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Not Unhappy
May. 22nd, 2007 01:01 pmFinally got my period, which is good (for various reasons...we'd been making little, uh, stabs at getting pregnant again, but if the writing program is actually going through, now may really not be the time). What's not so great is the way it's making me feel, which is exhausted all the time, and creatively blah. Since I have lots of pending deadlines, this latter is particularly problematic; I guess we'll have to see.
Other stuff:
A) Saw 28 Weeks Later on Friday. It's a gorgeous-looking piece, obviously done on film, very Ballardian is its glass-and-concrete emptiness, and I found the emotional stakes both more compelling and distinctly more frightening. Steve thought the main characters should have stopped and talked about their motivation more often, as per 28 Days Later. I pointed out that doing this would be A) impractical and B) illogical, given they had to somehow get out of inner London on foot before they were either infected by Infected or char-broiled by the U.S. Army's impending Dresden-level firestorm. He said "nyah". (The thing I found most glitch-y, personally, was Robert Carlyle becoming the single longest-lived and most strategic-thinking Infected person evar--but OTOH, he IS Robert Carlyle. So there ya go.)
B) Got my new glasses from the Bay. So far, so considerably better on my eyestrain issues, though they seem accumulate gunk twice as fast as my old ones, and I think I need to get them readjusted so that they won't fly off my face while I'm doing BodyCombat, or what have you.
C) Went to the Reading of Single Pages on Saturday, which was fun, though mainly in a catching-up-with-everybody-type way. No Hope. Charles turned up briefly, read, left. I'm just as happy.
D) PMS kept me up all Sunday night, thus throwing my inner clock off severely; I'm hoping I can do something about readjusting that, and soon. Otherwise, it continues to amuse me that my main thought about Victoria Day Monday was: "Shit, no gym!" Then again, it ain't like I even work on Mondays, so the whole "holiday" thing is fairly moot.
E) I'm interested to note that Denis McGrath's contemptuously dismissive frontal assault on the concept of fanfic is getting much the level of attention is "deserves". Perhaps this is because of Cory Doctorow coming out in favor of fanfic (and some moron I've never heard of attacking him for it, but lay that by) or not. One way or the other, it certainly clarifies my own stance, which goes thusly:
a) Yes, obviously working professionally from somebody else's blueprints is not "getting paid to write fanfic", as some people have been automatically snapping at McGrath. It's the basic model of all TV writing. Fanfic is what you do as a hobby, and don't charge people for; profic tie-ins you sell to the people who are authorized to sell them back to the fans, and they do, and everybody's happy. Or they aren't. But yeah, Denis, you're right: Fanfic and professional writing are not, intrinsically, the same thing.
b) Nevertheless, as Cory points out, the one can often lead to the other, or even shore up the other by allowing a professional to play outside his or her comfort zones, anonymously, before bringing the result back into their own stuff (and benefiting from it). The idea of saying outright that all fanfic sucks and all fanfic writers are awful simply BY DEFINITION is therefore, to be blunt, inaccurate--and also fuckin' rude.
c) As a pro writer, you're neither better nor worse than a lot of these people because you chose the path you did, and flourished at it; they're neither better nor worse than you because they didn't, especially since (ha ha) they may still choose the same path, and flourish at it as well. Or even outstrip you. Fans make that transition all the time: Marni Noxon, Sera Gamble, Joss Whedon, Brannon Braga, etc. It ain't no big thing. And when even your own Blood Ties source material hub![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andpuff seems to think you're wrong, then D.? Maybe, just maybe, you are.
d) And before you jump in: Yes, I've railed hard against nut-core fan entitlement myself, more than once--the people who think they could write Heroes better than Tim Kring, the people who think Star Wars should be "taken away" from George Lucas for "its own good", the people who think Doris Egan steals ideas from their brains while writing House episodes. I'm actually right there with you, Denis, but again, that's more about politeness than intellectual copyright. Because these people work hard, and they're not all Comic Book Guy, either. But even if they were, you still gotta act like your Momma taught you.
e) Ride that puppy too hard, say "fuck ya!" to the people who want to dress up as your characters or fight to bring your show back from the dead too many times in a row, and you don't GET to be the next Star Trek. You don't GET your Jericho wrap-up TVM. You, yourself, reduce serialized television storytelling back to the pre-HBO model, forever a mere non-interactive commodity. How does that help the thing itself to live, breathe and--hopefully--endure long past its' creators' lifetimes? Become part of the fannish lingua franca?
f) Why WOULDN'T you want that to happen, for Christ's sake? Are they genuinely paying you THAT much?;)
So yeah, that's the State of the Me. Oh, and I saw the Heroes finale, and I really liked it. I have no complaints. Obviously, my critical faculties have atrophied. Or maybe I accept that it's their barbecue, and I'm just happy it keeps on tasting good.;))
Other stuff:
A) Saw 28 Weeks Later on Friday. It's a gorgeous-looking piece, obviously done on film, very Ballardian is its glass-and-concrete emptiness, and I found the emotional stakes both more compelling and distinctly more frightening. Steve thought the main characters should have stopped and talked about their motivation more often, as per 28 Days Later. I pointed out that doing this would be A) impractical and B) illogical, given they had to somehow get out of inner London on foot before they were either infected by Infected or char-broiled by the U.S. Army's impending Dresden-level firestorm. He said "nyah". (The thing I found most glitch-y, personally, was Robert Carlyle becoming the single longest-lived and most strategic-thinking Infected person evar--but OTOH, he IS Robert Carlyle. So there ya go.)
B) Got my new glasses from the Bay. So far, so considerably better on my eyestrain issues, though they seem accumulate gunk twice as fast as my old ones, and I think I need to get them readjusted so that they won't fly off my face while I'm doing BodyCombat, or what have you.
C) Went to the Reading of Single Pages on Saturday, which was fun, though mainly in a catching-up-with-everybody-type way. No Hope. Charles turned up briefly, read, left. I'm just as happy.
D) PMS kept me up all Sunday night, thus throwing my inner clock off severely; I'm hoping I can do something about readjusting that, and soon. Otherwise, it continues to amuse me that my main thought about Victoria Day Monday was: "Shit, no gym!" Then again, it ain't like I even work on Mondays, so the whole "holiday" thing is fairly moot.
E) I'm interested to note that Denis McGrath's contemptuously dismissive frontal assault on the concept of fanfic is getting much the level of attention is "deserves". Perhaps this is because of Cory Doctorow coming out in favor of fanfic (and some moron I've never heard of attacking him for it, but lay that by) or not. One way or the other, it certainly clarifies my own stance, which goes thusly:
a) Yes, obviously working professionally from somebody else's blueprints is not "getting paid to write fanfic", as some people have been automatically snapping at McGrath. It's the basic model of all TV writing. Fanfic is what you do as a hobby, and don't charge people for; profic tie-ins you sell to the people who are authorized to sell them back to the fans, and they do, and everybody's happy. Or they aren't. But yeah, Denis, you're right: Fanfic and professional writing are not, intrinsically, the same thing.
b) Nevertheless, as Cory points out, the one can often lead to the other, or even shore up the other by allowing a professional to play outside his or her comfort zones, anonymously, before bringing the result back into their own stuff (and benefiting from it). The idea of saying outright that all fanfic sucks and all fanfic writers are awful simply BY DEFINITION is therefore, to be blunt, inaccurate--and also fuckin' rude.
c) As a pro writer, you're neither better nor worse than a lot of these people because you chose the path you did, and flourished at it; they're neither better nor worse than you because they didn't, especially since (ha ha) they may still choose the same path, and flourish at it as well. Or even outstrip you. Fans make that transition all the time: Marni Noxon, Sera Gamble, Joss Whedon, Brannon Braga, etc. It ain't no big thing. And when even your own Blood Ties source material hub
andpuff seems to think you're wrong, then D.? Maybe, just maybe, you are.d) And before you jump in: Yes, I've railed hard against nut-core fan entitlement myself, more than once--the people who think they could write Heroes better than Tim Kring, the people who think Star Wars should be "taken away" from George Lucas for "its own good", the people who think Doris Egan steals ideas from their brains while writing House episodes. I'm actually right there with you, Denis, but again, that's more about politeness than intellectual copyright. Because these people work hard, and they're not all Comic Book Guy, either. But even if they were, you still gotta act like your Momma taught you.
e) Ride that puppy too hard, say "fuck ya!" to the people who want to dress up as your characters or fight to bring your show back from the dead too many times in a row, and you don't GET to be the next Star Trek. You don't GET your Jericho wrap-up TVM. You, yourself, reduce serialized television storytelling back to the pre-HBO model, forever a mere non-interactive commodity. How does that help the thing itself to live, breathe and--hopefully--endure long past its' creators' lifetimes? Become part of the fannish lingua franca?
f) Why WOULDN'T you want that to happen, for Christ's sake? Are they genuinely paying you THAT much?;)
So yeah, that's the State of the Me. Oh, and I saw the Heroes finale, and I really liked it. I have no complaints. Obviously, my critical faculties have atrophied. Or maybe I accept that it's their barbecue, and I'm just happy it keeps on tasting good.;))
