of calibration or certainty in how I wanted to handle the ending. My editor had to step in and work with me on that, and things worked out fairly well as far as I'm concerned.
I'd like to say that I'm looking for some kind of calibration while watching the endings of all these trilogies, but that's just not the case. While writing Broadcast 7 I have such a distinct feeling of being way off the map, creating something I've never seen anywhere else on a big scale. I'm thinking that watching these films will most likely just be a brain break, and I'll probably be pretty fresh on Tuesday. The chapter my white board says I'll be writing then could be pretty entertaining, and I'm looking forward to digging in!
I hope everyone has a great weekend, and takes some time to relax!
RL
[Anyone care to name their favourite trilogy?]
We catch up wish Sylvie, Stephanie and Randy as they recover from the various ailments that kept us away from our microphones for so long. We start by talking about what we plugged in to while we were immobilised, and move on to some big news in Geekdom that we missed such as…
