Met with the charming Noelle this evening for the very first time.
Wait, wait, now before y'all begin to think that I'm going behind the back of the ravishingly sexy Emma, let me 'splain...
Noelle is my editor.
Okay, she's not really my editor... not yet anyway, but she did do an edit on the third draft of my first novel, Quarter City (I would link to QuarterCity.net, but I ain't got nothin' on there yet).
Noelle took an editors' course that ended early this year which I heard she excelled in (apparenly raising the bar higher than anyone before). She graciously, through her partner, Jeff, agreed to take a look at my work, obviously a little hesitant, wondering if her skills were adequate or if my skills were worthy of her time.
I began to wonder the same thing, as through Jeff, I gave her a copy of my book (in true amateur style, the manuscript was all single spaced) back in March with the expectation of getting it back by my birthday (June 1st).
Well, today is June 26, and we finally had our meeting, a lovely dinnerette at SpAhA, not that I was anxious (because really, I dread revising my work, although I'm well aware of the necessity for it).
Noelle is a book devourer... she can polish off 600 pages in like, four hours (for me after four hours I'm at page 120 if I'm going at a good pace). She reads more books in a year than I probably can in 10 years... one of these days I'll learn to speed read.
She did a comprehensive analysis, more of which I'll expand on later, after I read it (and really, I'm both completely thrilled to have it, and completely unmotivated to read it). But in person she basically said, and I must paraphrase due to my awful recall:
"I was impressed."
"You have a style already, which is amazing for your first novel."
"This is so much better than the first novels I had to read in my course."
"Your structure needs tightening, but it also reads fine as is."
She didn't gush praise, because her praise was subtle but sincere. There was a curious eye put to it all. The novel is in a realm of superheroes, for lack of a better term, and she, being unfamiliar with that realm, admitted she might have fallen short a little in knowledge for her analysis.
But I trust what she did is fantastic, and I'm grateful to be her first serious author, and I'm thrilled to have her as my first serious editor.
I'll sing more about this when the new blog gets rolling.
Dear Homeless Guy Who Keeps Shitting Behind My Garage,
Please quit shitting behind my garage.
Sincerely,
The Guy Whose Garage You've Been Shitting Behind
Through comic book/novel/tv/film writer Micah Wright's website I discovered that he's recently (well, over a year ago) worked on a Korean anime film called Wonderful Days.
But this movie is a little different than your traditional anime, in that it uses CGI, cel-animation, and some real world miniatures and photography. At 54mil USD, it's the most expensive Korean film ever made. Micah has a wrap up of it's strange tribulations here.
Micah writes:
The film is not a simple 2-and-3-D combo job... Tin House actually built scale-model sets and shot them with a 35mm camera. They then animated the 2-D characters through and around the miniature sets and painted any missing set details with CGI. The skies you see in the film are all real shots of clouds, slightly painted over with CGI. It's a pretty visually amazing film and I'm proud to have worked on it. All vehicles are 3D as well, but usually on a real miniature set.
You can download trailers from here
I do have to say it is a wonderful looking film, and the soundtrack is amazing, I'm wary because, as always you really never know what you're going to get with these anime types.
The On-line Journalism Review (OJR) has taken the time to map the "influential" blogs on line, putting them on an invisible grid that charts their blogging/journalism on the y-axis and their liberalism/conservatism on the x-axis.
It's kinda neat... check it out
The most disappointing element of the "blogsphere" is (no, not that I'm not on there) there's no linking.
Mark Glaser writes:
I have to admit I hate lists. I gag and gurgle at the end of the year, when people come up with the Top 10 R&B Albums, the Top 10 Horror Flicks or the Top 10 Reasons to Read this News-Free Magazine. But that hasn't stopped me from doing this again and again.
So here we go again. This column is an attempt to show which Weblogs are influencing the media the most. That's really a vague idea, but that gives me latitude to be wrong just enough to bring your catcalls and counterarguments (please click the "Speak Up" button to the left).
This past year has seen the world of Weblogs, aka the blogosphere, grow in power and stature, if not to the general public, then to the other media. On Iraq. On Trent Lott. On The New York Times scandals. So we've created a graphical depiction of what I believe are the most influential blogs, pushing the direction of media coverage and perhaps even public policy. These blogs are either focused on the business of media, current events, politics or some combination of the three. They cover the media or have been covered by the media.
While the final decision on what made the list was up to me, I did do some semiscientific research, looking at Daypop's Blogstats, Blogdex, and canvassing many of the bloggers who made the cut. I also asked them to provide their own Top 10 lists of the most influential blogs on the media, and a selection is included. (When I let them include themselves in the list, almost every one of them did.) Finally, as an added bonus, I've tried to list some of the most blogged media outlets online -- that is, the news sources that bloggers love to link (usually tearing them to shreds).
There's a movie called Found in the Street starring Christopher Walken, Hugh Jackman, and Kirsten Dunst, based on a novel by "Talented Mr. Ripley" author Patricia Highsmith (also wrote the novel Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" was based on). It's directed by Terry Kinney (who has done -directed and starred- in many, many episodes of Oz). It's produced my John Malkovich's Mr.Mudd.
Only you won't have heard of this, because, well, it's been done for two years and sitting on the shelf, while both Jackman and Dunst have become huge stars thanks to their comic book roles (and Walken's just celebre immortalis).
I'm really really curious, because I can't find much other details than this.
But what I did find was that Ashton Kutcher is the studio's choice for Batman (gasp.) Director Chris (Memento) Nolan wants (and rightfully so) Guy Pierce.
Jesus. The state of the world, huh?