Martian Victory Dance

So while my mind is going ten light years a minute, let's spit out some words.

Despite having a dance class this morning, I stayed up until three in the morning to finish a very important task: I finished reading A Wizard of Mars! Squeeeeeeeeee!! And it was so beautiful!

There was a lot less info dumping than in some earlier novels, and I love the relationship between the characters, and I love the complexity of the situation. Maybe it's just me, and I'm sure my brother and father would laugh their butts off at it since they like adult fiction and I'm prone to YA lit, but I thought the plot had wonderful side arcs to tie around the many layers of the main plot involving the Martian mystery. I didn't find it predictable at all until the point where you need to know what's happening and you can connect the pieces yourself. Yeah, I suspected a "Kit's in over his head" situation, but then again, that's sort of spelled out for you from the start. Any time a character is obsessed with something, it's typically not for the best. Or it is as long as you don't lose control, and the character will probably lose control. That's where the fun comes in (for the reader anyway.)

And thank you for FINALLY making happen what we all knew was coming and not doing it in an annoying fanfiction kind of way like J. K. Rowling. Once again, Diane Duane has proven herself to be my literary hero. I refuse to put such a long break on reading her books ever again, especially none of this starting and stopping for months at a time nonsense. Not cool, Brenna. Not cool.

Good lord, can you imagine the mess of screaming fangirl I would be if I ever met Diane Duane?
:-P

So now I'm overwhelmed with ideas and inspiration for my WIP and I want nothing more than to sit at my computer and type the day away. I just want to turn U:RS into a masterpiece, and I know it has a ways to go and I may just be dreaming, but I'm so inspired (and hyped up on endorphins after a great workout) that I want to go one track mind again and just type. Type type type type. Takka takka takka. Thank god for long weekends, huh?

But before I can do that, I just had a super intense and amazingly fun dance class, and now I feel I've earned sushi in the city with my parents so I need to shower, dress and catch a bus.

To the MSWord fu--wait. To the shower! Ho!

Brenna R. vs. The World

I have good news, great news, and more good news. But first, a quick rant.

To those who say Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a good movie, please let me pick your brain apart because I MUST know what you saw that I didn't. The moment I found out it was a movie based on a comic book, I immediately stole the books from my mom and read them. They were stupidly hilarious. Really short, fun reads. I planned to be in the theatre Friday morning to see the movie. Then I remembered something: Michael Cera was going to play Scott Pilgrim!

First failure. Michael Cera is NOT Scott Pilgrim. Where Scott Pilgrim is a cool loser, Cera is just a plain loser. I give him credit for branching out from the ridiculous films he got caught up in as a type cast actor, but this was just wrong. However, I was very excited to see what these people would make of the comics apart from Cera, so I went anyway. Six bucks is not big deal.

The movie itself was the second failure. It tried to crush all six volumes of the comic books into one two hour movie. It switched up where certain things happened for NO reason whatsoever. Instead of using the scenes properly, they also decided to just add their own scenes instead of going by the comics. The characters didn't look the proper ages. Two years pass in the comic where as like, a week passes in the movie. Ramona was way too emo and not nearly enough cool. Kim Pine didn't look nearly cool enough for her character. Young Neil was rarely called "Young Neil" throughout the movie, which makes a failure of a great moment later on.

Do you see where I'm getting at? Maybe not if you haven't read the comics, which I highly recommend you do. But don't see the movie. It was bad. Plain and simple. I tried to enjoy it for a movie's sake. Could not. Even if I didn't read the novel, where they threw in a certain fight was just so random that my brain flinched. It's like that scene if you've seen The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li where the epic final battle is about to ensue, and out of nowhere, the Chinese girl springs in for her own strike. Believe me, that isn't a spoiler. It's a heads up so your brain doesn't flinch too. See that movie. It's cute, and you'll understand what I mean by random scenes.

However, I will give the Scott Pilgrim cast and crew one thing. Some of their character portrayals were phenomenal. Julie Powers: Amazing! Wallace Wells: Fantastic! Kim Pine's attitude: Pretty great. The rest was basically crap. Period. The end.

Scott Pilgrim movie, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now for something completely different.

The good news: I was asked to sign on as stage manager after volunteering to just do backstage work for a friend's play. We worked together in a One Act Festival back in June and became friends on Facebook, so I saw his status asking for help. Now I'm very glad I didn't let shyness get the best of me. And the cast is so nice. And I get a little role! I'm expecting a great time.

The great news: Yesterday, I finished writing the next chapter of U:RS. It was so exciting! The chapter is awesome (for a first rough draft, of course), and I think it's well spaced with the action. And I got it under 10K words, which was the goal. Now there are approximately three chapters left. I'm on the final lap! Yes! I'm a little worried about the next chapter because it was probably originally more than one chapter, and I feel like there may be too much action. Crisis points are fine for one chapter. Build up is good. This may have a few too many big rises, steady falls, and then another big rise, you know? I guess we'll see how it goes.

And the last good news: I took a bad step off the stage last night, and I sprained my ankle.

"Did she just say spraining her ankle was...good news?" asked the reader, narrowing his/her eyes at the screen and feeling yet another need to back away and close the browser.

Yes, I did.

Yeah, it hurts, and yeah, it's annoying to limp around and worry that I may not get to keep the mini role I was appointed or if I'll be able to audition in a few weeks, but on the bright side, I now know what it feels like to sprain an ankle. I've never done it before, and I can now say I have. If I ever have to write about a character who has a sprain, I'll know exactly what to write. And wouldn't you know I have a character who just so happens to have sprained his ankle (in a fairly epic way, by the way. Haha!) so this information has come in handy.

Besides, it's better than moping about it, right? For a cynic such as myself, I think that's a pretty darn good outlook. And you know what else it means? It means I'll keep off my leg, trapping myself in my bedroom, and I won't be able to binge eat. Being forced out of the kitchen is NEVER a bad thing for me. ;)

Now that I got all that off my chest, it's back to the MSWord Futon. Thankfully I thought of a rather brilliant way to prop my leg up so I can stay near the desk. Sometimes my brilliance scares me. Haha! As if.