Cue Indiana Jones Music ...

This weekend a friend headed up a silent auction for the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, which is a daycare/school where children of government employees and others who work downtown can send their young children to learn about art history and natural history when they're as young as infants. Talk about stimulating the brain! My friend's child is 2 and is learning about Georgia O'Keeffe and Jackson Pollock. I never learned about them until college. Unbelievable!

Well, I bid on and won what I really wanted. A behind-the-scenes tour of the National Museum of Natural History's collections. Whoo-hoo! (Yes, I am a geek.) I'm so excited!!! I'm hoping that I get to touch something cool. I love touching artifacts in museums, except the stinky stuff or the bugs. Maybe I can find out where they've stored the Ark of the Covenant ... oh, wait ... that was just a movie. Riiiight!!! :P

I read the Nanny Diaries last week. Great book! I highly recommend it. I love books that give a glimpse into totally different lives than my own. This book depicts how shallow and self-centered some people can be when they have everything we think would make someone happy, but it doesn't. They live in a world all their own—removed from reality so they're making their own moral rules/excuses—and unfortunately it's the kids who suffer most, since they become just another one of their parents' accessories to be brought out then tossed aside as the mood strikes like a pair of Gucci flats. The book was a little bit of a downer at the end. I'll quote one reviewer who said that it shows how being skinny and having a lot of money doesn't make you happy.

And here I thought that was the American dream. :)

Albums

Music has totally been on my mind lately. In fact, Keep On Keeping On keeps replaying in my mind.

Don't ask.

When I was listening to some tunes this week during work, I thought about some albums (yeah, definitely dating myself with this word) that have stood the test of time for me. So I made a list of my top ten favorite albums ... I mean ... CDs that I can still listen to all the way through and enjoy all the songs even today. I limited myself to stuff I listened to in high school and college so here goes in no particular order (drum roll please):

1. In Utero and Nevermind—Nirvana
2. Jagged Little Pill—Alanis Morissette
3. Pretty Hate Machine—Nine Inch Nails
4. Substance and Technique—New Order
5. Standing on the Beach (The Singles)—The Cure
6. Violent Femmes—Violent Femmes
7. License to Ill (sort of cheesy but fun) and Paul's Boutique—Beastie Boys (though I pretty much love all their music)
8. The Best of the Doors—The Doors (okay, so it's a compliation, but it got me hooked on their music)
9. Sergeant Peppers—The Beatles
10. Core—Stone Temple Pilots

Runners up included Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Stand By Me soundtrack, Houses of the Holy, Superunknown (Soundgarden), Danzig II: Lucifuge, Mother's Milk (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Sublime, and Tragic Kingdom (No Doubt)—though, to be fair, I think the last two came out after I left college.

Any album ... I mean ... CDs are your all-time favs?

Weekend Blur

Total blur of a weekend. Was going ever since Friday, but with lots of fun stuffs. Watched Casino Royale again over a friend's house. Love, love the movie. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a mega-Bond fan. And Daniel Craig did an excellent job. In fact, I bought the movie so I can watch again and again ...

Saw 300 on Sunday night. Definitely a movie to see on the big screen. Thought it was very well done. Loved the look and feel of it. Funny that so many people panned it and called it violent. Hello ... it's a war movie. It's not happy-fun-Bunny-hops-through-forest kind of story. If you want that, rent Disney. But, honestly, maybe I'm getting a little jaded when it comes to violence. Scary. Anyway, I kept joking with my friend because in a review I'd read, it had mentioned how lots of women were giving the movie great feedback. The writer attributed it to the strong Queen Gorgo, Leonidas's wife, who was a really wonderful, kick-butt female lead. Ummm ... hmmm ... I guess it couldn't have been because of the great legs, chiseled abs, and fine displays of masculinity that took up the screen about 95% of the time. I asked my friend, "there were women in the film? Huh, I didn't really notice ..". :P

If you aren't familiar with the story, it's of the Spartan army of 300 which were able to hold back thousands of Persians from entering farther into Greece. It's based on a true story of the Battle of Thermopylae and is amazing how this small group, through ingenius war tactics and just great stamina and strength, could defeat so many soldiers. Definitely an inspiring tale of those who would give up their lives to save their country and freedom from conquerors. King Leonidas knew he was going to certain death to fight this battle so he only took 300 soldiers who had sons left at home to care and provide for their wives. According to Herodotus, Leonidas' wife Gorgo asked him what she should do when he was gone. He responded "marry a good man, bear good children, and live a good life."

Kind of sad ... isn't it?

Life Soundtrack

Every story that I write has a soundtrack or at least one song that plays in my head costantly as I write or while I'm thinking of scenes. I can't listen to anything, let alone music, while I'm writing. I'm sort of like Jack from The Shining, when you hear me clicking on the keyboard leave me the hell alone.

Most of the time, the song that sticks with me while I'm writing embodies the overall theme. Such as for Dark Earth, I kept listening to (and replaying in my mind) the Rolling Stones You Can't Always Get What You Want.In fact, one of my characters references it in the story. My last story had Nine Inch Nails and some Danzig tones. My superheroes one hasn't hit me, yet. However, my alternative time travel story—the one that keeps needling me despite my best efforts to suppress it—has Alanis's You Oughta Know and Psychedelic Furs Pretty in Pink. How these tunes work into a timetravel romance set in the Middle Ages, well, you just have to read it to find out. Hopefully, within the next year I'll have that one done. Ack!

Soundtracks are important to set the scene and mood for stories, especially movies. Tarentino soundtracks are some of the best out there. I have several of them. A friend of mine who writes scripts, creates his own soundtracks for his stories. Sometimes he even composes his own music to set the mood. Whenever I read over his scripts he burns a CD of the music and tells me to listen to it as I read.

This got me thinking about what would be the soundtrack for my life? What songs inspired me or touched me throughout my life somehow? What music resounded with that time in my life so when I listen to it I'm transported to what it felt like to be that age again?

So here's mine:

Elementary School: My mom and grandmother contstantly had the oldies station on, so I grew up listening to sounds from the 40s-60s, especially Motown. Also, lots of Broadway tunes. My early years would play out something like this:

• Respect, Aretha Franklin
• Hit the Road Jack, Ray Charles
• Bernies Tune (I have no idea who sang this but it was old)
  
• Rockin Robin
• Grease soundtrack (my friend Christina had blonde hair so she always got to be Sandy and I had to be everyone else ... no comment)
• Physical, Oliva Newton-John (she was the coolest!)
• Tide is High, Blondie
  

Middle School: Okay, so I didn't have the greatest tastes in Middle School but I was feeling my way around music to see what I liked.

• Thriller, Michael Jackson (I listened to this album over and over and over again.)
• Another One Bites the Dust, Queen
• Micky, Toni Basil
• California Girls and Just a Giggolo, David Lee Roth (My friends and I entered a talent show in 7th grade where we sang California Boys. I changed the lyrics to read "I dig those OP shorts, I'm wide-eyed for ... " Yes, I was a dork.)
• Here We Go Again, White Snake
• Manic Monday and Walk Like an Egyptian, The Bangles
  
• Goodbye to Romance, Ozzy Osbourne (I was cynical at a young age.)
• Stand By Me sountrack (because you never have the same kind of friendships as you did in the 8th grade)
• Cum on Feel the Noize, Quiet Riot
  

High School: I started breaking out of the mold in high school and listening to some different tunes and hanging with a different crowd. I found I liked boys who were more alternative (skaters, sufers, club guys) than the "grits" (metal heads) as my neighborhood friends dated, so I was a bit of an outcast. But I really came into my love of classic rock during this period.

• Strangelove, Depeche Mode
• Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order
• Dreaming, OMD
• People are Strange, The Doors (and Echo and the Bunnymen cover)
• With a Little Help from My Friends, The Beatles
• Brass Monkey, The Beastie Boys
• Dancing with Myself, Billy Idol
• Standing on the Beach, The Cure
• Blister in the Sun, Violent Femmes
• Joy and Pain, Rob Base and DJ Easy Rock
• Paid in Full, Eric B. and Rakim
• Down in It, Nine Inch Nails
• Rock and Roll, Led Zeppelin
• Epic, Faith No More
  

College was pretty much a mix of the Grunge scene for me which started when I was in my last year of high school. Well ... it hit my area around that time, but I know it started way before that. Those years embodied a lot of the above plus Nirvana, STP, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden as well as lots and lots of club music and acid rock like Lords of Acid. That's when I started going to Raves and hitting the club scene. Ahhh ... to be young again.

Did you ever give a thought to what your life's soundtrack would be like?

Arrrgghhhh!

I have time to write. I'm in between jobs with a tsunami of work threating me on the horizon. Next week will probably be busy if everything hits like it's threatening. I have all day today and had part of the day yesterday to write and begin my new story. So why am I staring at a blank screen? Whay am I reading over old stories for inspiration? Why did I last night read the first couple chapters of Pride and Prejudice so I could get to the part where Darcy realizes he's fallen in love with Elizabeth? I'm avoiding like a plague writing. I'm angry, frustrated, about to tear out my hair. I'm considering two stories to write. I want to do my superheroes story. I know this will be fairly fast because not too much research is involved. But I really want to work on my timetravel but I'll have to devote mega-time to researching England in the Middle Ages. Arrggghh!!!!

Good news on Dark Earth. I heard from two critque partners who are enjoying the new story. One of them had read it in one sitting when she had planned to read it over the course of a few weeks. The best compliment someone can give on your writing. I guess I'm also dreading all the edits to Dark Earth that will have to be done before I can send it off. I'm so close and can see the finish line, but there's a lot of boulders still in my way and I'm not looking forward to climbing them and skinning my knees and bruising my body anymore. But that's the sacrifices we all make to write. The internal knocks and scrapes and cuts from traversing the rough terrain on the way to a completed story and, fingers crossed, publication.

Maybe that's why I'm avoiding the new story. I've been down this path before and already I'm encountering pitfalls and alligators. My husband liked the first person narrative rather than the third person I'm doing for the superheroes tale. I guess that's the other issue. I need to decide what I think will work best before I start. And I'm a Libra. Indecision is our biggest hurdle to overcome and mine is blocking the whole path and I can't see the top of it to figure out how to climb it.

I'm hopeless. Completely hopeless.

What If

I have some non-writer friends who always ask how I get my ideas. Mostly, my friends see me as a friendly, unassuming person and don't understand why I write such dark stories. I know most writers cringe when they get asked this question or just say the ideas come to them. For me, story ideas occur to me in two ways: dreams and "what if" scenarios. I have really vivid, sometimes scary and sometimes weird dreams. I've kept a dream journal and some dreams have morphed into stories. The second "what if" scenario comes out of boredom or just strikes me at any given time. I could be in the bowling alley and wonder: What if a head rolled up from the return ball shute? What if a body was set up at the end of the lane instead of pins? What if the world disappeared outside leaving behind those in the bowling alley? How would they react? What kind of characters would I have?

What if you were channelling actual people when you were writing? And somehow you controlled their lives with every click of the keyboard? That's the premise behind Stranger Than Fiction starring Will Farrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. Harold keeps hearing a female voice describing his actions and thoughts, then dictating what is going to happen next with an ominous prediction of his "imminent" death. Hoffman tries to help Farrell by deciphering whether he's in a comedy or a tragedy because that will determine whether he will, in fact, die. It is a unique premise and one that is pulled off with no need for explaining why this had happened to Harold and having the other characters come to accept it without much convincing. In one scene, Karen (Thompson), who is notorious for killing all her heroes and heroines in the end, bemoans "how many real people have I killed?" One of my favorite scenes, as a writer, is Karen sitting with her frustrated assistant Penny (Latifah) near a bridge in the pouring rain. Penny asked why Karen is not inside writing, but Karen replies that is working on her story. She's visualizing her next scene wondering how to kill her hero and if the bridge would work. So she sits there and stares at the bridge, playing out scenarios in her mind and wondering what if ...

Go rent Stranger than Fiction. Maybe it'll start your mind wondering "what if."

So there you have it. Where my ideas come from. The only problem is that usually I come up with the scene first then work the characters in later. That's what happened with my latest superheroes story. My husband trashed the first few pages as being irrelevant and not sucking him in. So back to the drawing board to flush out my characters before I rewrite the scene. I need to get back to basics.

Movies

I'm a big movie fan. I love to watch movies. I love the escape and picking apart scenes. Right now I'm mid-way through Story and it references several well-known movies which I've never seen. With my husband out of town again, I rented 4 movies, two of which were talked about in Story: Chinatown and Platoon. When I was reading the sample scene from Chinatown in Story, the third draft was dated literally on my birthday, October 9, 1973. Cool! While I was being born, a great story was coming to fruition. So, of course, I had to rent this. I'm midway through it right now. I began watching it after Heroes last night and have found that I can't stay up like a used to. Ugh! So I'll have to report what I've learned from this and the other movies that I rented during my bachlorette week. However, I did see two awesome movies this weekend: The Departed and Stranger Than Fiction. I'll talk about The Departed in this blog.

The Departed: Gangster movies always fascinate me. Maybe it's the tough personas. The gritty action scenes. The psychology behind what it would take for someone to choose that way of life. To not give a damn about killing someone if it means securing your business and lifestyle. This movie chronicles two cops Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) and Colin Sullivan (Damon) as they work to take down Irish mob boss Frank Costello (played with fiendish delight by Nicholson). The conflict is set up at the very beginning when we are shown that clean-cut Sullivan is the double-agent groomed by Costello to be a cop, who has risen through the ranks to work on the state police's force trying to build a case against Costello. Costigan is a kid from a family of low-level thugs and thieves, who's trying to do the right thing by joing the police force. Because of his family's criminal background and links to Costello, Costigan is asked to infiltrate Costello's gang by becoming a member and reporting back to the police on his actions. Sullivan knows the police have rats planted inside Costello's gang but only the captain and his partner know their identities and are refusing to share them because they know there is a mole planted on their police force. The beauty of this movie is the psychological impact of each character's choices and their job. Costigan is driven to almost over the edge by trying to do the right thing as a cop, yet go along with Costello's crimes to stay close and keep up his thug appearance, all the while knowing that it's a matter of time before they realize he's a rat. Sullivan is under pressure from Costello to find out the names of the rats and is fighting to keep his boy scout persona, but this duplexity is causing him to unravel emotionally and physically (he can't perform for his girlfriend). Add to it that Costello knows there are rats in his group, so he becomes paranoid, not knowing whom he can trust. This is the set up for the movie in the very beginning. With f-bombs dropping and disturbing violence mixed into this tense bizarre crime triangle, Scorsese delivers a movie that keeps you on the edge until the very last bullet is shot.

Side of Pulp Please

I love Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Love their movies. Love the soundtracks, a great mixture of old and odd tracks which really set the feel of his movies (I have Kill Bill Vol. 1 in my car). Just love the mixture of camp with a modern twist, though sometimes I think that I'm a little twisted for really enjoying their movies which tend to be ... oh ... a smidge violent. My husband doesn't like the dialogue in Tarantino movies but I love that the best. It's fun. It's different. It's on the edge. Yeah, sometimes it's stuff that no one would say. But most of it is normal conversation boiled down to the bare minimum and put in a scene which is anything but normal (take the foot massage conversation in Pulp Fiction or Mr. Pink's monologue on how he doesn't tip). The latest movie is Grindhouse coming out on April 6. Its actually two movies in one: Planet Terror (Rodriguez) and Death Proof (Tarantino). Totally gritty look and feel. And the best part ... Rose McGowan is an amputee missing a leg which she replaces with a machinegun and proceeds to blow everyone away. How cool is that!?!

Yes, I'm a total dork.

If I could be in any movie, I'd love to be in a Tarantino film or be a James Bond girl. Ah, to have a pipe dream. Anyone have a favorite director? Anyone wish they could be in certain movies?

Kill Bill favorite quotes:

O-Ren Ishii: You didn't think it was gonna be that easy, did you?
The Bride: You know, for a second there, yeah, I kinda did.
O-Ren Ishii: Silly rabbit. Trix are for kids.

_____


The Bride: As I said before, I've allowed you to keep your wicked life for two reasons. And the second reason is so you can tell him in person everything that happened here tonight. I want him to witness the extent of my mercy by witnessing your deformed body. I want you to tell him all the information you just told me. I want him to know what I know. I want him to know I want him to know. And I want them all to know they'll all soon be as dead as O-Ren.