7 Quick Takes Vol. 45

Today hosted by This Ain't the Lyceum

1.     The fact that most friend and family blogs have been all-but silent lately has made me feel better about my own lack of blogging discipline. Alas; my friend E.G. Norton (a very intelligent and talented writer whom you should totally check out) has zombified her blog and started writing again, which means I can’t hide behind peer pressure any longer. Okay, that actually had nothing to do with my actually having posts lately, but it was a chance to give her a shout-out.

2.     Anyway, I’m feeling much better this week than I was last week. This may not be unrelated to the fact that I’ve started a 54 day Rosary novena. It’s really wonderful how that soothes the soul and calms the mind.

3.     This week I watched The Tale of Despereaux on Netflix. It was really surprisingly bad. I love the premise, and there are a lot of good ideas in it, but the script kind of sucks: the story doesn’t flow well, key character decisions have no discernable motivation, relationships are given no real weight or set-up, some characters show up, have no impact on the story whatsoever, and then drop out, and the timeline of the climax makes no sense: one series of events seems to take, at most, a couple minutes, while a parallel series must take more like a half hour at minimum. And then there’s the fact that the titular hero really has very little impact on his own story: most of the plot is moved along by the rat, Roscuro, who is both a more active and more engaging character (and probably has more screen time).  A more accurate title would have been The Tale of Roscuro, in which Despereaux Played Some  Part that we Haven’t Quite Figured Out Yet. It’s sad, because I really wanted to like the movie and expected to like it: a swashbuckling mouse who strives to live the ideals of chivalry is a really great idea! It was the execution that fell almost completely flat. It made me interested in reading the book, because I can’t imagine the book was this heavily flawed.

Final Rating: 2/5 (and believe me, that hurts me more than you).

4.     Writing away at my Nanowrimo book: I’m up to 32,000+ words now, and am making plans to spend an unhealthy amount of time writing this weekend. The trouble is, I’ve still got one or two major plot hurdles to get over before the end, which I haven’t quite come up with a strategy for. Basically…well, I need to have my hero learn something that I’m specifically setting up that no one could possibly know, and give him a reason to do something of which there is no immediately apparent need, and which will lead to complications, but not make it look like the hero’s fault. Okay, never mind all that. The point is, it’s moving fairly well.

5.     Earlier this week I was reading an article discussing the works of H.P. Lovecraft and, well, my brain started working (as it sometimes does) on the composition of the name and produced a whole series of ‘Lovecraft’ jokes. My favorite of which ended up on my Facebook page today:

Blizzard Entertainment presents "World of Lovecraft."
Most unfortunately, it has nothing to do with either the author or his works.
It's also been banned in 32 different countries.

                 

6.     It’s about this point that I start to run out of 7 Quick Take ideas. I’m a fairly private person, so I discard most potential subjects about my own life. That, and most of the time I don’t really have much to say about them. But saying that has gotten me to my ending quote! So hah!

7.     Quote of the Week:

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words: ‘Wait and Hope’”
-Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

/Craft -> Love

P.S. I apologize to anyone coming here from This Ain't the Lyceum who saw the 'Crafting Love' subtitle and expected something heartwarming.