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Bounty Hunters

So I watched Bounty Hunters, with Lee Min-ho and Wallace Chung (who was sporting a terrible dye job.) 

My idea would have been better. And cheaper.

Heck, I’ll even expand on it:

30 minutes in a French restaurant. 

30 minutes in a Chinese historical restaurant. 

30 minute scene where they fight ninjas. 

You can even add in Tiffany Tang or, heck, Suzy’s great! That’s not exactly a stretch!

Movie Done. 

Does it make sense? No. 

But then again, did Transformers? 

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Freaking Cat

Marcus will only eat turkey canned cat food (although he will eat bonito flakes).I’ve tried in the past to give him other things. I thought, “hey, chicken, it’s almost turkey!”

Apparently, chicken is the uncanny valley of turkey. He sniffed the food and then looked at me with a face of such unmitigated horror and betrayal, as if he were saying “Why do you hate me? What did I do WRONG?”

Thursday I tried turkey with salmon. 

He decided that I hadn’t fed him. 

I put bonito flakes on it.

He ate a little bit around the flakes, then threw it all up. 

So I figured I need to stop trying to give him non-turkey. I left for work; went out after; came home around 8.

All the food was gone. I guess he just needed some additional motivation. 

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”I am not ready; but I am willing.”

My current Asian drama addiction is (shockingly) not Korean, but Chinese: General and I, a fun sudsy melodrama that takes place during an invented part of the Yan era, just after the Three Kingdoms.

At least, that’s as far as I can tell. Embarrassingly, most of my knowledge of Chinese history is indexed to understanding Korean history, so I could be wildly wrong.

But it’s old enough that they wear Hanfu, the best clothing style in the history of clothing other than 1930s bias cut evening gowns; and I liked Angelababy in the young Judge Dee movie; and Wallace Chung is both hot and old enough that I don’t feel creepy thinking he’s hot.1

Yao Tian in General and I opening credits, with soldiers in background.
Many fancy hats.

So… yeah. It’s fun. But I didn’t expect any depth. I don’t expect depth from any historical drama that’s not Korean.2.

I just wanted pretty people in pretty clothes, angsting.

With bonus points for fancy hats.

 

But then the Princess of Bai Lan said this:

I am not ready; but I am willing.

And jerky He Xia listened to her, because apparently she’s the only person in the world that emits a ray that can sometimes keep him from being a horrible human.3

And I was stunned. I’d never thought of it that way before.

Yao Tian and He Via in General and I
Yao Tian, the Princess of Bai Lan, with her jerky boyfriend.

This is, I think, the missing piece around consent. I don’t think I realized this was two separate things for a very long time–and half of my problems as a young adult came from conflating these two states.

So fancy hats off to you, General and I. Long may you entertain.

 

Happy Lunar New Year, and welcome to the Year of the Fire Rooster.

Footnotes

1. Cough. Lee Min-ho, cough. But omg that voice! Never mind I have clothing almost as old as you. That I bought. With money from my first job.*
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged** that K-Drama writers are The Best.
3. But not always. He’s still a jerk.***

Footnotes of Footnotes

* I just found out that Wallace Chung and Lee Min-ho are in a movie together. It looks terrible; but to be honest, I’d probably watch them reading menus or recipes to each other for an hour. Two hours, if some of the menus or recipes were in French. Three if they wear hanfu and Lee Min-ho has the brown highlighted shag haircut he had in Faith…. Well, you get the idea.
** By me.
*** I wrote this before I saw episodes 34-36. He’s REALLY a jerk. He Xia, you deserve BUPKIS.

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2015 Nano

By far the most difficult NaNo. I thought I’d run out of story at 40k words; but I didn’t expect to have so much trouble getting any tangential inspirations for the last 10,000 words. 

I also didn’t expect to be ill for most of it. 
But even after the doxycycline kicked in, I would never have finished it without the encouraging emails from my friend Barbara; and several phone calls with my mom, who let me ramble through story points. 
Thanks to them I finished, even though I averaged 500 words an hour for 6 of the last 10,000 words. 
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Editing

I’ve tried–repeatedly–to figure out some method for editing my manuscripts. Not the line edits–word choice, sentence rhythm, the notes let’s say–years of writing poetry have helped me there. 

No, the story structure and chapter/scene level edits seem to well pick your cliche: slide through my fingers, something something wisp, something something phantom. 
I just can’t seem to get them to make any  sense in my head. 
There seem to be two major schools if thought: 
1. Print out your MS and mark it up with stickies and a pencil;
2. Draw pictures. 
Now. I’m bad with THINGS. I’ve spent the past five years of my life trying to get rid of objects. Data is fine! Virtual stuff–I can organize that. But give me a physical object and I’m frozen. 
And I’m a word person. That whole info graphic thing? It’s easier for me to read a spreadsheet. 
So, I’m a bit loath to print out a ton of paper. I’ve done it, but it’s just confusing me more. Also, reading a bunch of 8 1/2 x11s or A4s (work has accustomed me to translating to the British from the American) well, that’s unwieldy at best. 
But as always, Scrivener to the rescue! 
“What if,” I thought, “What if I made my first draft into a mobi. And sent it to my Kindle? And… Used my Kindle’s notes and highlights…?” 
Oh. Yes. That. 
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36230, chapter 5

Chapter 5 is complete, and I’m at 36k words. About right for an 80k word novel in 12 chapters, but I can’t help thinking I’m a bit behind (also I’m not sure if what i have planned for the leadup to the final scenes will actually work).

I had wanted to get through chapter 6 today, but it looks like I’ll finish 06 tomorrow. Finishing 50,000 words will not be much trouble–I likely will have that Friday–but it’ll be a lot harder to get the STORY done. That, I’m not so sure about.

The story itself should take at least 75k words–the question, of course, is whether or not I can get that many done in less than two weeks. I’m not quite halfway there, but I should pass 40,000 words tomorrow. But I don’t think I’ll have enough time, late in the week, to write all the words.