Blah.

January's nearly over so I thought I'd better make a post. Have nothing to write about though so this will just be a brief spewing of my thoughts. It's really hot right now. The tennis ended last night and it was amazing and Novak won and I was so happy but now I'm bummed it's over. Next year! Haha.

I need a job. Don't have one yet. Will get one eventually.

Trying to read the third and last Hunger Games book. Sort of left it too long and forgot where the second one ended so I'm a bit confused. It's good though so I'm sure my brain will catch up. I'm stupidly pumped for the movie coming out in March. I hate how loads of weirdos are comparing it to that unspeakable vampire franchise. It's nothing like that. Katniss would only have to look at Bella and she would be dead. Also, Katniss is Jennifer Lawernce, and Bella is Kristen Stewart. Only takes a nanosecond to work out which one of them is more kick-ass. Anyway, aside from the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo teaser, The Hunger Games had the best trailer I watched all last year. It was so well put together. Perfect set up and build up without giving too much of the plot away. I'm so excited! I also found out that Elizabeth Banks is playing Effie Trinket. And when I realised who Elizabeth Banks was I was like WHAT. Weird. Weird choice. But I'll take that....

Justin is having a murder mystery party thing and I'm writing the story. Didn't realise it would be so insanely complex. I have to write fifteen characters. All of which have to be pretty rounded. I think I'm stretching myself in quick character development by doing it though so it's all good. Sort of annoying that I have to put my actual novel on the back-burner for a day or two while I get a good portion of this out of the way, but it is fun.

Speaking of my actual novel, completely and utterly stuck on chapter four. I think I'lll skip it and come back later, even though I hate doing that. I feel like it's going to be a good point of development for Jordan's character so I really don't want to skip ahead, but trying to write it is just not working at all. Not sure why. I know it's a difficult couple of scene but I didn't think it would be this hard! Never fear, I will either jump over it or force through it in order to continue writing asap. The end of the hard slog is in sight!

Laptop battery dying. Brain melting in the heat. Need to find water.

Thus ends my brain-spew.

Murdered Darling Monday #1

Got another segment for ya. I stole this one from the lovely girl who runs *Headdesk*, which I insist you check out if you haven't before. Especially if writing is your thing.

This segment, appropriately titled Murdered Darling Monday, is for scenes that I've written that I liked but had to cut for various reasons. If you're one of my beta-readers for "Semblance", you'll be familiar with a lot of the dialogue in this brief scene, but I thought I'd post it anyway. This was the first draft of the meeting between two of my main characters, Jordan and Hayden. The context is a funeral (changed to a wake in the current draft), and previously Jordan spotted this boy during the service, looking like he might faint from the heat. "Semblance" is the first in what I expect to be a series about some teenagers with super powers. In this scene, Jordan is unbeknownst to the fact that Hayden is a cryokinetic, someone who can create and manipulate ice. 

  ‘Hey, excuse me.’ 

  She looked round. The sweaty boy was standing by the air-conditioner, motioning for her to come closer. She glanced back to see her father nowhere in sight, and so went towards him. The boy smiled as she approached. ‘I saw you earlier - you look really familiar - have we met?’ he asked. 

  His eyes were bright green. Jordan scanned the rest of his face and shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ 

  The boy shrugged. ‘Can’t place you anyway. My name’s Hayden Connor.’

  She took his outstretched hand and shook it. ‘Jordan Elliott.’ 

  At that, his eyes widened. ‘You’re an Elliott? Is your dad’s name Daniel?’ 

  ‘Well, yeah -’

  ‘Oh, my gosh. Your dad is Daniel Elliott. The Daniel Elliott?’ His hands curled into excited fists. ‘I don’t believe this!’ 

  Jordan frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’ She’d never heard anyone talk about her father like that. ‘What’s so special about him?’ 

  ‘Daniel Elliott,’ Hayden repeated. ‘He was on the last elite team in the academy. His strength powers are amazing, I’ve heard.’ 

  ‘Strength powers? I - what?’ 

  Hayden stared at her. His shirt collar rippled under the blast from the air-con. ‘But you must know…’ His eyes darted back and forth, and for a moment he was silent. Then he said, ‘Do you … not have powers?’ 

  She couldn’t make sense of his words, and so she just shook her head. His shoulders sagged a little. 

  ‘Oh. Well,’ he added, with a twitch of smile, ‘Maybe you’re like a late bloomer, y’know? If something ever changes, you can come train with us. My dad says his powers lay dormant until he was almost sixteen. Maybe it’s the same with you. Sometimes you just gotta give them a kick-start.’

  She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but at that moment she heard her father call her name. 

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. She started to trail backwards, and his green eyes followed her as she went. 

  ‘See ya round,’ he said.

  Daniel was waiting by the door, his sunglasses hanging around his neck. ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ he asked. 

  Jordan shrugged. ‘His name’s Hayden. He knew Hezekiah.’ And you, she thought. 

  A look of recognition flitted across Daniel’s face, but for some reason he didn’t elaborate on it. She wondered what he would say if she told him what Hayden had said. Maybe Hayden had had the wrong person. Either that, or her father was hiding a very big secret. 

Why it's a Darling: I was really happy with the description of Hayden and the air conditioner, and was disappointed that it wasn't fitting in the rewrite of the scene. I did, of course, keep some of the lines of dialogue the same in the rewrite, because in terms of character they worked very well for me. I also liked the way Hayden just sees her and starts talking, leading the conversation the whole way, which is very like him. He still does this, but in a slightly different way, in the current draft.

Why it got Murdered: The big problem was that the context created a huge problem for me when I tried to write the scene after this. The setting was too vague, and I knew I had to make it more specific. That's why I reset the scene at a wake, in a house, by the pool in he backyard. It works much better for me.

Anyway! Currently writing chapter four, which is going well, albeit slow. Better keep going with it. The goal for today is to finish it, which means I have about 1800 words still to write! Gonna get cracking. Ta ta. 

Screencap Saturday

I've been wanting to do some kind of 'segment' on this blog, so I thought I'd start with something fairly simple. Introducing Screencap Saturday! Basically, I screencap a movie and put up sequences of my favorite stills. I find screencaps interesting because they literally do 'capture' a very purposeful moment in the movie. It makes me more attentive to the lighting, the framing, the facial expressions of the actors, the relationships between various shots, and the length of pans and dollys. Looking at various snippets from a film give you a huge insight into the director's style. I'll try and do Screencap Saturday at least once a month.

So I will begin with what is currently my all-time favorite film. Directed by David Fincher. Cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth. Editing by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall. I give you The Social Network, in 160 frames.

Stuff. And Movies.

So, as is typical of me, my blogging has failed again. It's pretty lame that I haven't blogged since I watched The Tree of Life.... So a quick update!

I had an awesome Christmas, and made t-shirts for my family.

I went to Carols in the Domain with some amazing people.

Celebrated NYE with the same amazing people.

And went on a camping weekend with - yeah - those same amazing people. Because they're amazing. And we cooked dinner all by ourselves and were cool.

Anyway! Back to the present. I got on here to blog because I've been reading this gigantic book that I got out of the library called Film History: An Introduction. It's incredibly interesting. I'm reading all about how film became a new medium and expanded into an art form, a method of entertainment, and new way to tell stories. I've decided that as I read through the book I'm going to watch the films from 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die that corresponde with the various chapters.

In the first chapter, the main two films mentioned are Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902), and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903). It's crazy that they started making such elaborate films that early! Full sets and costumes, stop-motion and special effects. If you are interested in movies but have never seen Le Voyage Dans La Lune by George Méliès, you need to jump on the internet and view it on Youtube right now. It only goes for about 11 minutes, so you have. It really is an astounding piece of work for its time. I'm yet to watch Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I plan on doing that today. They use cool techniques like exposing the film twice to add in extra effects. 


And yeah. Hopefully I'll blog again soon but I don't want to make any promises unless I fail, ha. But I'll be back at some point. 


Oh yeah, and I got a twitter. So if you come on here and I haven't updated the actual blog, you can view my obnoxious tweets (I hate that word) in the sidebar about the Australian Open and the Oscars. Won't that be fun? I'm a loser, I know.