Plans, projects and pugilism

Filed under AFK, Reviews, Writing Journal on July 29, 2005
Tagged: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby, movies, Scroll of Cairdein

I got 3/4 of the way through my goals for the month. The outline is finished, but I’m only about halfway done with the novella. I thought I might get some additional time this weekend to eke out a little more, but I learned yesterday that I made it to the second round of interviews for a marketing position with my current company. The interview is actually a 30-minute presentation, and I’m scheduled for Thursday morning, so I’ll be spending my “days off” putting that together.

I’ve decided “Scroll of Cairdein” will not become a full-fledged novel. I don’t see it expanding beyond 25,000 words, and will more likely end up around 18-20k. I spent some time surfing through Ralan.com to look at potential markets and only found one that would be a likely candidate for a piece that size: Black Gate. However, I don’t think “Scroll” fits the “epic fantasy” description. Maybe I’ll run it by Don Bassingwaithe, should I not make it out of the Posion Clan Press slush pile.

My wife and I watched Million Dollar Baby last night, a beautiful movie that goes an unexpected direction. It reminded me of Remains of the Day, in that at the end, I was left somewhat unfulfilled because the story didn’t give me satisfactory resolution to some of the events that happened. It was interesting to listen to Clint and Hilary try to rationalize this–not that their points weren’t valid–in the special features, throwing out words like “real” and “audience participation.” Hilary did make an astute observation that movie audiences are perhaps conditioned to expect the Hollywood “happy ending.”

On a technical note, I really liked the use of light. It added a lot to the mood of the film.

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