narnia

My anticipation for the Narnia movie is tainted with a touch of sadness. There is much to look forward to- if they've kept true to the book we will be in for a wonderful adventure. I read that the director deliberately did not let Georgie Henley (Lucy) see "Narnia" until she was meant to in the movie- that is, when she steps out of the wardrobe into the magical snow land.

my sadness: it's a book. maybe we shouldn't be remaking these books into movies. i remember how my imagination was awakened when i read the novel. Narnia is so vivid in my mind. It's not that i'm afraid that image will clash with that in the movie- lord of the rings taught me that there are talented, smart people out there that really "get" the books. rather, i feel something is lost when a child's Narnia is not the one imagined from the book, but images from a movie.

Narnia is incarnated in the reader's mind, and each reader will have a slightly different interpretation of the country and the characters. This is where the magic happens, where we learn and feel the characters. An intimate and unique bond forms between the reader and the book. When images are fed to us through a movie, we lose the opportunity to form that bond. Our imaginations are not stirred in the same way, and the Narnia we see is the same as the one in the mind of the person sitting next to us.

So I will echo the words of a friend of mine: "Books are meant to be books."

Not all books, perhaps, should be made into movies.

old media extinction

Interesting commentary from Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watchers:<"http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/11/what_happens_if.php">What happens if the old media dies too soon? The urgent need for solid online news media business models

It's depressing to hear his words- here I am, about to step into the print world, which Foremski predicts is changing, and failing, at a much faster rate than previously thought.

The reason for this, he says, is the media's reliance on the Old Business Model. Now, Formeski is saying there may not be adequate time for a new business model to be created, at least, not at the rate we're moving.

On the other hand, he counters an idea I have been afraid of for a while, that old media will simply die because there is no need for it:

"What happens if the old media dies before the new media learns to walk is a crucial question because the media, in all its forms, is the forum in which societies think things through. Media is how the world thinks about important problems and finds solutions."

And, yay! , he sees a need for fulltime journalists:

"Can the Blogosphere take the place of the old media? Only to a small extent, and that is because quality journalism is difficult to do, it has to be done daily, hourly, minute by minute as big news stories break. And 99.999 per cent of the blogosphere has a day job that is not in media."

The trick, he says, is finding a business model that can compete with Google, which he is will be working on. Exciting times, these. And scary.

fiction and all the other stuff

my mind rebels, pleading and demanding in turns that i write fiction. i have a crime story to write but all i can think about are my poor characters stranded in a winter world. i long to join them there, to show them the way, to help them discover their fates.

sometimes i'll reward myself- once i complete an article i allow myself to write a page or two of fiction, a juicy morsel to keep me going.

it's nice to know that i haven't lost it, despite cramming my mind into the ladder-like structure of a newspaper story. if anything, i think my fiction writing has improved because of it. i see things more clearly, more directly. i know where i want to take a story. i find it invigorating to strip something down to its skeleton. then, you can choose what you add carefully and with purpose.

the sound of music (not!)

the worst thing about recording interview is not that you are stuck for a couple hours re-listening to the recording but that you have to hear your own voice.

bleah

procrastination conquered

(at least for tonight)

I'll remind myself of this moment in the future, when I am once again trapped in the vise grip of procrastination.

It can be done, I'll say to myself. You can write 1200 words, you can pull together a hopeless collection of facts and ideas and form a coherent, halfway decent article.

It's a skill I've had to develop at the Sentinel. I get an assignment in the morning- the last two mornings i've been sent down to the courthouse. I report on it, and then I have to write it by 4:30 pm. Usually I'm not done reporting until 1 pm or 2. That leaves only 2 or 3 hours to write. Sometimes I might be assigned something else, too. It might seem like a lot, but it's not, especially when you sit there sweating bullets thinking, how the heck am I going to start this thing?

Well, the trick for me is to just sit down and write it. What is this story about? It's about some guy who tried to have his wife murdered. So I write that. No clever puns, no artful wording. Sometimes I'll write two or three ledes- it's commonly known as "clearing your throat- until I start to form the meat of the story. I do the same thing for that, just start with the simplest thing, and move on. What happened next?

I think I've finally started to gain some level of authority over my words, my stories. I always felt that they had a mind of their own, that they would slip around, and if they didn't want to be written, well, there was nothing I could do about it. Now, I'm beginning to feel like I might be able to control them- they are becoming my words. They go on the page because I want them there, and if I don't I can take them down.

And that's how, word by word, I can write something.

procrastination

my tool against procrastination is to tell myself that anything that i do is better than nothing, so whatever i do, whether it's just typing one word, puts me in a much better position than i was before.

(it's working, can't you tell? there's no procrastination going on here. really. move along now.)

reminders

fiction writing is such a happy, happy dream...

in the meantime, i find i have to remind myself- i am not a deadline missed, an internship not gotten, a paper slopily edited and badly written. nor am i the ineptness and frustration that i feel sometimes.

at times like these, i recall the words of a coworker from long, long ago: it's just life.

next time i answer the phone i'm going to say, "destiny? is that you?"