PerExWriMo Week 1, and a review of The Fifth Doctor (Doctor Who)
First, PersonalExtraWritingMonth. I seem to have torn through it. My current word count, after a little more than a week into it, is... 32,000 words. That's more than half way. At this rate, I might finish before this weekend. There are many reasons for my speed. I do have a lot of free time on my hand, of course. I only work a few days a week, and not very long at that. So I naturally have more time to write than people who have full time jobs, and some of them that I know are very close to me anyway.
Another big benefit (of mixed blessing) was that my 'net was out almost all Saturday morning, and.
The other thing in my favour is incentives. One of them is rest itself. I love writing, but I find that sometimes I crave not writing when I'm not writing, and I crave not writing when I'm writing. So a part of me just wants to plow through PerExWriMo and get my 50,000 words as fast as I can so that I can take the rest of November off again (not from writing entirely, but from metered writing. Might go back and do a bit more of my Runaways outlines).
Another incentive is more taste-bud centered. Chips. After a long (several months) dry spell, of not being able to find them, I've found Greek potato chips again - President's Choice brand, Feta, Olive, and Oregano flavor. I stopped into a store because that brand (a variety of flavours though) were on sale there, and there was a huge display up against one wall. However, one problem. All the Greek ones were WAAAY up high, and the ones you can get anywhere were within reach. Since I have issues with asking people for help (it's not a pride thing, it's a social interaction), I was a bit stymied. But finally I discovered that if I stood on top of a can of pop at the bottom, there were a few bags that I could JUST reach, and so pulled 3 bags down and bought them. They are rewards for me exceptionally exceeding my word count this weekend. I have one left. I went again today but there were no more in reach... I can only hope that by the time Wednesday rolls around they will have either sold more of the not-so-good ones and lowered the Greek ones to a more reachable state, or noticed their oversight and placed them within reach.
I do not understand these stores, finding this particular brand should not be so hard considering how often and quickly they seem to sell out compared to the others. If it sells well, order more.
Anyway, back away from food, and more to writing.
All but the first 6-8000 words have all been on the same project so far. A prose version of a Singularity-themed story I'd originally conceived as a movie script (and I may finalize it in that form, but getting it worked out in prose helps me lay things out much more easily... I'd gotten no more than a page or so of dialog in script form). Got into a good groove on it, although I think I'm starting to reach the stage where I'm not sure how to connect where I am to where I want to be, so I might need to switch to something else. I already find myself occasionally just rambling on tangents or going over areas I might have already gone through just to get my word count up to the next thousand. I am enjoying the story I'm writing, even if I recognize that the prose itself is, at this point, pretty much crap.
Another thing I managed to do this weekend is watching some more old-school Doctor Who. I've now completed all of the Fifth Doctor run. I know I said when I started that I'd probably take a break, but I had more time than I anticipated, and, well, it seemed to get particularly GOOD. So, here are my thoughts, spoilers of course.
The Doctor Himself: Actually something of a disappointment. Oh, there's nothing particularly wrong with him. It just feels like, other than his dress, and fetish for wearing decorative vegetables (though it was nice they actually gave it an explanation in his last story), he doesn't have anything especially ODD about him. The Doctor's always had a very distinct personality, I felt. One's curmudgeonly. Two's a bit of a clown. Three's got a sort of smug sense of superiority and lectureness (which I don't like, but at least it's distinctive). Four's got a bit of the clown and random moments of peevishness. What little I've seen of Six has this ego and arrogance, so it seems. Nine's a bit harder to pin down, but sort of jumping back between glee and a dangerous intensity. Ten's got his cheerful, hyper goofiness.
Five reminds me of what I remember of Eight - which is just the movie. And 'just the movie' is not a lot to go on. He's just a guy. Nice guy. Smart. Always want to do good. But rather bland for a hero type, and especially for a Doctor type. So in terms of favorite Doctors to watch, he's rather low. I put him above 3, probably hovering in the nebulous bottom zone with Four and Eight (Six can't be placed yet).
That said, although he's low on my list of favorite Doctors, he's actually quite high on my list of "Doctors I'd most like to travel with". Because personality traits that are fun to watch are annoying to live with, and his more laid back, generally friendly and inoffensive style appeals to me as a person. I could see myself having more fun travelling around and exploring the universe with Davison more than One, Three, Four, and although Two's close, with him I think it'd be more like an avuncular relationships rather than as friends... though I might prefer him just for the companions. I have issues with Ten (the only way I can rationalize the crap writing is to assume he's a bit of a sadist and jerk while pretending not to be, and making up things he doesn't know or want to explain about rather than actually educating. Although his wonder and joy at exploration is perhaps second to none I've seen so far, the others qualities drag him down). Nine and Five are probably about even, being fun to hang with in different ways for different reasons.
The Companions:
Peri just started on the trip, so I don't really feel I can talk about her much here, only seen her in two stories. Seems nice enough, but doesn't do anything for me as a character. Leave her judgement for the end of Six.
So we only have a few companions. There's Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough. Kamelion I suppose, but I can't count him because he was only in 2 stories, the one he was introduced and the one he left, and completely ignored (not even mentioned!) in the intervening time. I'd give them points for trying if they actually had him.
How about we do this Worst to best? Sure.
Turlough's first. I like the idea of him (a more cowardly and self-interested companion, who's goals are potentially hostile to the Doctor), but I didn't much like the execution. Seeing him "stare into the crystal and twitching while making excuses" got real old, real fast, and in general every time he did anything all I could think is "you weasel". And not even in a good way, like seeing Rodney McKay be particularly cowardly or egotistical. Just a weasel. Never warmed to him, glad he was gone.
Adric was better. I didn't mind him. A little young, and he tended to run into the same sorts of plots (how many times did he pretend to turn on the Doctor?), but he was good, and one of the rare companions who got to die.
Nyssa was nice. I don't think she's one of my favorites, kind of a pale shadow of Zoe, but as pale shadows go, it's still a nice character. I did seem to find she performed the role of 'substitute Doctor', seemingly knowing all about science and aliens and whatever the Doctor might normally do, just a different face doing it (a little like K-9), which is a bit disappointing. I sort of prefer the model of Zoe who (as I recall) was really smart, but still naive about specifics of the places they went to.
The real surprise was Tegan. I just liked her, and her interactions with the Doctor had a bit more bite than most companions, because she questions him more. Her being left behind at one point and then joining the Doctor later was a nice twist too. Somehow she managed to become, while probably not one of my favorite companions as a whole, definitely one of my favorite of a specific type: that is, the 'contemporary human companion'. Not my favorite type (because it's too overused and too easy), and one of the reasons is that the characters often aren't memorable. Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Polly, etc... if you lined their photos up, I might be able to pick out who was who, but if you asked me to tell you where they were from, their occupations, or even what they _did_ in the show, I'd probably not be able to tell you. Tegan, though, I think I'll remember.
She also made a nice team with Adric and Nyssa, which I talked about before. I'd like more multi-companion teams. Gives everybody something to do.
The Stories: This is why so far I think the Fifth Doctor has possibly become my favorite run of the classic Who so far. The stories. I don't know why exactly (I guess they brought in some new blood), but ingeneral they seemed leaps and bounds above others. Nice use of different complexities of time travel (and the brilliant device of having the Doctor and his companions separated in two different times in Mawdryn Undead), and all around more inventive ideas. Sometimes it seems like Who got into a rut: Show up in a place or on Earth. There are aliens or androids or a monster that starts killing people. Maybe the Master. Fight the aliens or androids. And it all feels very samey, like all you had to do was change the setting and the monster and it's pretty much the same basic story. But in this one you have cool things like a ship of aliens with human crews from the past, sailing through space, or Mawdryn Undead.
One of the nice parts of it was that they seemed to have a better sense of pace. There were a large number of two part stories, and sometimes, that's all the show needs. Multipart ones can drag on. But two part stories mixed in can keep it a little fresher.
The quality jump actually started towards the end of Tom Baker's run, but it was more uneven there and there were long stretches of the Baker run where I was a little bored with the stories, though I still enjoyed watching it for the Doctor and companions.
Of minor note was that this run also contained the last 'pure historical' episode, one just set in the past without any aliens or supernatural elements. Black Orchid. Although the episode itself was only okay (a bit of fun with the costume party and dancing), I still wish they did more like this. The Doctor's not a superman, and he can be put in danger just as much by a bunch of people in the past with weapons as he can by aliens and robots. Maybe moreso, because he can't just wave the sonic screwdriver and get a magical solution to whatever problem presents itself.
Speaking of, another unexpected pleasant surprise in this run was the destruction of the sonic screwdriver... which then does NOT get instantly replaced. Yay. Some writers finally on the ball. Wish the New Who would learn from it, but I doubt it. Yes, it's a nice iconic gadget of his, but makes things too easy for him and so becomes a writer crutch, and is especially overused in the new series where it seems like it can do ANYTHING (except for those plot-determined pieces where for no particular reason it's helpless). It's the Doctor's magic wand, but I want the Doctor who to solve problems, not use magic. Need to get out of a jam? Wave the sonic screwdriver at it! Why even bother _writing_ the problem if that's _all_ it takes. It's just an exercise in filling time. So thank you Fifth Doctor producers for having some sense in that area.
What's ahead: The Sixth Doctor, of course. Watched the first part of his initial story, and he's still in regneneration crisis of course, so I can't say for sure, but he's at least more distinctive personality wise than Davison. Not a huge fan of Peri thus far. And obviously I can't judge the stories, not having seen a complete one.
Another big benefit (of mixed blessing) was that my 'net was out almost all Saturday morning, and.
The other thing in my favour is incentives. One of them is rest itself. I love writing, but I find that sometimes I crave not writing when I'm not writing, and I crave not writing when I'm writing. So a part of me just wants to plow through PerExWriMo and get my 50,000 words as fast as I can so that I can take the rest of November off again (not from writing entirely, but from metered writing. Might go back and do a bit more of my Runaways outlines).
Another incentive is more taste-bud centered. Chips. After a long (several months) dry spell, of not being able to find them, I've found Greek potato chips again - President's Choice brand, Feta, Olive, and Oregano flavor. I stopped into a store because that brand (a variety of flavours though) were on sale there, and there was a huge display up against one wall. However, one problem. All the Greek ones were WAAAY up high, and the ones you can get anywhere were within reach. Since I have issues with asking people for help (it's not a pride thing, it's a social interaction), I was a bit stymied. But finally I discovered that if I stood on top of a can of pop at the bottom, there were a few bags that I could JUST reach, and so pulled 3 bags down and bought them. They are rewards for me exceptionally exceeding my word count this weekend. I have one left. I went again today but there were no more in reach... I can only hope that by the time Wednesday rolls around they will have either sold more of the not-so-good ones and lowered the Greek ones to a more reachable state, or noticed their oversight and placed them within reach.
I do not understand these stores, finding this particular brand should not be so hard considering how often and quickly they seem to sell out compared to the others. If it sells well, order more.
Anyway, back away from food, and more to writing.
All but the first 6-8000 words have all been on the same project so far. A prose version of a Singularity-themed story I'd originally conceived as a movie script (and I may finalize it in that form, but getting it worked out in prose helps me lay things out much more easily... I'd gotten no more than a page or so of dialog in script form). Got into a good groove on it, although I think I'm starting to reach the stage where I'm not sure how to connect where I am to where I want to be, so I might need to switch to something else. I already find myself occasionally just rambling on tangents or going over areas I might have already gone through just to get my word count up to the next thousand. I am enjoying the story I'm writing, even if I recognize that the prose itself is, at this point, pretty much crap.
Another thing I managed to do this weekend is watching some more old-school Doctor Who. I've now completed all of the Fifth Doctor run. I know I said when I started that I'd probably take a break, but I had more time than I anticipated, and, well, it seemed to get particularly GOOD. So, here are my thoughts, spoilers of course.
The Doctor Himself: Actually something of a disappointment. Oh, there's nothing particularly wrong with him. It just feels like, other than his dress, and fetish for wearing decorative vegetables (though it was nice they actually gave it an explanation in his last story), he doesn't have anything especially ODD about him. The Doctor's always had a very distinct personality, I felt. One's curmudgeonly. Two's a bit of a clown. Three's got a sort of smug sense of superiority and lectureness (which I don't like, but at least it's distinctive). Four's got a bit of the clown and random moments of peevishness. What little I've seen of Six has this ego and arrogance, so it seems. Nine's a bit harder to pin down, but sort of jumping back between glee and a dangerous intensity. Ten's got his cheerful, hyper goofiness.
Five reminds me of what I remember of Eight - which is just the movie. And 'just the movie' is not a lot to go on. He's just a guy. Nice guy. Smart. Always want to do good. But rather bland for a hero type, and especially for a Doctor type. So in terms of favorite Doctors to watch, he's rather low. I put him above 3, probably hovering in the nebulous bottom zone with Four and Eight (Six can't be placed yet).
That said, although he's low on my list of favorite Doctors, he's actually quite high on my list of "Doctors I'd most like to travel with". Because personality traits that are fun to watch are annoying to live with, and his more laid back, generally friendly and inoffensive style appeals to me as a person. I could see myself having more fun travelling around and exploring the universe with Davison more than One, Three, Four, and although Two's close, with him I think it'd be more like an avuncular relationships rather than as friends... though I might prefer him just for the companions. I have issues with Ten (the only way I can rationalize the crap writing is to assume he's a bit of a sadist and jerk while pretending not to be, and making up things he doesn't know or want to explain about rather than actually educating. Although his wonder and joy at exploration is perhaps second to none I've seen so far, the others qualities drag him down). Nine and Five are probably about even, being fun to hang with in different ways for different reasons.
The Companions:
Peri just started on the trip, so I don't really feel I can talk about her much here, only seen her in two stories. Seems nice enough, but doesn't do anything for me as a character. Leave her judgement for the end of Six.
So we only have a few companions. There's Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough. Kamelion I suppose, but I can't count him because he was only in 2 stories, the one he was introduced and the one he left, and completely ignored (not even mentioned!) in the intervening time. I'd give them points for trying if they actually had him.
How about we do this Worst to best? Sure.
Turlough's first. I like the idea of him (a more cowardly and self-interested companion, who's goals are potentially hostile to the Doctor), but I didn't much like the execution. Seeing him "stare into the crystal and twitching while making excuses" got real old, real fast, and in general every time he did anything all I could think is "you weasel". And not even in a good way, like seeing Rodney McKay be particularly cowardly or egotistical. Just a weasel. Never warmed to him, glad he was gone.
Adric was better. I didn't mind him. A little young, and he tended to run into the same sorts of plots (how many times did he pretend to turn on the Doctor?), but he was good, and one of the rare companions who got to die.
Nyssa was nice. I don't think she's one of my favorites, kind of a pale shadow of Zoe, but as pale shadows go, it's still a nice character. I did seem to find she performed the role of 'substitute Doctor', seemingly knowing all about science and aliens and whatever the Doctor might normally do, just a different face doing it (a little like K-9), which is a bit disappointing. I sort of prefer the model of Zoe who (as I recall) was really smart, but still naive about specifics of the places they went to.
The real surprise was Tegan. I just liked her, and her interactions with the Doctor had a bit more bite than most companions, because she questions him more. Her being left behind at one point and then joining the Doctor later was a nice twist too. Somehow she managed to become, while probably not one of my favorite companions as a whole, definitely one of my favorite of a specific type: that is, the 'contemporary human companion'. Not my favorite type (because it's too overused and too easy), and one of the reasons is that the characters often aren't memorable. Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Polly, etc... if you lined their photos up, I might be able to pick out who was who, but if you asked me to tell you where they were from, their occupations, or even what they _did_ in the show, I'd probably not be able to tell you. Tegan, though, I think I'll remember.
She also made a nice team with Adric and Nyssa, which I talked about before. I'd like more multi-companion teams. Gives everybody something to do.
The Stories: This is why so far I think the Fifth Doctor has possibly become my favorite run of the classic Who so far. The stories. I don't know why exactly (I guess they brought in some new blood), but ingeneral they seemed leaps and bounds above others. Nice use of different complexities of time travel (and the brilliant device of having the Doctor and his companions separated in two different times in Mawdryn Undead), and all around more inventive ideas. Sometimes it seems like Who got into a rut: Show up in a place or on Earth. There are aliens or androids or a monster that starts killing people. Maybe the Master. Fight the aliens or androids. And it all feels very samey, like all you had to do was change the setting and the monster and it's pretty much the same basic story. But in this one you have cool things like a ship of aliens with human crews from the past, sailing through space, or Mawdryn Undead.
One of the nice parts of it was that they seemed to have a better sense of pace. There were a large number of two part stories, and sometimes, that's all the show needs. Multipart ones can drag on. But two part stories mixed in can keep it a little fresher.
The quality jump actually started towards the end of Tom Baker's run, but it was more uneven there and there were long stretches of the Baker run where I was a little bored with the stories, though I still enjoyed watching it for the Doctor and companions.
Of minor note was that this run also contained the last 'pure historical' episode, one just set in the past without any aliens or supernatural elements. Black Orchid. Although the episode itself was only okay (a bit of fun with the costume party and dancing), I still wish they did more like this. The Doctor's not a superman, and he can be put in danger just as much by a bunch of people in the past with weapons as he can by aliens and robots. Maybe moreso, because he can't just wave the sonic screwdriver and get a magical solution to whatever problem presents itself.
Speaking of, another unexpected pleasant surprise in this run was the destruction of the sonic screwdriver... which then does NOT get instantly replaced. Yay. Some writers finally on the ball. Wish the New Who would learn from it, but I doubt it. Yes, it's a nice iconic gadget of his, but makes things too easy for him and so becomes a writer crutch, and is especially overused in the new series where it seems like it can do ANYTHING (except for those plot-determined pieces where for no particular reason it's helpless). It's the Doctor's magic wand, but I want the Doctor who to solve problems, not use magic. Need to get out of a jam? Wave the sonic screwdriver at it! Why even bother _writing_ the problem if that's _all_ it takes. It's just an exercise in filling time. So thank you Fifth Doctor producers for having some sense in that area.
What's ahead: The Sixth Doctor, of course. Watched the first part of his initial story, and he's still in regneneration crisis of course, so I can't say for sure, but he's at least more distinctive personality wise than Davison. Not a huge fan of Peri thus far. And obviously I can't judge the stories, not having seen a complete one.