February Sweeps - Day 286

Today is Friday the 13th.  There's no significance to that (I was born on a Friday the 13th), but I'm supposed to blog every day.

I hate to be a backseat executive, but Paramount should still be making FRIDAY THE 13TH movies.  They could easily be in the twenties by now.*

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In November: 1461

I did go to the library to write, but I must admit that my heart wasn't in it.  I rewrote a scene that was lost . . . somehow, somewhere (I think it was when the computer restarted last week while I was at the cabin, but I thought I'd recovered all that.  More likely, this laptop restarted during the night at home, and I didn't realize it had wiped out some of my daily writing.  I wonder if I counted those words for the day or if they too were lost).  I tend to go on Saturday afternoons, so maybe I'll get some major writing done tomorrow.

I spent an almost unbelievable amount of time opening every file of "MFOM" from Chapter 10 on and changing the numbers to make way for the new chapter I stuck in there.  I copied and pasted my reading of the chapter number from the subsequent file, then had to save the file as a new project, then had to create a new mp3 that didn't have the same filename as one of the others, then finally, deleted all of the old files (but part of me is afraid I screwed something up that way.  We'll see).  

There was no file of me saying "Chapter 21," since I recorded Chapter 22 after inserting the new Chapter 10, so I guess I'll have to set up the mic to do that.  But I think it would've been easier just to record myself saying "Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, etc." than trying to copy and paste from one file to the other.

It seems that every one of these audiobooks is a longer process than the one before.  I just reached the point in the story where I was going to write "end of part one" and send the file to Big Anklevich (I wrote the story, ostensibly, for him), because it had gotten out of my control (it was supposed to be a short story), but in its 40K word novel form, I didn't add the Part One and Part Two stuff.  Maybe I still should.

Also, in Chapter 22, I refer to the main character of Brielle as only being fifteen.  That gave me pause.  A lot of the story is her dating a boy, going to prom, hanging out at the mall and parties with her friends, and losing her virginity.  Fifteen seems awfully young for all that.  But I know I'm going by my own life experience, and I never did any of that stuff at fifteen.  Girls mature faster than boys, and I'm sure girls in the 21st Century are dating and going to parties at twelve, but it still makes me a bit uncomfortable.**

I've complained to Biggie a time or ten about being taken out of books and stories when the characters are supposed to be children or teenagers, but they're being written by a middle-aged or old man, and it sounds nothing like children or teenagers (I wish I had written down the line of dialogue from "Lost & Found" by Orson Scott Card where I had to read it three times--once aloud--because it sounded like something no human would ever say, unless it was Professor Stephen Hawking while stoned).  But I do worry that my writing is increasingly becoming that way.

(normally, I avoid using pictures with copy protection like this, but this illustration was perfect)

You see, teenagers--real teenagers--are not smart, and do not have a bard's grasp on the language, and when you listen to how they actually talk, with their insipid slang and reliance on words like "lit" and "sick" and "shtoog," you discover pretty quickly that nobody wants to read a story in which teens talk like teens talk.  I may be annoying to read because I will sometimes put "uh" and "like" in my dialogue, but even then, it's toned way down from how the real McCoy communicates (and yes, I said all this last month in my Dawson's Creek post.  But I forgot until just now).

I have called or texted my niece to ask her what certain things mean, or how a teenager would phrase a certain thing today (I still rely too much on Eighties terms like "awesome" and "cool" and "nice" and "Reaganomics"), but often, she just plain doesn't know.  I think it's because she's actually read a book for pleasure.

In related news, Disney just hired a director for a live action remake of LILO & STITCH.  Guess they finally ran out of good ones to do over.***

Words Today: 826
Words In November: 11,299

*I did the math in my head, and, counting FREDDY VS. JASON, there were twelve F13 movies.  Only twelve?  Would've it have killed them to make a thirteenth?

**I'm sure I've told this story before, but during the shooting of SPIDER-MAN back in 2001, I played a student at Midtown High, and we shot the school scenes at a real high school (I think it might have been Dorsey High).  I had been playing a teenager for months by that point, despite being older than Betty White by then, and we arrived while school was still in session.  To see what actual teenagers looked like compared to us, who we'd gotten used to seeing as "high school age" was shocking, and some of the kids walking around the halls looked like elementary school students.  It was a bit of a wake up call, though I believe, Kirsten Dunst was still a bona fide teenager.

***Oh, quit your bawlin, it just ain't that good.  I've never understood LILO & STITCH's appeal.  Same as you, I saw it in the theater when it came out, was impressed by the animation quality and how catchy the Alan Menken songs were, but frankly never needed to see it again.  When people cite it among the Disney classics, I always know they're of a certain age, like the Prequel apologists, just little and impressionable when it was released, but appreciating it only because it represents their childhood. 
And yes, I was joking before, there weren't even any catchy Menken songs in it.