So Now What?

I found a publisher that wants 'novelettes' between 30-40 pages in length.

Honestly I think I could bust that out in like a weekend...or perhaps one evening? (Hmmmmm...)

I do like a challenge.

I also have an idea.

Of course I also have a story due tomorrow for creative writing class (which I still have about five pages left on) - so I suppose I should stop goofing around and get to work on that.

But I'll let you know about the 30 page story.

WIP Wednesday

So I've started teaching the creative writing class I teach for a new year. Half the students are showing promise, the rest need much work, TLC and in one case a swift kick in the rear.

One of my students is very religious, and her mother is even worse. She's been sharing our work with her mom.

I write along with the kids and share my work with them as well...so alas - no zombie stories for me this year...sigh...

As a result I've decided this would be a good time to work on a few Steampunk short stories as a warm up for NaNoWriteMo in November...(my goal is to write the proper Steampunk YA novel).

Anyway here is the start to my Steampunk short story (as of yet untitled).

Removing his spectacles, Ian began to clean them on the end of his shirtail. Looking up he glanced at his friend and flat-mate Lucian Meriwether, sitting directly opposite him. The candle on his desk framed the young man's form which was cast in shadow as he hunched over the brass eyepiece of his microscope. Outside the wind howled through the empty night streets, while the rain beat gently upon the leaded glass of their dormer window.

Rising from his leather chair, Ian stepped from the warmth of the fireplace and peered down into the deserted street below. The gas-lamps glowed faintly in the mist, barely illuminating the shining pavement. A single figure rushed through the fog, a student or faculty member burning the midnight oil at the school library most likely.

Anyway. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm going for a Holmes and Watson thing...that is if Holmes and Watson were seventeen when they met.

It's a start. Wait until you see what they find at the Bell Tower Aslyum.

An Ambitious Undertaking

So September 6th is my birthday and I have a goal to accomplish fifty goals in one year. Part of that goal is to keep my blog up to date, so as I cross each one off my list I will update the old blog...while still putting in my valuable input on other matters as well.

As you'll see some things are simple, some are more complex.

Here is the mighty 'To Do List' to end all to do lists.

1. I have a scar on my leg that needs looking to.
2. I still like to drop between ten to fifteen pounds.
3. My glasses keep falling of my face - so they need to be fixed.
4. Buy some new shirts.
5. Buy new sports jackets.
6. My shoes need new shoelaces.
7. I wear these black slippers at church and I need a new pair.
8. I've still got all my fat clothes laying around, so I need to get rid of them.
9. I broke the heating blanket we use during the winter so it needs to be fixed (or replaced)
10. Clean the shower drain (it's starting to smell funky)
11. Clean up under the kitchen sink (scared to see what's down there)
12. Clean the garbage disposal (also starting to smell funky)
13. Clean up the office (Angie wants to make it a reading room)
14. Download a bunch of music from my friend Amy (she has a great collection of music)
15. Steam clean the carpet
16. Organize all the bookshelves (should take days)
17. Write a novel during Nanowritemo.
18. Keep up blog
19. Send out promised copies of my book to those whom I promised a copy
20. Save $2000.00
21. Finish painting the upstairs offices at church
22. Get rid of all the metal at church (as promised like over a year ago)
23. Finish scraping the wax off the hardwood floors of church (as promised like over a year ago)
24. Make all new lesson plans for school
25. Make all new tests and quizzes for school
26. Make new Holocaust presentation for school
27. Start meditating
28. Start working out.
29. Finish YA book.
30. Continue to submit (with hopefully around ten acceptances this year)
31. Fix computer (the screen is broken)
32. Fix truck mirror
33. Clean interior of truck
34. Replace radio (which was stolen by the neighborhood meth-heads)
35. Find summer job
36. Replace truck breaks.
37. Submit 'Blackwater'
38. Submit "Sorcerers Orphan"
39. Buy new skillet
40. Visit three schools where I might want to work instead of my current place.
41. Get new scanner for school
42. Get back up drive for school
43. Start garden at school
44. Get bag fixed.
45. Finish Nazi story
46. Restock wine rack
47. Finish every season of "The Rockford Files"
48. Buy coffee mug
49. Drink Absinthe
50. Travel (Not sure where to yet...either Portland or Chicago I think)

OK - so starting September 6th I'm off and running...

Wish me luck...

I'm gonna need it.

Horror Movie Classics X

Well folks...this is it...Number 10!

The last film is also a silent masterpiece...the German flick "Nosferatu".

Plot:

You have young Thomas, a realestate agent who is sent to conclude the sale of some creepy old dudes house "Count Orlok". The Count invites his guest to dinner, but when Thomas cut's his hand there's this really cool scene where the Count tries to suck the blood from his hand.

Thomas begins to suspect Count Orlok is a vampire when he awakes with bite marks on his neck. Searching the castle Thomas finds the Count's coffin down in the crypt.


There is a really bad ass scene where Thomas then sees Orlok piling up coffins in a wagon, getting ready to transport them to his new home which is...wait for it...ACROSS THE STREET FROM THOMAS'S HOUSE...dun..dun...dun!!!

The coffins are transported via ship to the Count's new home as a plague spreads across Europe where the victims sport 'bite type' marks.

You have another really cool scene where the ship arrives in Thomas's hometown.

Orlok moves in and Ellen (this would be the main squeeze of Thomas) transfixes the vampire with her beauty.

But what Count Orlok dosn't know is that the blood of a pure woman (see Ellen) - will cause him to loose track of time. Which will in turn allow the sunlight to do it's thing and BOOM no more vamp!


You've got some really great shots in this film. Like really famous shots. Things that even if you don't know where they come from you'd still recognize them.


This is a must see for any 'horror film buff' - you can't really call yourself that if you have not seen this film.

Four Skulls (I mean it still suffers from the pacing of a silent film - but that's not really it's fault is it?)

Horror Movie Classics IX

It would seem that the last three films I've saved to watch are all going to be silent films.

Today's entry is "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"


The Plot:

You take kindly old Doctor Jekyll, who spends most of his free time helping the little orphan kids down at his charity clinic. When not doing good deeds he can be found trying to court his love interest Millicent.

Her dad, Sir George belittles the good doctor, telling him he is too good and to prove it takes the young doctor to a music hall. I suppose it's suppose to be like a Victorian strip club because Doctor Jekyll becomes obsessed with a dancer named Gina.


Doctor Jekyll comes up with an idea that he'll separate his two selves, into the good and for lack of a better word the "evil" side. As most of us know, this is Mr. Hyde.

The belief is that Mr. Hyde can help conquer the doctor's basic primal needs while keeping his soul squeaky clean.

As Mr. Hyde becomes more and more depraved it becomes increasingly harder for Doctor Jekyll to keep him under control.

Eventually he murders Sir George and as Millicent grieves the doctor slowly goes insane from the guilt.

I'm not gonna lie, I've never been a big fan of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde storyline. I mean you've got a 'gentleman' who underneath it all is really just a 'psycho'. I've seen it done so many times before from "Silence of the Lambs" to the Showtime series "Dexter". I suppose people like the idea that the nice guy who lives next door to your grandma and helps her take her trash out every Wednesday has half a dozen bodies buried under his cellar.

I dunno...

But-

This film was actually quite good. For a silent film the pace was good. The sets were excellent and for 1920 the special effects were out of this world. (There is a particularly good scene where a giant spider climbs on the doctor's bed and begins the devour him - and remember this was filmed in NINETEEN TWENTY!!!)

But what I really liked about the film was how it was really a comment of Victorian England and it's class system.

Let me digress for a moment...Horror - at it's best, is really just a comment on your society.

Films like "Invaders From Mars" and "Them" produced in the 1950s - were really about the Russian invasion and nuclear fallout.

Films like "Last House on the Left" and "The Exorcist" (which came on in the 1970s) reflect a world out of control...which isn't surprising for a generation that was let down after the 1960s failed to deliver what it had promised.


Films like "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1980s) show what happens when groups of teenagers run around and have sex...they die. Funny that these films started coming out when AIDS was really hitting the news.


You see horror shows us what's wrong with our society...what we REALLY fear, and let me tell you something...I fear Ronald Regan and George W. Bush more than I fear zombies and vampires.

But let me get back to my point.

Mr. Hyde can be depraved only because of the good doctor's money. He pays for impovrished women and then discards them like trash. He attacks a young boy on the street and then simply writes a check for one hundred pounds to pay the father off. It's like no matter how bad he is he can just throw money at it and keep acting however he wants. (No that's scary...because we all know it's true).

My favorite part of the movie (or at least the one that sent chills up my spine the most) was where the organ music changed to this upbeat madrigal stuff which accompanied Mr. Hyde beating Sir George to death with a cane. The music dosen't go with the violence (which goes on for quite some time) and John Barrymore is brillant in his grotusque bloodlust. Very disturbing. I can't imagine what the audiences at the time thought.

Anyway...good film over all...I'll give it four skills and an old white guy.

Horror Movie Classics VIII

Sorry about the delay folks...this pig has no excuse...so I'm not gonna waste your time...

But I always try to finish what I start (no matter how painful) - So I'm back with classic horror movie number 8.

Today's movie is 1920s silent film - "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"


The plot centers around a young German lad named Francis who is sitting in a park telling his story to an old man who just happens to be sharing the park bench with him.

It seems a while back Francis and his friend Alan went to the local carnival to take in the show. They agree to go see Dr. Caligari's 'Cabinet' which contains Cesare - a very tall a creepy looking somnambulist (it's alright...I didn't know what it meant either). So a quick check on the inter-web and...A Somnambulist is - a person who sleepwalks.


You see Cesare is in a trance throughout the whole movie. Alan asks Cesare how long he has to live to which the prophetic Cesare says that Alan will die that very night.

Alan dies (go figure) and now Francis and his girlfriend Jane begin to suspect Dr. Caligari and his sleepwalking goon. Cesare kidnaps Jane on Caligari's orders, which results in a chase by a torch and pitchfork wielding mob. Cesare falls to his death, but Jane is saved.


The search is now on for Caligari who, as it turns out, runs the local insane aslyum.

But wait...there's a twist ending as we find out that Francis is really insane and locked up in said aslyum. Jane and Cesare are fellow inmates (as is the old man to whom he is talking) and Dr. Caligari while really the director of the aslyum is not really evil.

Ah...

So how was it?

Well, truth be told how good can a silent film from 1920 be?

Actually that's not quite true, I love Fritz Lang's epic masterpiece "Metropolis"...though I have to say it's very much improved by the Queen soundtrack they added in the 1980s.


The problem with this film as how slow the pace was. Now I'm not the kind of guy who needs explosions and boobs every two minutes in my film to keep my attention...but I do need a story arc that can play out in a reasonable amount of time.

Slow pace sure...but what was good about it was this whole weird art neveau thing they had going on with the sets. I do know enough about film to know that when it first started out they were simply taking stage plays and filming them. Thus the use of sets as backdrops. These sets were very far out and very cool. The Germans have never been afraid of experimenting when it comes to film and I admire that. Sometimes the pay off is pretty outstanding.


So in the end I'm gonna give this bad boy Three Skulls Ale...raise yer tankards Matey!!!