A Movie Character I Remember

My friend spoiled me on the plot points of the movie, Shutter Island (hey, I'm a spoiler slut), and the story immediately reminded me of another movie I enjoyed from years back.

For those of you who'd watched Shutter Island, try to Netflix or rent the movie called The Ninth Configuration. It's starts out as a weird movie, set in post-Vietnam US about certain inmates in a weird place (a castle here, as opposed to an island), and the appearance of the new military psychiatrist to figure them out. Only, things are never what they seemed. And, there is one heck of a violent payoff scene near the ending that had the audience gasping and cheering.

I was telling my friend that this was pre-Shyamalan, so the concept of a shocking ending was relatively new. Like Shutter Island, The Ninth Configuration was a book first and as far as I know, the movie stayed true to the novel.

Anyway, it starts out talky, with very odd characters, and then wham! Also, Stacy Keach had never looked better--tall, lovely cheekbones, and broad shouldered. That movie made me a lifetime fan of his.

Oh, lovely wonderful 21st century--I just found out that you can catch all nine parts on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=86C7E6F8FB9598F4

Warning--near the end, that final violent scene can be a bit much for some of you (YMMV).

Through the years, I've shown this movie to several military friends, some of whom are Vietnam Viets, and they were rolling their eyes at the beginning, thinking this was some typical talky movie analyzing them, and then WHAM! by that ending scene, they were all screaming at the screen too ;-). So I hope that kind of gut reaction is still there for today's more CGI-stunted movie-antics worldly audience.

(Mo, you'll have a great time dissecting this tortured soul. I know you will ;-P)

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Sometimes They Walk Out Of A Book

Welcome to the three column GLow monster ;-). I'll be moving links and stuff around for better eye/space coordination. Hopefully, when I'm done, this place will look more functional, letting readers look at my books at one side and my more personal quirky collection of stuff on the other. That's the plan, anyway, but I'm by nature a messy person, so I have a feeling the end product is just going to be all frenetic and crazy like me.

If you have any suggestions or if you know how to move that pic to the middle, feel free to post. Because I need all the help I can get when it comes to computers and arranging things.

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Talking about quirky characters, I have one that is definitely going into my book of character sketches one day. This man is in his mid-fifties, I think, and talks slowly, like a Florida cracker (good ole boy). He wears a suit and tie. He drives a James Bond Beamer, you know, the one in the movies. He has a high-paying job/he might own (not sure) a steel factory.

Now, if you meet someone like this, what would be your expectations/assumptions? In the usual book of character sketches, you might imagine him perhaps a Southern gentleman, maybe grown up poor and is now making big bucks, and he'd have women in his life. You would definitely peg him down as someone who owns a nice house, right?

Well. Suppose you go to his residence and it's this Very Dilapidated house? The roof is so old, it's probably the original shingles, but you can't tell because there are only crumbles of what used to be a roof left. HOLES gape at the sunlight and rain, holes left unattended for so long, the surrounding plywood sheathing are warped and gnarled by the elements. Water has been pouring into this house for years.

And this is only THE FRONT SIDE of the house. The back is covered by plastic sheets, like what you see after a hurricane, except there hasn't been a hurricane in these parts for a few years. The plastic looks old and moldy. On removal, you find another layer of tar paper tacked on top of two other layers of tar paper. Then, after removing that, you find big pieces of plywood nailed on top of the shingles. It seems, as the years went by, the owner of the house has just kept putting on layers of "protection" to stop the leaks.

The roof is so bad, in fact, in a year or two, removal of shingles wouldn't have been neccessary. All you needed to do was climb up there, avoid the holes, and SWEEP the remaining shingle granules off.

Yes, you guess it. This is my current job. RB and I replaced so many pieces of sheathing that we might as well have rebuilt a whole roof deck for this place. At one point, we took out so many of them, we could look inside the house, which HAD SEVERAL big holes in the ceiling because, obviously, the roof has been leaking for years. There is a dog in the house, wandering from room to room and sleeping in the insulation that fell from the "attic." He just stares up at us everyday.

At one point, we found a nest of ants living in the wet decaying wood. RB told me to go into the garage and look for some insect-killer. When I got back, I reported: "Umm. There's nothing in the garage except for stinky clothes and a bottle of Armor All." I had to crack up at that because the Armor All was all about character.

At the end of the first day, the owner came home from work. Parked his shiny Beamer right beside the dilapidated home.

He looked up and asked, "How ya doin'?"

RB said, "Looks like it might rain tonight. We won't be able to replace all the plywood."

"That's okay. I'm used to a little water in the house."

I almost fell off the roof. Now, THAT, is character study.

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Should Every Author See The Big Picture?

Thank you for the words of comfort here and through email. I'm sorry I can't answer every one of them at this time, but please know that I appreciate your reaching out to me. It's strange how you never know how much space your loved one has taken of your heart till he is gone. My heart aches.

But I'm doing okay. So.

Let's see, while I've been preoccupied, what was preoccupying the world(s) I walk in, eh?

For those in the know:

1) Sometimes it's best not to say a word when under fire. I lurv you, Sherrilyn Kenyon.

I'm not doing any links to this particular trainwreck that has been occupying the blogosphere for the last few days, but just google "big ass swan hat" and "costumes at RWA nationals." If you want to waste away an entire day of your life, there is a comment thread that's 634 comments long in a popular blog out there. Over a swan hat and two pairs of stockings on three authors.

Question: Should I worry every time I put on a big ass swan hat that I'm giving ammo to the critics of my genre, bringing back memories of Barbara Cartland and her pink poodles? Check out these old publicity photos of eight very famous authors in 1981:

EIGHT WHO WRITE OF LOVE FOR MONEY

You see what I mean now?

OTOH, today's readers are more "diverse" because the genre has spider-webbed into other genres (there was no urban fantasy in 1981, sweeties, and a heroine sleeping with more than one man/specy would have gotten your books banished from romancedom). What IS the face of romance, barring the stupid intelligentsia who insists on bringing up Fabio with every discussion? So thirty years ago. But. The image persists. It doesn't bother ME, but it bothers a heck of a lot of people, very, very smart people who defend this genre at every opportunity.

I admire them, truly I do. Nobody wants to be looked down upon, especially by their loved ones at home, who mock them of reading "trash." I have no solution to this dilemma, since I have never been in their position. Hey, I'm a roofer. My workers can barely read. And my other friends are supportive and friendly about my writing. They may make fun of the love scenes once in a while, but I've never felt a need to defend myself. I just ask them whether they thought reading the love scenes was hotter than watching McDreamy slipping off Mere-Death's panties on TV.

2) For those who wish to know why Karin Slaughter's wishing herpes on any reader who tell anyone about how her latest book ends:

Quoting specifically from her site: "© Karin Slaughter. Please do not copy, duplicate or otherwise disseminate any of the contents of this letter. If you do, you are a total jackass and I hope you get herpes."

Since her letter starts right after that warning I'm hoping my quoting those lines exclude me from jackassdom and herpes.

YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK, YOU'RE AGREEING TO READ ABOUT ITS CONTENTS THAT MIGHT CAUSE YOU STRESS ABOUT HER NEW BOOK WITH ITS SHOCKING ENDING.

http://karinslaughter.com/spoiler/spoiler.doc

3) Talking about shocking endings, was there really one in the last saga of Harry Potter? Were you really shocked? I mean, at least there's no shocking death of a major character, is there?

Question: Regardless whether it's a romance or not, how do you feel when an author in whom you've invested, oh, ten books of your time and love kills off the beloved characters (say, Harry himself)? Would you feel horrified? Disgusted? To the point of needing to scream at the author? Lest you think what an author does to his/her character shouldn't affect the readership (and sales), let me bring up the example that when Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes in 1893 in a story published in Strand magazine, TWENTY THOUSAND upset readers cancelled their subscriptions.

So. What if J.D.Robbs killed off Roarke in Book #44 because it was time to push Eve's growth? Are you hyperventilating yet?

It does happen in romance books. Lately, there seems to be a trend. One I remember that brought about passionate cries from readers is Cameron Dean's vampire series. She killed off the hero in Book Three after two very hot books of hero/heroine growth. There was carnage in the forums, let me tell you. For those who loved this series, did Ash's death bother you?

For myself, I readily admit that I'm a romantic. I have enough pain from the real deaths of loved ones; I don't need to read about my beloved fictional characters' deaths too. Yes, me hypocrite, since I kill people, especially bad guys, in my books ;-). But I'm not going to invest my soul into creating the loving relationship of two people for a few books and then destroy it with a violent death. Why be cruel to myself and my readers?

And oh, I learned a new Web acronym. YMMV (Your mileage may vary).

YMMV, of course.

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