Random Thoughts on a Friday

I just realized that I have been so focused this month on THE RISE OF GINNY COOPER experiment at The Story Siren that I haven't done any non-book related blogs at all.

But there are so many awesome non-book related things going on that I have to mention:

1. American Idol started again and I miss Paula. I only saw the Boston auditions this week so I didn't see Mary J. Blige but what I saw on Tuesday was really a bummer. First of all, I disliked Kara last season and while she seems to be a little more tolerable now, I still would rather see Paula in that middle chair. And second, um...Boston? Where was the talent? I lived in Boston for a while and I'm embarrassed for New England. And there wasn't even any good snarking! Sheesh!

2. Denzel has a new movie out and I'm intrigued. "The Book of Eli" looks like a Mad Max-type post-apocalyptic road movie with major amounts of cliche (trench coat and sunglasses? Gary Oldman as an over-the-top bad guy?) but I love Denzel. He, Tom Hanks, and Will Smith are probably the only three actors (along with actresses Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton) that I will watch in just about anything they do. Oooh, could you imagine a movie with ALL of those actors in it? Get going on that, Hollywood!

3. Lost returns in 2 weeks and I'm nervous. Last season! Last episodes! Last chance to tie up all the loose ends! Is it even possible? I have watched every season of this show, even the so-called bad ones that other people used as an excuse to stop watching. I can't claim to have even the slightest clue about how everything fits together but I am waiting with baited breath, as they say, for the conclusion. I have faith in these writers and I really hope they don't let us all down.

4. Haiti had a major earthquake this week and I'm humbled. And grateful. When you live in an earthquake-prone area like Southern California, there is always the chance the ground could begin shaking under your feet and you will be powerless to stop it. But when it doesn't happen every day, you get complacent. This Haitian earthquake reminds us all here in LA that we could get one like that too. The big difference? Most of our buildings are in much better condition to withstand the shaking; the people of Haiti were not so lucky. Their structures were very poorly built and that's a primary reason so many people died.

To end this on a more upbeat note, I just read that aid is flooding in to Haiti and George Clooney has planned a fundraiser with MTV for later this month.

And one last one...

5. Part 3 of Ginny Cooper will be up on Monday January 18th and I'm excited again. I hope people are downloading and enjoying it. And if they do read it, I hope they let me know!

Whoo-hoo, Cheshire High!

Ah, the old alma mater...so much has changed, so much has remained the same. For instance, I walked in the side door which used to be near the main office and I told them I was a visitor and they looked at me like I was crazy. The main office had moved to the front of the building!

This is the WRONG door!

This is the RIGHT door!

But the Senior Walk was still there and the gym (there are 2 now) and the library looked the same too, although they had way more computers than we ever had (computers were just a bare figment of the popular imagination then).

Me with Ellen Speirs

The first class librarian Ellen Speirs introduced me to was Diann Milone's Creative Writing class. I think they might have been a little shy (or sleepy?) because they were kind of quiet but they did get very animated when talk turned to Veronica and her size (they didn't think the girl on the cover was at all plus-size).


Second class was World Lit, Megumi Yamamoto's class, which we sat for in the library. They had a lot more questions and wanted to know about writing and publishing and what sort of movies I like that had been adapted from books.


After lunch (with the teachers in the faculty lounge! I felt like I was spying!) where I met a teacher from my old days, Rob Schaefer (although I didn't have him as a teacher), I went back to the library to talk to Donna Carbone's Film and TV class. After telling them all about my experience as a script supervisor and standards editor, talk quickly turned to writing, especially screenwriting and books and LOST and movies and Denzel Washington and how great Robert Downey Jr was in "Iron Man."


It was another amazing day with more amazing students! I hope they all remember to email me if they have questions I didn't get to answer.


I think I'll have to devote an entirely separate blog post to all the stuff I observed at CHS and how it influenced what and why I write about schools in my own books.

Oh and a Cheshire Herald reporter was there to interview me which was way cool because I remembered that a couple of the very first things I had ever written were for that publication many, many years ago! They were sports articles! Wow, strange how things come back to you, huh?

Random Friday Stuff You Should Know

1. Television watchers should know that LOST is back, baby! And better than ever! Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are clearly demi-gods. Last night's Ben episode was so flippin' amazing, I may have procrastinate a bit and see what the chat boards are saying.

2. Netflixers should know that “American Gangster” is a fantastic film that they should put in their queue. Directed by Ridley Scott, written by Steve Zaillian and starring the amazing Denzel Washington, it’s so well-done, you find yourself rooting for the bad guys.

3. Authors should know that there is a great article on blogging by Chandra Rooney here. She gives some great, practical advice to authors who want to blog or who are blogging and want to know if there's more they should be doing. I know it was good advice for me!

4. Readers should know that I will be signing ALL ABOUT VEE at the LA Times Festival of Books this Sunday, April 27, from 2 – 3PM at the Book Soup booth, #329. So come on down and check out VEE and me!

Deja Vu

Yet another underrated movie. This time with one of my very favorite actors, Denzel Washington. I have loved DW in pretty much anything he has ever done, even the really bad movies where nothing else is good but him. I have especially liked him in movies where he plays against type, like in "Training Day." An excellent perf.

"Deja Vu" got a lot of flak for being confusing when it was out in the theaters last year and I can understand that. It begins as a fairly straightforward terrorist/murder story that ATF agent Denzel has to solve. Then it turns into something more when Val Kilmer introduces him to a technology that reconstructs the past in a continuing flow of visual images somehow based on satellites. Our man is skeptical but goes along with it until finally, he figures out it's an actual link to the past. The question remains: can he/they make enough changes in the past to alter the outcome of the future? Is the past fixed? Are there alternate timelines or a single one and what happens if you can change something in the past?

It's all fascinating and very well-done. I didn't need to pause and ask HH for his input or rewind to see or hear something again. I appreciated that there were no red herrings in terms of the murder suspect, nothing that would be a "whoa" moment in terms of the people we were getting to know. I do wish we had gotten to know DW's partner better, if we had seen him in a scene or two before he died so we could feel more for him when that does happen - and to empathize with Denzel when he realizes it doesn't matter what he does, the man will perish anyway. I wanted to feel more of his sense of futility and renewed determination to save someone.

Kudos to Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio on the script and of course, to Denzel for bringing the character to life.