Good morning folks. Just a quick little post to get the day off and running.
Monday I wrote a little over 1400 words and yesterday I wrote just over 800 words. All of which were on War Child.
I also completed Halo:Combat Evolved yesterday as well. Damn that was a lot harder than I remembered. I’ve not played Halo since it first come out and it was so much fun! The way they remastered it all is beautiful. I’ll post some pictures comparing the two versions soon, because you could play the remastered one with the original graphics.
Right, I’m about to start my day job. Have an awesome day, folks!
This movie tells the story of two couples; Lacey and Dennis (referred by his surname Farrell) They’re on the run from the law (played by Shea Whigham and Rachel Kerbs) and the other couple, Seth Belzer and Polly Watt, who have attempted to camp out fo their anniversary but due to a tent disaster they decide to find a motel (Paulo Costanzo and Jill Wagner). Along the way they stop as a distressed woman appears, who’s boyfriend then pulls a gun on them and kidnap them. They run over an animal and have to change a tire, but the radiator is also damaged and they have to stop at a petrol station. Then the shit hits the fan!
I liked the pace it had and the conflict between the two couples was really good, but so was the conflict within each of the couples. There is some really good gore in the film, but it’s not slapped in your face. The effects are fantastic, and really freaky! Between the practical effects, camera work, lighting and so on they make this creature scary, but you add in its behaviour then it brings it altogether very nicely.
There are moments where I literally said out loud ‘don’t do that’
The acting is pretty darn good, with each of the main actors pulling you in and making you feel for them. Even Farrell, you see what his aim is. Shea Whigham makes you dislike his character, but when you watch the film you see there’s a depth to him that I didn’t expect.
Rachel Kerbs as Lacey clicks well with Whigham and I thought she gave a moving performance, and you believed her and Farrell’s affections to each other.
One element I like in this movie is how Farrell is different to Seth. Dennis Farrell is a hardened criminal, while Seth is more academic. Pretty much the opposite of Farrell. Polly is shown to be more handy than Seth quite early on. The derision that Farrell has for Seth because of this works really well, and Costanzo shows how his jibs hit.
Costanzo’s Seth and Jill Wagner’s Polly make a believable couple, especially in the early scenes when they are at the plot of land where they’re planning to camp out. They’re relationship is tested, and there was a few times where I wasn’t sure how things between them were going to go.
I liked how the film was brought to its conclusion, it’s not really something I’ve seen recently and made a nice change of pace from other films and TV shows I’ve seen recently.
It’s well worth a watch and one I’m seriously thinking about adding to my physical movie library.
I don’t really need to say much about this one do I? It’s one of the most iconic films of this century, both in horror and British cinema.
In a telling of the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse we follow twenty-something Shaun, his bbf Ed, girlfriend Liz, mum and two of Liz’s friends, Dianne and David. And it’s very British!
Edgar Wright directs, and helms a movie that nails each element. From the gore, to the pain of lose the characters go through during these few days. To get the balance between horror, comedy and pulling at the viewer’s heartstrings is not easy and Shaun of the Dead does each perfectly.
For me, this is a rare perfect film. There’s no real plot holes, no characters who aren’t believable. Even the conclusion of the movie sits well. The soundtrack and score are odd and silly at times, but fit perfectly in building the tone of the movie.
Red glow for atmosphere 😈
If you haven’t seen this movie, please change that and check it out.
This is the second film off of David Court’s 35 best movies of the 2000s.
I haven’t seen this since it came out for rental, but surprisingly I remembered a fair bit of it, and also a lot I didn’t remember.
Overall I enjoyed it, probably more than I did first time around. It gave me a big smile when there was a cover of Disturbed’s Down With The Sickness, one of my favourite songs that I wasn’t familiar back on my first viewing.
The movie is well paced, acted superbly, written with a skill to both tug at the heartstrings while also adding a little humour. Kind of what we’ve come to expect from a script by James Gunn.
There’s some good gore, some interesting kills, and one of two moments that made me roll my eyes. There’s one moment in the film when the main characters need to help another isolated person hold up during this zombie hoard, only for their initial plan to go pair shaped. There are two other ways they could have helped this fella which is demonstrated in the following moments.
Despite that, this film is well worth a watch and deserves the praise it does get.
I started my journey of the top 35 horror movies of the 2000 by David Court last night with Severance.
This is a horror comedy set in a forest in Hungary where an arms company’s weekend retreat goes pear shaped!
The plot is fun and straightforward, it doesn’t hit you over the head or try to make a big statement about one thing or another. It’s well executed, shot, written, and acted.
This film manages to be serious, but has a good sense of humour and isn’t afraid to do things which are very nearly unbelievable. I don’t want to say too much, because I wouldn’t do it justice.
Please check this movie out. It sits in part of the general which is easily screwed up but here they nail it.
David Court is not only a damn good human being, a gifted wrangler of words, but also has a good eye for movies.
I’ve had the pleasure of not only meeting David, but sharing anthology space with him. He’s someone I hold in high regard. So when he posts a list of movies, I pay attention to it. This time though, I’m going one step further. I’m going to watch each and everyone on this list by the end of this year. Here is the list:
L-R Me, Pippa Pilgrim (Bailey), Matthew Cash, and David Court at the Sparks anthology launch.
Of the list I’ve seen 18 of these movies, but I’m going to rewatch the, as I go. I’m going to try and watch them from 35 to 1, but I’m not holding to that religiously. I will also post about it as I go with just a few thoughts on each film, then I might put all those thoughts into one post.
Howdy, folks! How are we all doing? Are people having a good festive period? Mine has been pretty darn good, but it’s back to work tomorrow. Which I am looking forward to, I enjoy my day job a lot and I like the routine (if shift-work has such a thing), and as most of my shifts are early’s I tend to have the rest of the day to get stuck into what I need to.
In the week before Christmas I had very little time to focus on writing, but I did manage to squeeze writing time in. This years NaNo project is still in process and I didn’t want to go too many days without working on it. I’ve had seven days this month where I haven’t done any writing at all, and likely a few days where I haven’t worked on NaNo ’22, but I’ve not let too many days in a row where I’ve not worked on it. Something I’ve talked about a lot on here is momentum, and I think it’s something that’s very important. I’ve lost momentum before and it’s very hard to get it back. I’m worried it’s going to happen again, so I’m hoping I’ve done enough so far with this story to stop me from hitting a roadblock that stops me dead like has happened in the past.
I don’t want this year to end with a bang, and I definitely don’t want it to end with a whimper. I want it to end with a nice steady pace, similar to where I am at the moment which rolls right into 2023 and continues.
I haven’t spoken much about my mental health publicly of late, that’s simply because I’m feeling better than I have done in a long time. Okay, then I’ve ever felt. Yes, there’s a long way to go. There are still things which really eat away at me, and as I kinda tick one thing off another three crop up. But I’m working on it all. I have less bad days now then I used to and the good ones are more frequent. I don’t believe it’s one or the other. I think some days are a mix of both, while others are neither. Those are the days I have most of, but even those days tend to be more towards the positive side of life.
The biggest lesson I feel I’ve learnt of late is to get a decent amount of sleep. Life is a lot more settled when I’m more rested.
We all have that one co-worker that don’t do much 😉🤣
Good evening folks, just a quick post tonight. I’ve managed about 10k words of editing in the last couple of days. I feel like this story (NaNo ‘22) has a lot of potential, I just need to wrangle it a little.
I’ve been looking back at the last twelve months of writing, and I’m pretty pleased with it. They’ll be a more focused list on that soon, that post will also look at 2023 a little.
Right I’m off to bed, retail at Christmas is a workout and a half. So a good nights sleep is a great place to start.
I have edited 6000 words on this years NaNoWriMo story. I’m getting stuck into the story, mostly tidying it up but also trying to get a decent picture of how the story is going to play out.
I’ve started on a couple of short stories, one feels like it’s fizzled out while the other might end up being a novelette, but we’ll see.
We’re nearing the end of the year and I’m thinking hard about my goals for next year. This past year has felt like it’s been a preparation year, with the aim of getting a few pieces lined up for either publishing or submitting in the next two years. The zombie book will be published next year. Penal Earth will be pitched to publishers or submitted in open calls. Black Blood needs one more pass I think, and then it’ll be ready to go. The vampire book will be released in a serialised form on my Ko-Fi page, with the first story being released early on Christmas day. What is being posted on Ko-Fi is likely not the final draft, I’ll have it edited and then self-publish it in maybe 2024. I’m not sure yet.
I do have my goals for next year written out, but I’m not sure if I want to share them here just yet.
Right, that’s all for the night. Have an awesome time, folks!
I wrote 50082 words for this years NaNoWriMo, hitting the target at about 9:40 last night.
This years NaNoWriMo got off to a slow start for me, I didn’t get caught up until the 23rd of the month, then I had a couple of days ahead of the goal, then a couple of days behind and then I brought it home on the last day.
It was a month where I was feeling like I was chasing the goal each day. My lowest word daily count was 247, while my highest was 4026.
The month started off with a busy schedule at the day job which didn’t leave me much time for wrangling the words. I’d write before work, then during my breaks and then get stuck in after I got home. Most of the time when I was writing at work I’d not really be able to get really in-depth with the work, but I did manage to get some words down. These feel more like I was thrashing out a synopsis of the scene/chapter I was working on. I’ve now got a lot of little synopsis to build from.
Other scenes I’ve managed to build a pretty solid part of the story which won’t need much tidying up when the time comes.
Where I’m at now is I’ve got a lot scenes scattered throughout the document and I’ve got to start figuring out how to connect them all. I don’t think it’s as bad as I might be fearing, but there is a bigger problem I’ve come up against. Originally I saw this as a three book arc, but was worried I wouldn’t have enough to fill three books. Now that I’ve started it, I think I’ve potentially got a lot more than three books worth of story to tell. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me with this one.
This story, working title ‘War Child’ has been one I’ve been wanting to tell for quite some time, but have been intimidated by it. I feared I wasn’t capable yet to do it justice. But after some encouragement from friends and peers I decided to dive in head first. I’m so glad I did. This is going to be one where I think I am going to be pushed as a writer. I’ve spent so much of the last year trying to get stories finished and ready to either self-publish or submit I’ve forgotten what it’s like to begin crafting a new world.
Away from the writing part of NaNo I didn’t get much chance to host or even attend write-ins. Between the manic work schedule at the start of the month and a slow cash flow it just wasn’t on the cards. The one I did manage to host turned into a solo session. Which was okay, I got words down. It’d have been nice to get a few faces there though, hopefully next year I’ll be in a better position to be the ML I really want to be. I don’t feel like I’ve had the chance to step up how I want to. Between Covid and non-writing matters that have cropped up I’ve not really been able to dedicate the required time and effort to it that I’d have liked.
What’s next? I’m going to continue with War Child, but I also need to get The vampire book ready as I’ll be releasing that via the Welcome To My Nightmare tier on Ko-Fi. So I need to pull my finger out and get that final pass of edits done!
Peter Germany's World 