My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?
Yesterday's call for WORST movie adaptation of a book turned out to be a pretty popular topic. Wildly popular. Maybe in the top two or three of all time.
So let me make sure I make a couple of rules clear:
I do my level best to accommodate those who can't (or won't) put their comments on the original post and instead put them on Facebook or in other locations around the net. However, the problem is no one ever seconds those nominations and they usually don't make it to the poll and by the time I am writing up the poll, those FB threads will be long buried. If you want a movie/book combo to get onto the poll it is best to attach it as a comment to the original post*.
This poll is not going to be going into semi-final or quarterfinal rounds. It's just a silly poll intended as spackle the space between the end of our Best Heroine poll (you should totally go vote in that, by the way--six days left) and whatever I come up with for June.
That means it's going to be very important to second titles you want to see on the poll. I'm going to take somewhere between 8 and 12 names that have the most support. If that's all the titles that get one second, great. If it's all the titles that get two "seconds" (or three or more) that's what I'll take. I will keep trim off whatever gets us to somewhere between 8 and 12 names. So please second the titles you want to see make it to the poll.
And a few of you have nominated three four even five movies. Remember I only take your first two.
*I have been told that Blogger isn't working and playing well with mobile devices. One of the first things I want to do as an overhaul improvement to the blog (coming soonish) is to find someone who knows how to make the interwebz and my blog work and play well together, hand them a bunch of money and say "Make it go."
In the meantime please understand that setting up a poll by hand from eight or nine different source locations is going to involve human error--if you can get your nominations onto the original post (perhaps by waiting until you're not on a mobile device), I recommend it. Otherwise, I will do my best.
This is me when it comes to fixing things on my blog.
Hint: I'm not Riker.
We'll see you at the poll, undoubtedly shitty adaptation.
What is the worst movie adaptation of a book?
You've all seen them before. You sit down in the theater, excited to finally see a story you've loved come to the big screen, but within moments you think, "I wonder why they changed that." By the end you have a look on your face like someone told you that your mom had died in a vat of asparagus yogurt, your fist is clenched around a forgotten handful of popcorn (movie butter runs in rivulets down your hand), and every muscle in your body is tensed.
"What. The. ACTUAL. FUCK!!!!!" you think.
Forget the great adaptations. This poll is about the shitty ones. Movies that are terrible compared to the book. Maybe they turn a short story about a guy who eats grass clippings into a movie about a virtual reality monster. Maybe they used the licensing to make a different movie that just had a name people would recognize. (I'm side-eyeing YOU World War Z. YOU!) Maybe they turned your favorite kids book into a movie about Mike Myers being a complete asshole for two hours.
The Rules
1- As always, I leave the niggling to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. If you simply hated the changes they made to Insurgent (I mean why was it a box....?), you can nominate it, but there are probably a LOT of worse movies if you think about it. But this is not about shitty books made into shitty movies. This is about BAD adaptations. They don't necessarily have to be far from their source material, either. I know a lot of people who loved the book Dune and thought the 1984 Lynch movie was quite true to the source material, but it somehow just lost EVERYTHING in translation.
2- You may nominate two (2) book/movie combos. Remember that I am a horrid and unyielding power hungry demon who hates all life and free will here at Writing About Writing. To encourage reading and reading comprehension I will NOT take any book/movie combos beyond your second nomination.
3- You may (and should) second as many nominations of others as you wish. No book/movie combo will be going on to our poll that doesn't get at least one second.
4- Please put your nominations here. I will take books nominated as comments to this post on other social media; however, they may not get the seconds you need because no one will see them.
It's already May 6th, so this poll is going to go FAST. Get your nominations in in the next week!
Also there is only one week to vote in the BEST HEROINE poll so vote (or revote if it's been over a week) right away.
[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will answer each Friday. I will use your first name ONLY unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous. My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. And I am shameless so I will totally answer questions that meta answer questions too. ] Mark asks:
I've been following you on Facebook for a while, and generally felt your pain every time Facebook jacks with pages to try and make more money, but it seems like you're promoting a lot of your posts these days. Did you sellout? Buy in? Is my perception off? Did you stop hating Facebook? I'm not judging, just curious.
My reply:
Mark I will never stop hating Facebook. Their use of algorithms and greed to hide the content that people want to see borders on malfeasance. I don't mind spending money to be seen by new people, but that I have to fork over money to be seen by more than a fraction of 1% of all of Writing About Writing's followers is slimy and rapacious. I consider it a point of pride to nurture my deep, profound hate of Facebook. I feed it cottage cheese and rage and watch it grow.
Unfortunately, they are the only real game in town. I used to really like Stumbleupon, but their organic reach (that's the number of additional people who get to see a post if/when it gets liked) was pathetic, and their price point was pretty much always 17 cents per click. Facebook, as much as I love to hate them, and hate to love them has a great organic reach and on some popular articles costs me less than 5 cents a click. Plus, a carefully interest and country filtered post can build up my FB audience so that future posts do better.
I've already written an extensive mailbox about paid self promoting and why I do it. (Short version: I don't make much money but what I make is almost all discretionary, and when I am working long hours as a househusband, paid promotions make far more sense than any kind of "real" self promotion that would take me away from my family.) However, there are a few specifics of Facebook and recent activity worth mentioning. Two things are coming into play here.
1) Stumbleupon couldn't find their ass with both hands. I literally asked them to take my money, and they blew it. I was doing promotions there for a while and things were going great. Then they rolled out some new "beta version" and all my pages started getting an error message about "referring pages." Three times I tried to contact their help center by telling them I didn't even know what "referring pages" meant, and I would gladly remove it if they would tell me how. But they dropped the ball, didn't get back to me, and I can't prove this next part, but I think they kept taking the money I'd set up to autopay each day while not actually promoting my pages--like there was nothing wrong with their BILLING end.
So my Stumbleupon budget (as modest as it is) has gone to Facebook. Mores the pity if you can't even be bothered to tell me what I need to do to hand you money.
It's been a big hit on my numbers not to have that consistent guaranteed number of page views. Facebook general promotions work on my PAGE not on my blog. So I have been using that budget to promote specific articles.
And specific articles are hit or miss. Some articles do incredibly well and some are crap. That's why instead of holding steady at around 1500, lately I've been having some days at barely 1000 and others at more like 2000.
2) Generally, I don't exactly get "paid" for being a househusband, but the amount I can fritter from the house accounts without anyone complaining goes up the more work I do. Think of it a little like overtime. There's been a LOT of upheaval lately that has meant I'm pitching in a lot more, so I'm getting a lot of "overtime." My retirement's coming along. I have dental and vision. I don't want a lot of THINGS....so I like playing with promotion parameters to see how to maiximize my reach without skeevy clickbait titles.
The kind of high octane work I've been doing impacts my writing. You've probably noticed my "good" articles are a little thin these last couple of months, and I've been jazz handing a lot, and I even announced that I'd be taking weekends off this Sunday until things stabilize a little.
I would totally prefer to be writing more and working a little less and getting my hits from slamming out good, high quality posts, but I can't exactly control when a 17 month old is going to take a nap, teethe the next day, or whether he is going to sit still for Sesame Street or demand attention. Right now this is just how things are going as we try to figure out child care and housekeeping accommodations with Uberdude and The Brain working full time. So I am working 40-50 hours a week before I even go to teach on Wednesday nights or write so much as a word.
It's temporary, but for now, it is what it is. (And that is a bullshit expression I do not bandy about lightly.)
However it does mean that I can at least make up for lackluster post numbers and a flagging post schedule by promoting some of my "greatest hits." I'd rather be writing for an hour but a twenty dollar promotion is a reasonable substitute. That's what you've been seeing lately on Facebook. Some of that extra money I'm making watching The Contrarian being filtered into building an audience. It's sub-optimal, but at least it's some consolation.
I have some bad news. Well, maybe some of you who have been following for a while won't think it's so bad, since you know I'm constantly struggling against time and burning the candle at both ends to bring you daily content.
Unfortunately, I kind of hit my limit. It's been a month and a half of super busy, 70-80+ hour weeks (with a week "break" in there of 50 that felt like a damned vacation). I've tried to keep up a post every day but all my reserve fuel tanks are empty.
So for now....as long as I'm working 40-50 hours a week before I even sit down to write a word...I'm going to be taking weekends off. It will mean no "short" question Sundays. And some of the menus and old posts will go un-revised for those weekends.
Thanks to your donations, I'm able to work fewer teaching shifts (I'm down to one), and even able to afford some help cleaning the house. Perhaps soon these transition weeks with Sonic Gal doing extra patrols will even out, and we've been talking about getting some child care in for a couple of hours a day so I can squeeze in more writing. Until then, though, self care demands that I reduce throttle.
When the schedule dips back into a more manageable place, I will immediately return to weekend posts. (Revisions and Sunday Shorts).
Thank you so much for your support, and thank you for reading,
Sonic Gal went to Chicago today to help them with a food service crime syndicate, so The Brain is doing a double patrol. I'm watching The Contrarian all day while Uberdude tries to invent a joint servo with the capacity for enough motion speed that our "decoy" Sonic Gal android can at least walk around the neighborhood fast enough to be believable.
Plus I still have a few thank you notes pending. (For those who donated in the first quarter, I haven't forgotten. I just suck.)
I never did get that half finished post finished up and cleaned up, and it's not going to happen in the half hour before this kid strapped to my chest wakes up to demand that I feed him lunch or there will be a great cry through Oakland such has never been heard before and shall never be heard again.
Also, I've kind of been running hot on writing about Baltimore in other places. I thought I would share a few of those thoughts here even though most are not explicitly about writing. I think if I were going to lose readers for being a Social Justice Bard instead of always apolitically writing about writing, I probably would have by now. They can always be looked at through the lens of cultural narrative though.
But here are a few of the posts about Baltimore that got the most shout outs from my Public Facebook Wall (yes, you're welcome to friend me if you want, but I'm a very cranky social justice gadfly in that space, so be warned).
White Crime= Well there's a lot of complicated factors that go into the calculus when something like this happens, including socio/economics and the complex psychology of peer pressure that was exerted on this person by the unfortunate group they fell in with to try to feel like a part of something. Usually these things don't just happen in a contextual vacuum. Now I don't know all the facts, so I'm not going to rush to judgement–and let me remind everyone that in this country we are innocent until proven guilty, thank you very much–but if it turns out that it wasn't self defense (which I'm not convinced of, by the way, because that anonymous call said it heard shouting before the shots and wasn't SURE it was the victim's voice, so that's a reasonable doubt right there) then I would point out that the perpetrator has a history of mental illness, is on the autism spectrum, and extremely easy access to guns. Why would you even bring up that they were white? Racist! This person's life is ruined, we need to reach out to these poor people and help their communities and address mental health issues so that tragedies like this don't happen again, and you're being a racist.
Racism: It's not really the goofball shit in Bioshock Infinite from guys who LITERALLY twirl their mustaches. It is the unequal application of compassion, empathy, intellectual rigor, benefit of the doubt, second chances, and nuance.
Trigger Warning: Extremely graphic violence and macroaggression racism.
On "real" activism...
I've done "real" activism folks.
The benefits are pretty much the same as the online kind. You make people aware of stuff they wouldn't normally be. You yell a lot and it seems like you annoy most everyone who's listening. A bunch of people get incensed that you have the temerity to make them think about stuff they don't want to and/or inconveniencing them by being in "their" space. A shit ton of people ignore you, and some make a point of ignoring you in a way that makes it clear that they're doing it so that YOU know they're ignoring you. (Sort of the "mature" version of a kid saying "I'm ignoring you. I can't hear you. La la la la la la.") No one really listens (or so you think) and you feel a little dejected, but then a bunch of people who you didn't even think had a dog in the race are suddenly with you on the next march because you've opened their eyes or encouraged them to risk speaking out. And suddenly people are donating and talking about it and there's a discussion. A year later, most people are still clueless, but you've moved the ball down the field a few yards. And then you do it all again.
The downsides are rather profound though. Lots more spit. Lots more horses in your face. Much much more fear. And if you don't happen to look like me, there are also more knees to the back of the head, zip ties, tear gas, rubber bullets, truncheons, and from what I've seen of worse protests than I've been in, LRADs, assault rifles aimed at your head, and actual non-zero chance of death. Honestly it's a pretty privileged outlook to think that it doesn't count unless one takes to the streets. Have you noticed what happens out there?
People tell you online "Well why don't you go DO something about it," like it's not condescending, elitist, presumptive, and ableist to demand people go march in the street with a megaphone in order to be "real" about their activism. But here's the punchline: when we were out there in the streets with the megaphones guess what the thing we heard the most was?
"Why don't you go DO something about it?"
Yep. All that is is someone telling you to leave their space without actually saying "I don't care as much as you do about this and I wish you would leave."
Get the fuck over this "real" activism thing.
On trying to guilt me as a skeptic...
Oh PUH-LEEEEEZE with the "aren't you a skeptic?" crap. "Gosh, why do you just BELIEVE these stories...."
Yes, I'm a skeptic. My social justice and my skepticism are linked forces in my head--they always have been--but I'm not doling out the skepticism in an unequal way to only one side (like Dick Dawk or Hitchens), and THAT is what you really seem to want.
Yes, I'm a skeptic. When all the quantifiable and qualitative evidence points towards systematic injustice, I am skeptical of the attempts to rationalize it, blow it off, explain it away, and dismiss it made by the group that benefits from that injustice. That seems mighty fishy to me.
Yes. I'm a skeptic. When I see so many initial police reports contradicted by eye witnesses or cell phone video, I begin to doubt that all the others. That's a natural conclusion of the critical thinking.
Yes. I'm a skeptic. When something statistically uber-significant like 95+% of people living in a situation (women, people of color, LGBTQ+, etc....) basically tell me the exact same thing about their lived experience and another group that has NO experience with their situation and a lot of social power to lose tells me not to listen to them, I am very, very skeptical that the second group might not be on the level. Very skeptical, indeed.
Yes. I'm a skeptic. I'm skeptical of your ability to portray the lives of others accurately--especially when you ignore them every time they try to tell you what it's like. I'm skeptical that judging other people's trials and tribulations through the lens of your situation might not correctly represent them.
Yes, I am a skeptic. Just because I listen to both sides doesn't mean I stay forever neutral. It means I evaluate the claims, I adjust my thinking when I find out I'm wrong. I take in as much new information as I can. Evidence will change my mind and I am open to it. It does NOT mean I stay forever neutral. Skeptics are not still calmly listening to climate change deniers make the same old arguments no matter how many demands for civil debate the latter makes. (If they brought NEW evidence forth, splendid.) Skeptics should never tune out any new information, but neither should they engage endlessly with one more person bringing forth the same old arguments against a preponderance of evidence. Which in the case of systematic inequality is SO apparent that it would take a certain level of credulity to be convinced that it is no big deal.
Yes. I'm a skeptic.
On institutional violence...
If you ignore enough top down, state sponsored, institutional violence, you can clutch your fucking pearls and pretend you never saw these broken windows and burned liquor stores coming. Anyone with half an eye on the news during the last 18 months is probably wondering what took so long.
Do I want looting? Do I want violence? Of course I don't. Of COURSE I don't. OF COURSE I DON'T!!
But it's a little weird to me how many people want to "burn the mother fucker down" when it comes to our racist/sexist/imperialist/homophobic/unjust culture, but think we're not going to lose so much as an CVS or some car windows along the way.
When people trained to de-escalate–to serve and protect–consider their lives in danger when UNARMED men are running away from them, when twelve year olds are sitting facing away with a toy, when outnumbered men are suffocating under their choke holds, when they surrender, when they run, when they beg....tell me exactly how they are supposed to be contrite enough.
Please. Tell me.
Because right now, what you're actually saying is that you won't have their back unless they stand there and die.
Because you will, with political-sex-scandal faces, grudgingly admit that racism still exists in our society, but this incident and that one and that one and that one and that one and that one weren't REALLY racism. Because YOU know what real racism looks like (and what it doesn't) even as the riots rage around you.
If they play nice, you ignore them. If they don't play nice, you ignore them because they're not playing nice enough. It's ALMOST like they can't win. PLOT TWIST: In 50 fucking years, it's been made abundantly clear that you wouldn't have their back even if they DID stand there and get shot.
We've earned this. I hope tonight not ONE person is hurt in body or livelihood, but we have fucking EARNED this. And if we dismiss it, we deserve more.
On some ever-so-subtle double standards...
White People: We should bring guns into Wal-Mart; it's our right. People shouldn't fear their government. Government should fear their people.
White People: The second amendment enshrines our right to violently revolt against oppressive government. That's why we HAVE to have assault rifles.
White People: This dude grazing his cows for 20 years on public property had them taken. You can't do that. Let's get our guns and go put federal agents in our sniper cross hairs to show them we will turn this into a revolt.
White People: Let's disobey the laws of England, revolt, destroy property, kill some soldiers, and show them what we think of taxation without representation.
White People: Let's blow up this jail with dynamite to protest the arrest of veterans who were watching the polls for fraud.
White People: We don't want to get drafted. Let's basically burn down all of New York.
White People: Eight hours is a long enough work day. Let's riot and kill some people.
White People: The Syrians should have a violent uprising. A people have the government they deserve.
White People: If our lives are being threatened by terrorism, we should ignore international law, the Geneva convention, our own laws and collateral damage and kill everyone with a box-cutter who doesn't love us.
Black People: Okay well we're being extrajudicially executed, often while unarmed, fleeing, or begging for our lives, so we're going to protest the government. Some windows might get broken.
White People: Hey why don't you just obey the fucking law. Violence never solved anything. You're just making things worse. I hope they gun you thugs down like the animals you are.
Lastly, why gnaw so hard on this social justice bone...
My problem is I don't run out of fucks to give. The field where I grow my fucks is verdant. They grow over everything like kudzu.
Time, energy, mental bandwidth. I can run out of those (pretty easily) but I always have one more fuck to give.
I am in the throes of editing The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy: Book Two, Chasing Dreams, which will be released in June 2015. This means I am now working with an editor.
An editor is a person who breaks your heart. That’s particularly true if the editor has her or his own vision and wants you to write a completely different book from the one you have written and insists on rewrites to conform to the editor’s vision, not the writer’s. I am fortunate in now having a truly excellent editor who understands my vision and my books, and while I may get slammed for Voltaire-length sentences and obscure word use (but I LOVED that word!), I’m not going to have to write a completely different book, and one I don’t even like very much (yes, this has happened to me) to get it published.
A good editor comes to the manuscript with fresh eyes, sees the author’s vision and has the goal of make it clearer, tighter and more interesting to readers so they truly enjoy the book and want more in a series or by the same author. In one sense, this is good. It’s all too easy to get wound up in one’s own elegant prose, one’s favorite expressions, to wander away from the story into Interesting Stuff. Not relevant Stuff, not Stuff that moves the story along, but Really Interesting Stuff nonetheless. On the other hand, it always breaks your heart at least a little bit, as you have to delete things that are interesting, funny, beautifully written, and even sometimes form the byways and backstory of the book. This process, if it’s going to work, must be all about the book as a whole. If you’re going to have a good book, that takes readers into a different world, that pulls them along with a fast-paced and interesting story, your heart is just going to have to cope in service of the work and the service of the reader.
Too many writers who independently publish think they don’t need editors. What they produce is — sorry — all too often crap. It doesn't read well, it doesn't flow, there are plot holes, there are character inconsistencies and even character name-changes — oh, the difficulties for the reader are legion. These books aren't even properly copy-edited, so the poor grammar, punctuation and spelling distract the reader at every turn. The story idea may be good, but the book as a whole simply isn't done, and without the perspective of those fresh editorial eyes and the detail-oriented skill of a copy-editor, it’s going to be launched with all its flaws and faults. Readers may get the book free or for $0.99 off an e-book site, but those readers will say, “Ho-hum” and won’t look for and follow the succeeding books by the author. This is one of the biggest problems with independent publishing. There are too many writers who simply throw their drafts up on line without having anybody but their three best buddies listen to the overall story line and say, “It’s great. Have another beer.”
The other group who need editors but often don’t have effective ones are Big Names who publish with Major Houses for Big Bucks. NOBODY thinks these people need editors, but they need them as much as any other writer. A Big Name Author I know just published the 4th book in a series of erotica. It’s not my kind of erotica, but I like the author and generally like this author’s books, so I read a sample. It looks like a draft to me. And that’s a shame. Had the book been up to this author’s usual EDITED standards, this book might have sucked me in. It didn’t. I won’t buy this book, and I won’t take another look at the series. These Big Name Authors need editors, too, because of the things a good editor knows how to do to make the work shine — things you really can’t do for yourself.
Good editorial eyes always benefit the writer, the book and the reader. If you’re a writer who is publishing, whether independently, small press, or Major House, make sure you have an editor who is more than a yes-person, someone who actually knows how to edit, and a copy editor who knows her or his job. Getting the story out of the writer’s brain and into the computer is just the first part of the publication process. Before your Baby Book goes out into the world, it’s up to you, the writer, to make it the best book it can possibly be, and that means — among other things — insisting on a good editor and letting her break your heart.
Now that I’ve reminded myself what a great service my wonderful editor does for me, my books and my readers, I’m going to dive into rewrites, so that Chasing Dreams will get the kind of 5-star reviews that The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy garners, and readers will be looking forward to Book Three, scheduled for 2016!
Yeah Hermione is probably going to win, baring a huge upset, but everything from second place to sixth is still an interesting game.
There is still a couple of weeks left in this poll (even though I'll start getting nominations for whatever we're going to do as May's poll in just a couple of days), but please don't forget that if it's been a week since your last vote, you can vote again!
Everyone will get five votes (5). Before you simply vote for your favorite three, consider that, as there is no ranking of those three votes; each vote beyond one dilutes the power of your choices a little more. So if you have a genuine favorite--or pair of favorites--it's better to use as few votes as possible.
