Dire

June 5

Oof. I was beginning to think I wouldn't have time to write a journal entry before leaving for Rio Hondo, but here I am. I've spent the past few days furiously (ha!) working on my Fury story (titled "Dirae" for the moment, though maybe my fellow Rio Hondans will have better ideas for the title). It's about 8,000 words long, around 6,000 of that written on Monday and Tuesday nights. On Wednesday night I polished it, cut out some of the more obvious deadwood, and fixed what typos I noticed. This morning I did a last read-through and sent it off, so the workshoppers can read it before next week, if they're so inclined. Wish me luck. I hope the story doesn't suck overmuch. I've already read a couple of stories from other participants, and damn, they're good.

Got the August issue of Realms of Fantasy today (marking the one-year anniversary of my first appearance in that magazine! Crazy! Seems much more recent than that!). It includes my story "Down with the Lizards and the Bees". Probably my least favorite illustration of all the ones I've gotten; it's not bad, not at all, I just don't like it as much as I've liked the others. The train looks like a BART train, the hooks inside look like hooks of bone, the monitor lizards look like monitor lizards, the petrified trees look like petrified trees -- I can't complain. Maybe it's just that it's such a dark picture... but then, it's a dark story, so I guess that's fine. Nice typography on the title, though. And the tagline they wrote for the story is actually pretty good, and accurate -- "How far would you go for love? To the Styx and beyond? Okay, but don't forget to remember what you're giving up." I can't remember if I mention the Styx in the story (the Lethe, maybe), but it's in the spirit of things, and I don't object.

The best illustration in the issue is for Sarah Prineas's "Seamstress" (love that Lori Koefoed! The illo she did for "Fable from a Cage" is my favorite). I met Sarah at Wiscon, and look forward to reading her story.

Hmm. You'd think I'd have more to say, but it's been an uneventful few days, mostly spent tapping away at the computer. There hasn't been a lot of movement on the writing front, apart from my working on "Dirae". Heather and I have been snuggling and shagging and hanging out as much as possible, since we're spending a week apart -- we haven't spent even a night apart since I moved in two years ago. I made a couple of big casseroles on Monday -- one with meat, one vegetarian -- and we've been noshing on those all week. Tonight we went out for sushi, whoo! Because it seemed like we should have sushi together before I go away for a week. We've been watching season 4 of Sex and the City on DVD. My continuing enjoyment of that show rather bewilders me... it seems like the sort of program I would utterly disdain, you know? But I find it funny and even, sometimes, affecting. At least when it's not about shoes.

Hmm. I'll probably try to update before I head to Rio Hondo on Sunday. How did it get to be June already? I mean, really? It's halfway through 2003 already! Gah!

Here's fair warning -- the rest of this entry is yet more ranting about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie, so if you're bored senseless by the subject (as Heather says she is, reasonably enough), you needn't read on...

At this point, I haven't read anything in the new Realms but the article about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film. Which, alas, got me all het up about the subject again. In the article, the screenwriter (who's done some comic writing, though I've not read his work) tries to defend his adaptation choices in the film, and professes his love for the source materials and for the work of Alan Moore; he's clearly aware of the objections that fans of the comic might have to his script. Okay, I can respect that. Then he says that Tom Sawyer comes from the same time period as the other characters (which is only off by 50 years or so, but I'm a forgiving man, we'll let that pass), and he further says that "Nemo actually means 'no one' in Hindi." And that's the point where I said "Oh! He's a moron!"

The screenwriter says a few other things that suggest he hasn't actually read the source material (20,000 Leagues, the Quartermain novels, etc.), but only has the sort of "I've seen the movies based on the books, and read Moore's comics" level of familiarity with them. Which is perfectly fine -- if you're not the &$*#*$&$ screenwriter! Before writing the screenplay, he should have read Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Portrait of Dorian Grey, all of it, as well as the Moore comics! Well, he should've done that if he actually gave a damn about making it a good movie.

At least Nemo is played by an Indian in the movie; good, since he's Indian in the comic. The director (who is not the same person who wrote the script, mind you -- I've shifted the target of my complaints, now) makes out that he's correcting a great racist injustice by having Nemo be Indian, when he was "inaccurately" cast as a caucasian in the 20K Leagues movie. As anyone who's actually read the source material knows, Nemo is not described as being Indian in 20,000 Leagues -- he's very clearly described as a big strapping white guy. It's only in the sequel, The Mysterious Island, that Verne says Nemo is an Indian (having changed his mind, apparently, which is his prerogative -- unless the confusion comes from translation problems, which is not inconceivable, since most Verne translations have been slapdash at best) and gives us some of the character's background. Moore chose to go with the Mysterious Island stuff and make Nemo Indian in the comics, which is more interesting in many ways, and I like it, but the director is pretending to a level of knowledge he clearly lacks.

Okay, I'll stop before I begin frothing at the mouth. It's a semi-interesting article, though. Sounds like it'll be a beautiful film. The director cautions fans to be prepared for it to diverge radically from the comic, and says (in effect) that if you go in with low expectations in that regard, it should be an enjoyable film. I doubt I'll be able to manage that level of disengagement -- as I've said before, I'm too attached to the comic. I'm going to be Annoying Internet Loser Critic-Boy after I see the movie, I suspect. I don't know why I let myself get so worked up.

Maybe I should go the Alan Moore route and just not even see the movie (I understand he still hasn't seen From Hell). Moore has the attitude toward having his works adapted for the screen that I always thought I would have -- "You want to make it into a movie? Cool! Give me some money! Bye!" But in examining my own reactions to this League adaptation -- which is just an adaptation of something I like a lot, not something I'm attached to or invested in, as I am with my own stories -- I wonder if I'd actually be so laissez-faire. I suspect now that I'd be more like Orson Scott Card. I mean, there would have been an Ender's Game movie years ago if Scott weren't so determined to see the film done right. Which doesn't mean slavishly following the book; I've heard Scott talk a lot about the structural and content-related changes that would have to be made to transform the book into a movie, and they're considerable. But doing it right does mean not making Ender into a 16-year-old with a love interest, which is what the studios wanted to do. And that's the sort of ripping-the-heart-out they're doing to Moore's comic -- making Mina an ass-kicking vampire, making Quartermain the leader, getting rid of Fu Manchu (Okay, okay, that's fine -- but why invent some new villain? Why not use Moriarty as the uber-villain? Or, hell, any of the other many actual Victorian-literature villains? Why not be true to the spirit of the comic? Would that be so hard?), bringing in Tom Sawyer... grr. I don't even mind the addition of Dorian Grey, as I've said -- that's in the spirit of the comic, after all. It's all the places where the filmmakers stomp all over the fundamental soul of the comics that upset me.

And I've officially spent enough words on this subject, now. At least until after I see the film. Unless I decide not to see it at all. But sometimes it's fun to get upset and turn into a raving internet geek-boy, right? Sorry y'all had to endure it.

Words written since February 1, 2003: 63,800

Words written since last entry:
6,000

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