Horror films are tricky. Get it wrong and if you’re lucky you get something amusing. Comedies are even harder, because while a failed horror can be an entertaining comedy, a failed comedy is just plain horrid. Action films, it seems to me, are more forgiving, because even if some of the elements don’t gel, as long at you make a good faith attempt at providing action, you can claim to have succeeded.
Good comedy, when it happens, is a delight. Even more so when it involves writing instruments.
Today’s pen (hardly visible as it whirls toward the next opponent): Platinum PKB-2000
Today’s ink (blinding attackers, leaving them vulnerable to the riposte): Edelstein Topaz
I appear to have had a stunning lapse in my brain function, as I have not clambered onto the rooftop of this enterprise to shout about the opening of registration for this year’s Pelikan Hub… and now there’s barely more than two weeks before the deadline!
Yes, I am making free with a fragment from this year’s Pelikan Fine Writing catalogue.
So, drop whatever you’re doing and go to the sign-up page! If that link doesn’t work, try getting there through this page, but by all means, get yourself registered. There’s goodies given away, and you can spend an evening hanging around with people who really like pens. It was hoot last year.
I am, of course, talking most specifically to people in the area of Regina, because I’m anxious that last year’s hoot not be a one-time event. But certainly, wherever you dwell, dear reader, get thee registered.
Where, oh where, that huge speed of a couple of weeks ago? Well, it’s probably being absorbed by long stretched of pensive sitting. Sometimes the second draft differs from the first only in tiny matters of a word here, a phrase moved a little. This time, there’s a wholesale transformation; ensemble piece down to a single player, vast adjustments in the emphases in descriptions, and a shift of overall tone from BOYS ADVENTURE to quiet elegy (that’s possibly a little too grand, but I’ll leave it to make myself feel like an artist). So, yeah, pensive sitting. The slow turning of the creative millstones. There’s no set deadline on this one, so that’s just fine.
I made the briefest possible acknowledgement of D-Day yesterday, and I’m not very pleased with myself. It was, after all, the 75th anniversary of the landing, and I have made more of it in the past.
Today’s film takes a look at the event from an unusual perspective, and I think posting it a day after the fact is actually appropriate to the content. Lines of communication were unreliable, after all…
Notice that this is the work of a German fellow. I am tooting my horn as a supporter of EU unity in this, distant well-wisher though I may be. A fragmentary Europe has been, historically, a source of unhappiness for those within and those around.
There is a negative number in the progress this week. I wrapped up the story, and found it was over the word limit given out by the target anthology’s call for submissions. So, last week’s remarkable output proves to have been a bit of a foot-shoot.
I am, alas, not surprised by this development. But it’s done now, two words under the limit, and ready for examination by my patient readers.
Those who actually follow these updates will be shocked at how long I left “Tiger on My Back” sitting in a commented-upon-yet-unedited state. Well, I started some other stuff, then found the call “Fourteen Nights” responds to… and having thumbed through it when the last reader finished I figured the gratifyingly few issues they found were low priority. Until I found another call for submissions yesterday, seeking WW2-related stories. I’m susceptible to magical thinking, and submitting today of all days with that as the criteria was irresistible.
And for those who are feeling clever– yes, indeed, it is that kind of Tiger.
I’m going to mislead some people Googling for writing advice with that title. To them, I say– bang out story after story until what you’re doing reads like the whispers inside your own skull.
Now, with the first of TWO duties to assist my fellow humans out of the way, on to this week’s feature. I like doing a variety of voices when I’m reading to my son, although I have a limited repertoire (the historical portion of Red Rackham’s Treasure and its sea-farer-intensive cast is a real struggle). I thus really admire people who can shift their vocalizations around a lot:
Isn’t he a wonder? I have a second duty to a fellow human, just as self-imposed as the other. This guy, who is also adopting the voice of another, is having something of a pledge drive, and I’d like to see him prosper, so I’m boosting his signal (a very little– I’m away of my powers in this):
It’s an audio presentation today, and in part I want to offer you entertainment (since I generate little of my own here of late), but I also want to signal boost a worthy enterprise:
This mellifluous person with an excellent taste in literature has been told by YouTube that they’ve never going to monetize his stuff. I hope that you’re as taken with his presentation as I am, because I’m hoping to get people to make YouTube feel foolish by clicking on many of his videos, and even more importantly, I’m hoping to make him feel funded by getting people to click on his Patreon page.
Good heavens! I managed to get some writing done on a long weekend! This gets balanced out by having to take today off to visit my bank, because like everyone else making less than a quarter-million a year, I’m getting killed by the difference between cost of living increases and raises of salary, so things need to be done. On an utterly unrelated point, have I mentioned that I accept donations?
Despite the current financial worries, I appear to be able to afford a robot to hit the “publish” button for this thing. I’m not even looking at it! Oh, what a dizzying age we live in!
A friend sent me a link to today’s film, saying it was very much in the vein of childhood’s beloved NFB shorts. This is very true.
I will also mention that there’s a new story up at the writing site; I know in the past “when can we see this stuff?” has appeared in comments, and I appreciate that all tease and no production will lead to disenchantment. There is word of it in the left-hand sidebar, too, but I know I’m not attentive enough to necessarily spot that sort of thing, and I won’t insist that others should be.
