It's What Day Already?

Somehow it's December 9th. Somehow it's December. I shouldn't be surprised because of all the snow and ice on the ground. Writing has been good but slow. I go in spurts. I wrote a new short story, which I'm letting marinate for now, and I'm about 80 pages into the novel (91 or so if you count stuff I've generated - scraps of fabric I'll hopefully be able to use later) which I should be very happy about, considering. I'm in a thinking/considering/exploring phase and generally I don't get a lot of pages down during these periods. I don't outline, I discover things as I write and this is the downside of doing that: sometimes you hit a dead end and have to turn back and go the other way. Best to explore all paths, though.

I saw The Golden Compass yesterday. I was really looking forward to it, and it was entertaining in a general epic fantasy kind of way, but the script rushed through just about everything. It's far too talky (show don't tell is a good thing, sometimes). Major plot points come about either in asides or are left off the screen altogether (the film literally just ends - and despite having Lyra telegraph the next movie, it does not inspire the same narrative momentum or anticipation The Fellowship of the Ring did, surprising, considering how desperately New Line wants this to eumlate LOTR). Dakota Blue Richards, who plays Lyra, is a real find and carries the movie single handedly on her shoulders. David Craig and Nicole Kidman are fantastic, but basically have glorified cameos, Craig in particular. Eva Green pops up as a sexy ancient witch, but she's fleeting, too. They excised, ironically. all of the religious subtext that Pullman crafted into the book, leaving the film without the same urgency or certainty the books have. I only imagine this will get worse as the films go on, if they do, seeing how the trilogy only becomes more and more polemical toward organized religion.

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