(no subject)
HELLO LJ. I miss this old ghost town. I only exist in twitter updates and tumblr reblogs these days. Completely forgetting how to write at length about normal daily stuff.
I had a lovely ~10 months of brainless peace after I dropped that horrid OU module, but I've started a new one now and it's draining all my energy but sort of in a good way? The other one was language study through numbers and corpus analysis, which I get is valuable but good god it is BORING and not what I want to do. I'm only slogging through this thing at all for masochistic fun, it's not any kind of career switch attempt or whatever, so I just can't make myself concentrate on something I don't find engaging. The new one is much more tightly focused on grammar and how different choices have different subtle impact differences in writing, which is basically porn to me. It's tough, but good. ONE MORE module after this but I don't know what yet. I'll have fulfilled all my language and literature requirements after this year, so the last 60 points can be anything from any level and any subject. I could wimp out and do a basic level one module if I want and breeze through the year, but I'll probably make things hard on myself and do the level three Shakespeare just because dead poet boyfriend needs more of my love. I've been abandoning him a bit lately, haven't been to the theatre in forever because Cineworld is five minutes from my house and they keep screening the good RSC/NT stuff. It's great to be able to see it all, but not the same as actually being there. No excuses, I'm gonna start going more. There are plenty of decent amateur companies in Derby, I just get weird pain pangs being in those theatres again on the wrong side of the footlights.
The Fassbender/Cotillard Macbeth really fucked me up??? I still feel uneasy about it weeks after I saw it. It's the same sort of thing as Dancer in the Dark, this gorgeous perfectly crafted diamond of a film that I never ever want to see again for the rest of my life. I don't even know why it bothered me so much. Partly because of the hideous execution scene, I just can't handle seeing execution of any kind, but more generally just the tone and intensity of the whole thing unsettled me really badly in a way no film's done in years. So, success? It was a really spectacular adaptation. I'm not sorry I watched it, it's a masterpiece. But once was enough. I'm dying to see the Young Vic's production though, love of my life Anna Maxwell Martin as Lady M <3 Need to look into getting tickets for that before it sells out.
Still reeling a bit over seeing Gypsy at the Savoy last month, Imelda Staunton is just the best there's ever been. Trying to rave about great theatre performances is impossible, there aren't words big enough to properly convey what it's like to be crying like an idiot one moment then plastered against the back wall the next from this enormous magnificent noise coming out of someone's face. She's so tiny! How can she make sounds like that?! When I've seen it before it's been played mostly for the laughs, but this one was balanced better and so much more affecting than I expected. So so good. The BBC were filming it the night we were there and I read it's going to be on tv around Christmas sometime, I'm excited to see it again.
Real life Disney prince Roberto Bolle continues to ruin my life with his stupid instagram and stupid emojos and stupid cute over-earnest hashtags. Make him stop. (Don't.) He's doing my all time favourite Manon again this month with Svetlana Zakharova and keeps posting photos from it, and it is killingggggg me that nobody's invented a way for me to get from Staffs to Milan for free yet. They're magical together. UGLY SOBBING. (See also: their Swan Lake.)
I've got about fifteen writing WIPs on the go at once and it's breaking my brain a bit. Need to pick just one and focus on finishing, but my head is exploding with everything at once so I don't dare ignore it in case the urge to write vanishes again. I get really awful writer's block for months at a time, so while I'm on a roll it's drop everything and write and then I can figure out editing it all into something readable later. LB/PV prequels are on hold just because it's been that long since I wrote them I've sort of forgotten how. I started writing a ton more short stories to get back into the characters, but I probably need to read the trilogy and properly get in touch with them again. It's really strange when it's been so long that you can read something and feel like someone else wrote it. JS/AW sequel is trundling along slowly and I love it so much even though only five people will read it. It's the most self-indulgent trash in the world, I don't want to write anything except them. They're a little bit older, and there's exciting new developments like moustaches and cinema. J's reading Wells for the first time and losing his shit. There's this scene I keep coming back and adding to because it's my favourite thing, so maybe it won't end up with a real story at all, maybe it'll just be 60K words of cuddling on the window seat looking at the moon over the sea and talking about Wells and Verne and rockets and Méliès. Also in progress: sci fi hair porn (this is a genre that should be larger than just me) and an alternate history thing about banned films.
Kingsman fandom is still eating my life. I've been trying to explain to someone why it's hooked me so hard, but ?????? Beyond the obvious (handsome older guy who likes manners and guns rescues cute blond gobby London kid from a rotten home and sparks fly - why does that sound familiar?), I have no idea. Or I do, but it sounds dumb and like it shouldn't matter as much as it does: brilliant engaging characters entwined with BEAUTIFUL FIGHTING. It's like a modern version of those wonderful old sword fight films I loved so much as a kid, like my Robin Hood obsession turned up to 11 and dressed in pinstripes and glasses. Anything featuring fight scenes played with such glorious panache is going to do it for me, but this is just next level id-stroking so that's what I'm running with in fic: more taxidermy, silly pantomime villains, giving Harry a sword to fight with because why the fuck not, nonagenarians being competent badasses, spies taking snowball fights really seriously, and sooooooooooo much kissing. And hair stroking. And enthusiastically welcomed bruises. This is all I want to read and write for the rest of my life, I had no idea this film would be such a perfect canvas for it. Flame Keepers is my ongoing epic series of self-indulgence, if you want to read banter and fights and slow burn and Roxy bromance and bottom Harry (sideways smirk emoji, fifteen repeats of fire emoji).
I got to nosy inside the Roald Dahl archives the other week. Life highlight. I've been to the museum before, but actually getting to talk to the archivist and see his manuscripts and letters was just something else. She was wonderful, so nice to see real fans doing work like that, treating it as the privilege it is and not just any old job. Could have spoken to her forever. It was such a revelation being a massive fan as a child as everyone was, then finding out as a teenager there was this whole massive undiscovered world of Dahl the adult author. He's responsible for the best oeuvre of short stories I've ever read, I wish they were better known. Some really messed up creepy Hitchcock type thrillers, ugly relationship dramas, the most brilliant dark comedy, hideous people getting payback, and Over to You has some of the most affecting and weirdly beautiful war stories ever written. Second hand on Amazon and ebay for pennies - please get it and I will personally refund your money if you don't like it. You will. It all just got me thinking about influences and stuff, how important he and Robert Louis Stevenson and Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone were to the way I grew up. Not necessarily as direct influences, like I never had any particular ambitions to be an author or sailor or get into fencing or whatever. Just this all-consuming love for stories, massive adventure stories and little intimate human stories, and how much better both those things are when they're woven together with real love and care into something perfect. I'm so lucky to have had people like my grandad around when I was really tiny, pouring stories into me about adventure and the sea and space and fantastic worlds and fighting for good, instead of having no choice but pink plastic Barbie cars and cartoon princesses. It all sounds a bit cheese, it doesn't feel like that. It feels huge. Anyway ramble ramble looks like I've remembered how to drone on after all. Just, seeing all that stuff reminded me all over again how important stories are, the right kind of stories, and how many magnificent people there are in the world. Things evolve a really long way over time, but when you really look at it I'm pretty sure there's no influence in your life that's more lasting and important than the thing you loved best when you were five. Feeling a lot of nostalgia over that lately.
So now I want to write the children's book I've been threatening for years. Let's see how that goes. It's been a long time since I wrote anything that didn't involve crotches.
I had a lovely ~10 months of brainless peace after I dropped that horrid OU module, but I've started a new one now and it's draining all my energy but sort of in a good way? The other one was language study through numbers and corpus analysis, which I get is valuable but good god it is BORING and not what I want to do. I'm only slogging through this thing at all for masochistic fun, it's not any kind of career switch attempt or whatever, so I just can't make myself concentrate on something I don't find engaging. The new one is much more tightly focused on grammar and how different choices have different subtle impact differences in writing, which is basically porn to me. It's tough, but good. ONE MORE module after this but I don't know what yet. I'll have fulfilled all my language and literature requirements after this year, so the last 60 points can be anything from any level and any subject. I could wimp out and do a basic level one module if I want and breeze through the year, but I'll probably make things hard on myself and do the level three Shakespeare just because dead poet boyfriend needs more of my love. I've been abandoning him a bit lately, haven't been to the theatre in forever because Cineworld is five minutes from my house and they keep screening the good RSC/NT stuff. It's great to be able to see it all, but not the same as actually being there. No excuses, I'm gonna start going more. There are plenty of decent amateur companies in Derby, I just get weird pain pangs being in those theatres again on the wrong side of the footlights.
The Fassbender/Cotillard Macbeth really fucked me up??? I still feel uneasy about it weeks after I saw it. It's the same sort of thing as Dancer in the Dark, this gorgeous perfectly crafted diamond of a film that I never ever want to see again for the rest of my life. I don't even know why it bothered me so much. Partly because of the hideous execution scene, I just can't handle seeing execution of any kind, but more generally just the tone and intensity of the whole thing unsettled me really badly in a way no film's done in years. So, success? It was a really spectacular adaptation. I'm not sorry I watched it, it's a masterpiece. But once was enough. I'm dying to see the Young Vic's production though, love of my life Anna Maxwell Martin as Lady M <3 Need to look into getting tickets for that before it sells out.
Still reeling a bit over seeing Gypsy at the Savoy last month, Imelda Staunton is just the best there's ever been. Trying to rave about great theatre performances is impossible, there aren't words big enough to properly convey what it's like to be crying like an idiot one moment then plastered against the back wall the next from this enormous magnificent noise coming out of someone's face. She's so tiny! How can she make sounds like that?! When I've seen it before it's been played mostly for the laughs, but this one was balanced better and so much more affecting than I expected. So so good. The BBC were filming it the night we were there and I read it's going to be on tv around Christmas sometime, I'm excited to see it again.
Real life Disney prince Roberto Bolle continues to ruin my life with his stupid instagram and stupid emojos and stupid cute over-earnest hashtags. Make him stop. (Don't.) He's doing my all time favourite Manon again this month with Svetlana Zakharova and keeps posting photos from it, and it is killingggggg me that nobody's invented a way for me to get from Staffs to Milan for free yet. They're magical together. UGLY SOBBING. (See also: their Swan Lake.)
Click to viewI've got about fifteen writing WIPs on the go at once and it's breaking my brain a bit. Need to pick just one and focus on finishing, but my head is exploding with everything at once so I don't dare ignore it in case the urge to write vanishes again. I get really awful writer's block for months at a time, so while I'm on a roll it's drop everything and write and then I can figure out editing it all into something readable later. LB/PV prequels are on hold just because it's been that long since I wrote them I've sort of forgotten how. I started writing a ton more short stories to get back into the characters, but I probably need to read the trilogy and properly get in touch with them again. It's really strange when it's been so long that you can read something and feel like someone else wrote it. JS/AW sequel is trundling along slowly and I love it so much even though only five people will read it. It's the most self-indulgent trash in the world, I don't want to write anything except them. They're a little bit older, and there's exciting new developments like moustaches and cinema. J's reading Wells for the first time and losing his shit. There's this scene I keep coming back and adding to because it's my favourite thing, so maybe it won't end up with a real story at all, maybe it'll just be 60K words of cuddling on the window seat looking at the moon over the sea and talking about Wells and Verne and rockets and Méliès. Also in progress: sci fi hair porn (this is a genre that should be larger than just me) and an alternate history thing about banned films.
Kingsman fandom is still eating my life. I've been trying to explain to someone why it's hooked me so hard, but ?????? Beyond the obvious (handsome older guy who likes manners and guns rescues cute blond gobby London kid from a rotten home and sparks fly - why does that sound familiar?), I have no idea. Or I do, but it sounds dumb and like it shouldn't matter as much as it does: brilliant engaging characters entwined with BEAUTIFUL FIGHTING. It's like a modern version of those wonderful old sword fight films I loved so much as a kid, like my Robin Hood obsession turned up to 11 and dressed in pinstripes and glasses. Anything featuring fight scenes played with such glorious panache is going to do it for me, but this is just next level id-stroking so that's what I'm running with in fic: more taxidermy, silly pantomime villains, giving Harry a sword to fight with because why the fuck not, nonagenarians being competent badasses, spies taking snowball fights really seriously, and sooooooooooo much kissing. And hair stroking. And enthusiastically welcomed bruises. This is all I want to read and write for the rest of my life, I had no idea this film would be such a perfect canvas for it. Flame Keepers is my ongoing epic series of self-indulgence, if you want to read banter and fights and slow burn and Roxy bromance and bottom Harry (sideways smirk emoji, fifteen repeats of fire emoji).
I got to nosy inside the Roald Dahl archives the other week. Life highlight. I've been to the museum before, but actually getting to talk to the archivist and see his manuscripts and letters was just something else. She was wonderful, so nice to see real fans doing work like that, treating it as the privilege it is and not just any old job. Could have spoken to her forever. It was such a revelation being a massive fan as a child as everyone was, then finding out as a teenager there was this whole massive undiscovered world of Dahl the adult author. He's responsible for the best oeuvre of short stories I've ever read, I wish they were better known. Some really messed up creepy Hitchcock type thrillers, ugly relationship dramas, the most brilliant dark comedy, hideous people getting payback, and Over to You has some of the most affecting and weirdly beautiful war stories ever written. Second hand on Amazon and ebay for pennies - please get it and I will personally refund your money if you don't like it. You will. It all just got me thinking about influences and stuff, how important he and Robert Louis Stevenson and Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone were to the way I grew up. Not necessarily as direct influences, like I never had any particular ambitions to be an author or sailor or get into fencing or whatever. Just this all-consuming love for stories, massive adventure stories and little intimate human stories, and how much better both those things are when they're woven together with real love and care into something perfect. I'm so lucky to have had people like my grandad around when I was really tiny, pouring stories into me about adventure and the sea and space and fantastic worlds and fighting for good, instead of having no choice but pink plastic Barbie cars and cartoon princesses. It all sounds a bit cheese, it doesn't feel like that. It feels huge. Anyway ramble ramble looks like I've remembered how to drone on after all. Just, seeing all that stuff reminded me all over again how important stories are, the right kind of stories, and how many magnificent people there are in the world. Things evolve a really long way over time, but when you really look at it I'm pretty sure there's no influence in your life that's more lasting and important than the thing you loved best when you were five. Feeling a lot of nostalgia over that lately.
So now I want to write the children's book I've been threatening for years. Let's see how that goes. It's been a long time since I wrote anything that didn't involve crotches.