October 2007 Archives
A one sentence review of Mark Wahlburg's "Shooter":
"The fairy tale that redneck conservatives tell themselves when they want to believe that they could fix the government if it gets too corrupt... with the help of a good woman and a 30/30."
Kate's one-word review of the movie:
"ENUNCIATE."
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We're out in Utah for the weekend -- Kate's one of the speakers/interviewees at a writer's conference and I'm splitting my time between that and working on a book editing job in the (really) gorgeous two-story ski condo that the conference got for us. On a mountain lake a few miles from the winter Olympics ski site, free high-speed wifi, hot tub on the deck, roaring fire (that turns on with a switch!) and a bunch of DVDs left by the folks who own/sublet the place... not a whole lot to complain about for a short weekend away.
On this, Blog Action Day, the topic is the Environment. Of course, we're supposed to talk about the real life environment, but there are some lessons that we take from fiction.
Namely, hobbits.
I've been playing a lot of Lord of the Rings Online, and during that time I've been spending a fair amount of time in the area of the game built to represent the Shire. This has been a kind of geeky paradise for me, because I love love love Tolkien's work and seeing it realized more fully in a virtual setting is just tons of fun.
But while I'm geeking out, I'm looking at the hobbit-houses in the game and thinking "man... wouldn't it be great if you could live in a house like that? Forget about how awesome it would be... just think of the savings on heating and cooling... look at the profile of the thing... it's just such an excellent DESIGN."
So... half geek and half responsible eco-parent. Okay. Fine.
Now, we can't bulldoze all the houses and buildings that are out there, of course, but how excellent would it be if someone out there was at least trying to provide a solution like this for NEW housing. If you can't get the government to do a damned thing about Global Warming, make changes on a personal level, right?
Personally, I want a real, beautiful hobbit hold, but if not that, maybe Earthship?
(Thanks to the WoW Insider poster that linked to this earlier.)
Bohemian Word Werks - Writing blunders
Specifically, 20 of them, a lot of which I'm happy to say I already try to avoid.
My one guilty moment of head-hanging shame? Starting the story with someone waking up (or being woke up). Of three full-length stories, I've done that twice.
