Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

Look, it's another post about Nate and his on-again off-again relationship with his Muse.

I've been trying to get a review written -- any review for a month now. I haven't written anything since I finished my review for Scars of Dracula in mid-July. This is especially problematic because Classic-Horror has almost nothing for September right now and I also have eight reviews due for our October review marathon.

I need a spur -- a film that fires up my intellectual interest in horror or, alternately, is a really easy target (the former tends to work better over the long-term).

There are three options -- I can review a film I hope will be very good that we haven't reviewed yet, I can re-review one of the 31 films that I own that need better reviews, or I can review something terrible (my last two reviews have been negative, though).

Hm.

I'm staying at Mom's this week, watching her dogs while she's in Long Beach, CA at a conference for medical librarians. The nice thing about this setup is that Mom's laptop is hooked up to the 'net, but it doesn't have all the frills and fringes that tend to keep me on for all hours of the day (like, say, Trillian).

I'm hoping to use this week to springboard some new habits that'll keep me off the computer and into the more productive real world. Writing, reading, playing with the dogs, going outside and enjoying the omggasp fresh air.

I won't say that I won't be posting as much, because every time I do say that, I end up posting more than usual. So, uh, whatever.

Nice extra bonus to all of this is Mom has a huge TV, so watching Farscape Season 3 should be pretty trippy.

I'm 6/7 days behind on my Nano.

Blargh.

Mom came by to drop some stuff off, saw how out of it I was looking, and asked me how I was.

I think I must have cried for half an hour.

( No need to clog the flists up )

In other news, is 25 dollars a day enough to eat on in San Diego?

I'm surprisingly active today. I washed the table on my deck, which had been covered in grime for what looks like months (possibly years) before I moved in. I took out the garbage. I've written several e-mails related to Classic-Horror. I edited and posted a review, and did some housekeeping around the long-neglected staff pages.

I say surprisingly active because I have not slept since 1 PM. Yesterday.

Why this sudden burst of energy? Why all this activity and bustle?

I'm prepping.

On Thursday, Mom came over. Ostensibly to give me my souvenirs from Washington D.C. (my very first shotglass! How sad that I'm using it as a drinking cup in my bathroom), but really to cut me a check for whatever I couldn't pay on my bills this month. She was pretty shocked to find I didn't need that much, but I live pretty simply.

But it was so uncomfortable for me. I know she's happy as hell to help me if I need it, but I don't want to have to need it. I'm 21 years old. I should only be accepting parental assistance at this stage if I'm in school, which - my one community college course this summer aside - I am not.

So, I decided to put it in gear. If I wait my entire life for inspiration, I'm never going to create anything. I wrote 8 pages of material the other day on a deadline. It was a good 8 pages. Could use a little polishing, but the basic ideas were there.

* I began working on Classic-Horror pretty consistently again.

* I cleaned off the table outside.

* I put in an Ebay bid for a really cheap 486, Windows 95 laptop with a mere 8 megs of RAM and semi-decent batteries.

* I made a deal with airawyn to complete my novel.

All of these things are going to get my back in gear, not as a Writer, but as somebody who writes. Classic-Horror is something I know how to do, I'm comfortable with the material, it puts me in a position of authority which gives me confidence. I cleaned off the table outside to give myself a sunny space to work with fresh air and a connection to the world.

And I bid on the laptop (which it looks like I'm going to *steal* for 20 bucks) because it gives me a comfortable place to work. When I'm on a computer, I zone out. The world around me kinda drops off, and it's just me and the screen. It's like a little haven of tunnel vision. On a cheapass laptop, all I have is an open copy of Notepad to focus on. And I can work anywhere. On my deck. On my writing desk. In bed. At the coffeehouse. Anytime it strikes me, I can boot up. And believe me, I don't need any real prodding to boot up a computer.

SONOFABITCH. Somebody leapt in at the very, very last second and stole it away from me. Goddamn. Fuckin' vultures...

Anyway. I will get a cheapass working laptop. If anybody has one in their closet, I'm taking donations. I'll cover shipping, but I can't kick in much beyond a 20 for the actual unit. Plus I can promise a mention in the acknowledgements of my soon-to-be bestselling speculative fiction novel. And maybe even a nod in the fabulous sequel. Which I haven't even begun to conceive, but it'll happen, because I'm a big whore.

So, yes. I'm starting the gears towards getting something cool accomplished. And suddenly, I'm reminded of a quote that I read yesterday in this interview - "I hate writing. I love having written."

So it's become for me these days, and I will perservere.

If I don't fall over from exhaustion first. :D

Yes, It's my Monday post... At a fucking ungrateful hour of the day, but you know you'll read it anyway if you're the type to read it anyway...

Please let me know if that made sense.

* Jobless
Still don't have a new temp position, but you know, as long as I score one within the week, I'll be fine financially speaking. I actually could even not have one until next Monday and still be okay. All things considered, however, I would prefer to have one sooner than later. It's a thing.

* Broken Lizard's Club Dread
It's a movie. It has Bill Paxton as a washed-out Jimmy Buffet could've-been who still gets miffed that people remember Margaritaville and not his own Pina Coladaberg, which was recorded seven years earlier. That's about the most clever joke in the whole film, honestly. Well, that and the unwilling voyeurism sequence, which actually produced audible laughter. In any case, it's a pretty bad movie. I described it to qkellie thusly - take the very worst players from the very worst years of SNL, and ask them to write a slasher movie. They'd probably come up with this.

The film also holds the distinction of containing one of the world's fakest British accents. You know the kind, the stiff upper lip, drawn-out vowels kind of English accent that abso-fucking-lutely nobody has. Sure, the character's a prig - doesn't mean he has to sound completely unbelievable.

* Writing
I've been not writerly lately. Angstily so. I keep trying to write, but I just don't have the drive... I can't put one word behind the next...

So I've decided (on good advice from airawyn) to take a break. Like a concentrated, "I'm not going to think about writing; I'm just going to work on other aspects of my life" break.

I'm a writer. It doesn't mean I have to be, you know, a Writer. That's not fair to me, to identify myself so closely with it. And frankly, it's way more pretentious than even I'd care to lay claim to.

So, yeah. Other than my Angelathon entry and journaling adventures of all varieties - I won't be writing for a while, until it comes back to me to do so.

* The Monster Legacy Collection
Farkin' rocks. Buy the whole thing. It's a bargain, yo. I watched the entire Frankenstein series consecutively. It was of the good. Also, I love the polystone busts that came with. I could, however, do without the featurettes where Stephen Sommers explains how he raped the old movies to make Van Helsing.

* Icons
I, uh, made some new ones, and decided to stop with the crop jobs and just have Photoshopped icons again. I could become pretty good at it someday, maybe. Or I could just make dopey little ones. There will be a seperate icon post in _callmelanky_ about what's sharable and what's not.