July Sweeps - Day 520

This was a nice, lazy day, with not a great deal of work (I left that for the end of the day) and nothing to ship (no post on federal holidays).  I don't know if I'll manage today.  I just don't feel like writing.  Big deal, I know, but I got the cover art back from Big today for "Waffle Iron Man," and I made it a priority to get the story published (it was a goal for April, May, and June, I believe).  In trying to figure out the main character's name, I discovered that the text file on my computer was incomplete for some reason, once again having reverted to an earlier draft, or the program crashing before I could incorporate the final changes on the pass I did when recording the audio version.

Luckily, I had that audio version all edited (though I discovered two mistakes in reviewing it), and I was able to sit down and listen to it, typing in all the gaps in the final draft.  That ended up taking a crazy long time, though, partly because I found even more things I wanted to change, but realized they would only be in the text version (since the audio was recorded--and edited--months ago).

Oh, and here's the cover art, with text by Big Anklevich, that I ended up going with:

Finally, I've achieved one of those niggling goals that I was too lazy to tackle.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Sit-ups In July: 522

I thought about cover art for the next Lara Demming story, "Made Just For You," which isn't quite ready to go, but ought to be soon.  I had a mock-up I had created back in March, that sucks quite a bit, but also shows what I had in mind:

I knew then--and still do--exactly what I wanted: a mushroom, very much like the one I used in the first story's art*, as a Christmas ornament on a tree.  And barring that, any mushroom ornament, if such a thing existed.

I found several that I liked, but none that I loved.  What do you think of these?

Then I got it into my head that, if not an ornament, I could maybe use a mushroom snowglobe (there is a reference to a snowglobe in the story early on).  I found three different photos of the same snowglobe, all of which were fine, but I'd much rather they had been blue mushrooms.

This I did instead of writing today, and I dunno, it doesn't really bother me.  

I also found this excellent shot of a blue shroom, in what appears to be a much more fatalistic image for a story:

So, I have utterly failed with the writing today.  So far, I only have "Lara" typed, which is only one word (I did a couple of rewritten lines earlier, but I forgot to do a word count for them, so I don't think they count at all).  

Push-ups Today: 66
Push-ups In July: 559

There was some sad news out of Hollywood today.  Famed director Richard Donner passed away, at the venerable age of 91.  

Donner was one of my favorite directors, responsible for THE OMEN, the LETHAL WEAPON series, THE GOONIES, MAVERICK (1994), several classic "Twilight Zone" episodes, and as director of one and a half Superman films, was responsible for the best comic book movie of all time, at least until 2008.

I had the chance, in 2001, to meet Donner, at a signing for the DVD release of SUPERMAN (1978) at a laser disc store in Burbank.  But I was working on the series "Boston Public" at the time, playing a graduating high school student, complete with cap and gown.  As the day went on (and on, and on), I started to worry we would not be wrapped in time to get all the way up from the Torrance high school we were shooting at to Burbank.  And indeed, the shoot went long, which meant a check for the overtime, but also that I missed the signing entirely.

Luckily, Donner (and his wife Lauren) did a signing a couple of years later to promote the release of TIMELINE, and I bought a VIP ticket for that, to ensure that I'd actually get to meet him.  I got him to sign my copy of SUPERMAN, and shake his hand, and that was nice (since I had always regretted missing the 2001 signing, even though it was fun to graduate from school again).

Big and I saw Donner again in 2006, when he was at San Diego Comic-Con, promoting his director's edition of SUPERMAN II (which was a sort of precursor to this year's unbelievably expensive Snyder Cut of JUSTICE LEAGUE, except that they spent very little money on it).    Donner was one of the great directors, and I will always be saddened that the Superman franchise was taken away from him, especially as he and Tom Mankiewicz had said they'd be happy to make Superman movies for the rest of their lives (Donner once said he'd told Warner Brothers he'd be willing to do ten films for them, as long as they gave him creative freedom to do what he wanted--and that's a real loss). 

Words Today: 618
Words In July: 4471

*It's blue, but I had forgotten that it was actually a yellow shroom that I MADE blue, and not 100% successfully.  In my mind, there would be a blue mushroom on the art for every one of the "Lara and the Witch" stories.