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Wilful
Over 90 days ago
Straight Cis Male, 49
0 miles · Sydney
Forum
Devil's Advocate
Introduce the title of your story: Banging for Roof
Genre/Category: Cheating
Provide the link: https://www.lushstories.com/stories/cheating/banging-for-roof.aspx
1. What first inspired you to write this particular story?
This was originally my idea for the Money Talks competition back in July last year, with Wendy’s lack of money obviously the premise of the story. Unfortunately life got in the way, and I missed the deadline. But toying with the experience versus material possessions theme as I was, I got a rush of blood and figured I could shoehorn it into the New Experiences competition in April. But life again…
The idea itself is drawn from a colleague of mine who came to town for a training course from one of our interstate sites. She was going to stay with a friend from our office, meeting her in a bar after work. Inevitably the friend didn’t show, so our wayward traveller picked up a guy and let him take her home for the night. I only wish I’d stopped off for happy hour that evening.
2. How did you come up with these characters?
I just love Wendy. She’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing. In looking at how to get this average, middleclass, married mother to paratroop into Melbourne, I had to rev up her character more than the twenty-two-year-old colleague of mine. She needed to have done it before to even consider it a possibility. And her other dalliances gave her part of the justification to do it again. But it’s the frustration with her husband and the doubts about where their life is heading that gets her over the line, and more interestingly, fuels her journey through the story.
God, Michael’s who I wish I was! Not the cheating ass bit, but someone actually brave enough to follow through on the bullshit we all talk about. A little older and a little wiser, he’s based on me… the future me. I’ve enslaved myself in debt and consumerism, and I’m not happy. But I think I’ve discovered the way out. While I still have to figure out how to get through that hole in the fence, Michael’s actually done it. He’s free.
3. How does it differ from some of your other stories?
This one’s in third person for a start. Those familiar with my work know I usually write first person from the male point of view. It’s also from Wendy’s perspective. That threw up a few challenges for me, trying to capture her thoughts and feelings as events unfolded, rather than just observing her from a man’s viewpoint.
The other thing I tried this time was shifting between past and present tense. The setup in the bar and the flashbacks to the night afterwards were in my comfort zone of the past. But I wrote the action that unfolded the next morning in present tense. It was partly to make the story more structurally interesting and create a better distinction between the two different time periods. The main reason though was to bring the shower scene into the here and now, rather than an account of what’s already happened. I find third person detaches the reader from what’s going on, so present tense was an attempt to compensate for that.
4. What was the most challenging thing about writing this piece?
I could say that actually writing it was, given it’s been in a holding pattern for nine months. But the ending was the bit that gave me the most grief. And that’s not just finishing it!
It’s a pretty fun and impulsive story, as it kind of has to be. But as I went, developing wendy’s character to justify her behaviour, I found the tone of this shifted for me into something more sincere. My original intention for Michael’s hand to slip in the heat of the moment in the shower, with a few fingers unexpectedly sliding up her asshole, didn’t quite fit – pardon the pun. I like to inject a bit of humour into my stories, but it just didn’t suit this one.
So how to finish it? I didn’t want to spew out another saccharine cliché, as I have so many times before. I had to try and figure out what would be true to Wendy’s character. While I was brief – more so than I wanted to be, but damn, I just had to get it done – I think I got it right.
5. Anything else you want to tell us about it?
This was originally going to be called Per Diem, in honour of Wendy’s travel allowance being the genesis of the story. And given where the tone of this has ended up, I actually prefer this as the title. But a very insightful friend suggested that a sexy title, more so than the category, is likely the reason for a high number of views on a story. So I thought I’d give Banging for Roof a try. It’s perhaps more crass than sexy, but I’m not writing Shakespeare here, so worth a shot.
As always, I’d love it if you’d check it out and let me know what you think.
Genre/Category: Cheating
Provide the link: https://www.lushstories.com/stories/cheating/banging-for-roof.aspx
1. What first inspired you to write this particular story?
This was originally my idea for the Money Talks competition back in July last year, with Wendy’s lack of money obviously the premise of the story. Unfortunately life got in the way, and I missed the deadline. But toying with the experience versus material possessions theme as I was, I got a rush of blood and figured I could shoehorn it into the New Experiences competition in April. But life again…
The idea itself is drawn from a colleague of mine who came to town for a training course from one of our interstate sites. She was going to stay with a friend from our office, meeting her in a bar after work. Inevitably the friend didn’t show, so our wayward traveller picked up a guy and let him take her home for the night. I only wish I’d stopped off for happy hour that evening.
2. How did you come up with these characters?
I just love Wendy. She’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing. In looking at how to get this average, middleclass, married mother to paratroop into Melbourne, I had to rev up her character more than the twenty-two-year-old colleague of mine. She needed to have done it before to even consider it a possibility. And her other dalliances gave her part of the justification to do it again. But it’s the frustration with her husband and the doubts about where their life is heading that gets her over the line, and more interestingly, fuels her journey through the story.
God, Michael’s who I wish I was! Not the cheating ass bit, but someone actually brave enough to follow through on the bullshit we all talk about. A little older and a little wiser, he’s based on me… the future me. I’ve enslaved myself in debt and consumerism, and I’m not happy. But I think I’ve discovered the way out. While I still have to figure out how to get through that hole in the fence, Michael’s actually done it. He’s free.
3. How does it differ from some of your other stories?
This one’s in third person for a start. Those familiar with my work know I usually write first person from the male point of view. It’s also from Wendy’s perspective. That threw up a few challenges for me, trying to capture her thoughts and feelings as events unfolded, rather than just observing her from a man’s viewpoint.
The other thing I tried this time was shifting between past and present tense. The setup in the bar and the flashbacks to the night afterwards were in my comfort zone of the past. But I wrote the action that unfolded the next morning in present tense. It was partly to make the story more structurally interesting and create a better distinction between the two different time periods. The main reason though was to bring the shower scene into the here and now, rather than an account of what’s already happened. I find third person detaches the reader from what’s going on, so present tense was an attempt to compensate for that.
4. What was the most challenging thing about writing this piece?
I could say that actually writing it was, given it’s been in a holding pattern for nine months. But the ending was the bit that gave me the most grief. And that’s not just finishing it!
It’s a pretty fun and impulsive story, as it kind of has to be. But as I went, developing wendy’s character to justify her behaviour, I found the tone of this shifted for me into something more sincere. My original intention for Michael’s hand to slip in the heat of the moment in the shower, with a few fingers unexpectedly sliding up her asshole, didn’t quite fit – pardon the pun. I like to inject a bit of humour into my stories, but it just didn’t suit this one.
So how to finish it? I didn’t want to spew out another saccharine cliché, as I have so many times before. I had to try and figure out what would be true to Wendy’s character. While I was brief – more so than I wanted to be, but damn, I just had to get it done – I think I got it right.
5. Anything else you want to tell us about it?
This was originally going to be called Per Diem, in honour of Wendy’s travel allowance being the genesis of the story. And given where the tone of this has ended up, I actually prefer this as the title. But a very insightful friend suggested that a sexy title, more so than the category, is likely the reason for a high number of views on a story. So I thought I’d give Banging for Roof a try. It’s perhaps more crass than sexy, but I’m not writing Shakespeare here, so worth a shot.
As always, I’d love it if you’d check it out and let me know what you think.
Devil's Advocate
Really great tips in these links, and heaps of other useful resources hanging off them. Thanks for posting.
I found Sarah Waters' and Joss Whedon's lists the most helpful (copied below), and John Steinbeck's sixth rule for writing dialogue is solid gold:
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
Sarah Waters
1. Read like mad. But try to do it analytically – which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work. I find watching films also instructive. Nearly every modern Hollywood blockbuster is hopelessly long and baggy. Trying to visualise the much better films they would have been with a few radical cuts is a great exercise in the art of story-telling. Which leads me on to . . .
2. Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've ¬often read manuscripts – including my own – where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: "This is where the novel should actually start." A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it. In fact . . .
3. Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.
4. Writing fiction is not "self-¬expression" or "therapy". Novels are for readers, and writing them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. I think of my novels as being something like fairground rides: my job is to strap the reader into their car at the start of chapter one, then trundle and whizz them through scenes and surprises, on a carefully planned route, and at a finely engineered pace.
5. Respect your characters, even the ¬minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's. At the same time . . .
6. Don't overcrowd the narrative. Characters should be individualised, but functional – like figures in a painting. Think of Hieronymus Bosch's Christ Mocked, in which a patiently suffering Jesus is closely surrounded by four threatening men. Each of the characters is unique, and yet each represents a type; and collectively they form a narrative that is all the more powerful for being so tightly and so economically constructed. On a similar theme . . .
7. Don't overwrite. Avoid the redundant phrases, the distracting adjectives, the unnecessary adverbs. Beginners, especially, seem to think that writing fiction needs a special kind of flowery prose, completely unlike any sort of language one might encounter in day-to-day life. This is a misapprehension about how the effects of fiction are produced, and can be dispelled by obeying Rule 1. To read some of the work of Colm Tóibín or Cormac McCarthy, for example, is to discover how a deliberately limited vocabulary can produce an astonishing emotional punch.
8. Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.
9. Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.
10. Talent trumps all. If you're a ¬really great writer, none of these rules need apply. If James Baldwin had felt the need to whip up the pace a bit, he could never have achieved the extended lyrical intensity of Giovanni's Room. Without "overwritten" prose, we would have none of the linguistic exuberance of a Dickens or an Angela Carter. If everyone was economical with their characters, there would be no Wolf Hall . . . For the rest of us, however, rules remain important. And, ¬crucially, only by understanding what they're for and how they work can you begin to experiment with breaking them.
Joss Whedon
1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.
2. STRUCTURE
Structure means knowing where you’re going; making sure you don’t meander about. Some great films have been made by meandering people, like Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, but it’s not as well done today and I don’t recommend it. I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes? The thrills? The romance? Who knows what, and when? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that’s what you build your structure around: the way you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, coloured pens, anything that means you don’t go in blind is useful.
3. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY
This really should be number one. Even if you’re writing a Die Hard rip-off, have something to say about Die Hard rip-offs. The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering. It’s rare, especially in genres, to find a movie with an idea and not just, ‘This’ll lead to many fine set-pieces’. The Island evolves into a car-chase movie, and the moments of joy are when they have clone moments and you say, ‘What does it feel like to be those guys?’
4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE
Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue: you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.
5. CUT WHAT YOU LOVE
Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.
6. LISTEN
When I’ve been hired as a script doctor, it’s usually because someone else can’t get it through to the next level. It’s true that writers are replaced when executives don’t know what else to do, and that’s terrible, but the fact of the matter is that for most of the screenplays I’ve worked on, I’ve been needed, whether or not I’ve been allowed to do anything good. Often someone’s just got locked, they’ve ossified, they’re so stuck in their heads that they can’t see the people around them. It’s very important to know when to stick to your guns, but it’s also very important to listen to absolutely everybody. The stupidest person in the room might have the best idea.
7. TRACK THE AUDIENCE MOOD
You have one goal: to connect with your audience. Therefore, you must track what your audience is feeling at all times. One of the biggest problems I face when watching other people’s movies is I’ll say, ‘This part confuses me’, or whatever, and they’ll say, ‘What I’m intending to say is this’, and they’ll go on about their intentions. None of this has anything to do with my experience as an audience member. Think in terms of what audiences think. They go to the theatre, and they either notice that their butts are numb, or they don’t. If you’re doing your job right, they don’t. People think of studio test screenings as terrible, and that’s because a lot of studios are pretty stupid about it. They panic and re-shoot, or they go, ‘Gee, Brazil can’t have an unhappy ending,’ and that’s the horror story. But it can make a lot of sense.
8. WRITE LIKE A MOVIE
Write the movie as much as you can. If something is lush and extensive, you can describe it glowingly; if something isn’t that important, just get past it tersely. Let the read feel like the movie; it does a lot of the work for you, for the director, and for the executives who go, ‘What will this be like when we put it on its feet?’
9. DON’T LISTEN
Having given the advice about listening, I have to give the opposite advice, because ultimately the best work comes when somebody’s fucked the system; done the unexpected and let their own personal voice into the machine that is moviemaking. Choose your battles. You wouldn’t get Paul Thomas Anderson, or Wes Anderson, or any of these guys if all moviemaking was completely cookie-cutter. But the process drives you in that direction; it’s a homogenising process, and you have to fight that a bit. There was a point while we were making Firefly when I asked the network not to pick it up: they’d started talking about a different show.
10. DON’T SELL OUT
The first penny I ever earned, I saved. Then I made sure that I never had to take a job just because I needed to. I still needed jobs of course, but I was able to take ones that I loved. When I say that includes Waterworld, people scratch their heads, but it’s a wonderful idea for a movie. Anything can be good. Even Last Action Hero could’ve been good. There’s an idea somewhere in almost any movie: if you can find something that you love, then you can do it. If you can’t, it doesn’t matter how skilful you are: that’s called whoring.
I found Sarah Waters' and Joss Whedon's lists the most helpful (copied below), and John Steinbeck's sixth rule for writing dialogue is solid gold:
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
Sarah Waters
1. Read like mad. But try to do it analytically – which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work. I find watching films also instructive. Nearly every modern Hollywood blockbuster is hopelessly long and baggy. Trying to visualise the much better films they would have been with a few radical cuts is a great exercise in the art of story-telling. Which leads me on to . . .
2. Cut like crazy. Less is more. I've ¬often read manuscripts – including my own – where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have thought: "This is where the novel should actually start." A huge amount of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it. In fact . . .
3. Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.
4. Writing fiction is not "self-¬expression" or "therapy". Novels are for readers, and writing them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. I think of my novels as being something like fairground rides: my job is to strap the reader into their car at the start of chapter one, then trundle and whizz them through scenes and surprises, on a carefully planned route, and at a finely engineered pace.
5. Respect your characters, even the ¬minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's. At the same time . . .
6. Don't overcrowd the narrative. Characters should be individualised, but functional – like figures in a painting. Think of Hieronymus Bosch's Christ Mocked, in which a patiently suffering Jesus is closely surrounded by four threatening men. Each of the characters is unique, and yet each represents a type; and collectively they form a narrative that is all the more powerful for being so tightly and so economically constructed. On a similar theme . . .
7. Don't overwrite. Avoid the redundant phrases, the distracting adjectives, the unnecessary adverbs. Beginners, especially, seem to think that writing fiction needs a special kind of flowery prose, completely unlike any sort of language one might encounter in day-to-day life. This is a misapprehension about how the effects of fiction are produced, and can be dispelled by obeying Rule 1. To read some of the work of Colm Tóibín or Cormac McCarthy, for example, is to discover how a deliberately limited vocabulary can produce an astonishing emotional punch.
8. Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.
9. Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.
10. Talent trumps all. If you're a ¬really great writer, none of these rules need apply. If James Baldwin had felt the need to whip up the pace a bit, he could never have achieved the extended lyrical intensity of Giovanni's Room. Without "overwritten" prose, we would have none of the linguistic exuberance of a Dickens or an Angela Carter. If everyone was economical with their characters, there would be no Wolf Hall . . . For the rest of us, however, rules remain important. And, ¬crucially, only by understanding what they're for and how they work can you begin to experiment with breaking them.
Joss Whedon
1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.
2. STRUCTURE
Structure means knowing where you’re going; making sure you don’t meander about. Some great films have been made by meandering people, like Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, but it’s not as well done today and I don’t recommend it. I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes? The thrills? The romance? Who knows what, and when? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that’s what you build your structure around: the way you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, coloured pens, anything that means you don’t go in blind is useful.
3. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY
This really should be number one. Even if you’re writing a Die Hard rip-off, have something to say about Die Hard rip-offs. The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering. It’s rare, especially in genres, to find a movie with an idea and not just, ‘This’ll lead to many fine set-pieces’. The Island evolves into a car-chase movie, and the moments of joy are when they have clone moments and you say, ‘What does it feel like to be those guys?’
4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE
Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue: you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.
5. CUT WHAT YOU LOVE
Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.
6. LISTEN
When I’ve been hired as a script doctor, it’s usually because someone else can’t get it through to the next level. It’s true that writers are replaced when executives don’t know what else to do, and that’s terrible, but the fact of the matter is that for most of the screenplays I’ve worked on, I’ve been needed, whether or not I’ve been allowed to do anything good. Often someone’s just got locked, they’ve ossified, they’re so stuck in their heads that they can’t see the people around them. It’s very important to know when to stick to your guns, but it’s also very important to listen to absolutely everybody. The stupidest person in the room might have the best idea.
7. TRACK THE AUDIENCE MOOD
You have one goal: to connect with your audience. Therefore, you must track what your audience is feeling at all times. One of the biggest problems I face when watching other people’s movies is I’ll say, ‘This part confuses me’, or whatever, and they’ll say, ‘What I’m intending to say is this’, and they’ll go on about their intentions. None of this has anything to do with my experience as an audience member. Think in terms of what audiences think. They go to the theatre, and they either notice that their butts are numb, or they don’t. If you’re doing your job right, they don’t. People think of studio test screenings as terrible, and that’s because a lot of studios are pretty stupid about it. They panic and re-shoot, or they go, ‘Gee, Brazil can’t have an unhappy ending,’ and that’s the horror story. But it can make a lot of sense.
8. WRITE LIKE A MOVIE
Write the movie as much as you can. If something is lush and extensive, you can describe it glowingly; if something isn’t that important, just get past it tersely. Let the read feel like the movie; it does a lot of the work for you, for the director, and for the executives who go, ‘What will this be like when we put it on its feet?’
9. DON’T LISTEN
Having given the advice about listening, I have to give the opposite advice, because ultimately the best work comes when somebody’s fucked the system; done the unexpected and let their own personal voice into the machine that is moviemaking. Choose your battles. You wouldn’t get Paul Thomas Anderson, or Wes Anderson, or any of these guys if all moviemaking was completely cookie-cutter. But the process drives you in that direction; it’s a homogenising process, and you have to fight that a bit. There was a point while we were making Firefly when I asked the network not to pick it up: they’d started talking about a different show.
10. DON’T SELL OUT
The first penny I ever earned, I saved. Then I made sure that I never had to take a job just because I needed to. I still needed jobs of course, but I was able to take ones that I loved. When I say that includes Waterworld, people scratch their heads, but it’s a wonderful idea for a movie. Anything can be good. Even Last Action Hero could’ve been good. There’s an idea somewhere in almost any movie: if you can find something that you love, then you can do it. If you can’t, it doesn’t matter how skilful you are: that’s called whoring.
Devil's Advocate
Sooo... has the group lost its soul?
I did not like seeing Glen pop his cherry, and so easily too.
But I was on YouTube again and saw the Honest Trailer for Seasons 4 to 6. I love those guys!
I did not like seeing Glen pop his cherry, and so easily too.
But I was on YouTube again and saw the Honest Trailer for Seasons 4 to 6. I love those guys!
Devil's Advocate
I loved the opener. I have such a man crush on Daryl. It just never ceases to amaze me how when faced with such a scenario, some people will go off-the-charts psycho. Like really, I know it's the end of the world and everything, but do you have to be such a dick about it?
That was some pretty powerful stuff with Jessie. The way she held her son's hand... My wife was in tears.
And Glen! My heart was in my mouth during that moment. I was actually thinking they might have done it too. It would be just the sort of mind fuck the creators would pull. Make us think he's done for, leave us hanging for weeks, let us off the hook, than BAM!
Just as an aside, I stumbled across an interesting theory from the Film Theorists on YouTube about how our guys keep getting surprised by walkers when they really shouldn't:
The Walking Dead's Silent Killer
And even more interesting, this theory on how it's all going to end has me raising an eyebrow or two:
How The Walking Dead Will End
That was some pretty powerful stuff with Jessie. The way she held her son's hand... My wife was in tears.
And Glen! My heart was in my mouth during that moment. I was actually thinking they might have done it too. It would be just the sort of mind fuck the creators would pull. Make us think he's done for, leave us hanging for weeks, let us off the hook, than BAM!
Just as an aside, I stumbled across an interesting theory from the Film Theorists on YouTube about how our guys keep getting surprised by walkers when they really shouldn't:
The Walking Dead's Silent Killer
And even more interesting, this theory on how it's all going to end has me raising an eyebrow or two:
How The Walking Dead Will End
Devil's Advocate
Quote by oceanrunner1974
There was an episode of a sitcom I saw once (How I met your mother, maybe?) in which one character admits that for him to fantasize about women other than his wife, he has to kill off his wife in his fantasy, because he could never cheat on her. So she has to have died in a car crash or of some disease before the fantasy makes sense to him.
Although at some level that's rather weird, there's another level at which I completely get it. I don't really want to read, and especially not write, stories in which the plumber shows up and says, "I got a call someone needs their pipes cleaned?" to the naked girl who answers the door.
I like the set-up. In fact, I'd venture to guess that for many a fault in many of my stories is that the set-up is perhaps too long. But for me, I want to make sure that the sex "makes sense," even if it is a fantastic situation.
So, if we hear that the girl has been challenged to answer the door naked and is doing it on a dare, and we know exactly how she happens to be in that situation. And the friend who dared her did it because she knows that the plumber who is coming is really the guy she's fantasized about for years, and...
Well, then the story got a lot more interesting for me.
Brilliantly put.
Devil's Advocate
Mine are pretty much in the order they're posted, but I do shuffle the Recommended Reads up the list so that they're all on the front page. I'm not quite in Milik's league yet, so there's still a couple of duds up there front and centre. And for my series, I switched that around so that it's in order. I'm a bit anal that way. Mmm... anal.
Devil's Advocate
Yeah, me too. Special Assistance and Respite are probably the stories I'm most proud of, but in terms of reads, they're nestled in the back of the herd. My two most popular stories, Sleeping Over and Naughty Girl, aren't my best effort and don't have the critical recognition of Recommended Reads.
I thought categories might have something to do with it, and maybe to some extent that's true. But a very clever friend recently pointed out to me that the title probably has something to do with the popularity of a story. I'll test that out with my next few stories and see what happens.
I thought categories might have something to do with it, and maybe to some extent that's true. But a very clever friend recently pointed out to me that the title probably has something to do with the popularity of a story. I'll test that out with my next few stories and see what happens.
Devil's Advocate
I'd definitely love to see Sprite's Mrs Vandermeer's Rules made into a movie. Just the tension alone would make it something to behold. Oh my...
I like Dakota Johnson as Shannon. While perhaps a bit old for it, she has a sweet innocence that I think would play very nicely indeed. And if nothing else, she could do with a stint in a decent BDSM movie.
My vote's for Elizabeth Banks to play Mrs Vandermeer. She has a sinister edge to her that would contrast really well with Dakota.
And Clive Owen as the husband would set the whole thing off nicely. He's got a brooding intensity that would complement the other two perfectly... not that I've put too much thought into this or anything...
If I was going to do one of my own stories, I'd go with Overflow. I'm expanding it into a novel this year, and it's the only one I have in the hopper at the moment with the legs to carry a movie.
I'd cast Hugh Jackman as Will, assuming I couldn't have a crack at it myself;
Isla Fisher as Katie;
Lisa McCune as Melissa;
Eric Bana as Rob;
Sam Worthington as Ian; and
Claudia Karvan as Sally.
Certainly fun to think about...
I like Dakota Johnson as Shannon. While perhaps a bit old for it, she has a sweet innocence that I think would play very nicely indeed. And if nothing else, she could do with a stint in a decent BDSM movie.
My vote's for Elizabeth Banks to play Mrs Vandermeer. She has a sinister edge to her that would contrast really well with Dakota.
And Clive Owen as the husband would set the whole thing off nicely. He's got a brooding intensity that would complement the other two perfectly... not that I've put too much thought into this or anything...
If I was going to do one of my own stories, I'd go with Overflow. I'm expanding it into a novel this year, and it's the only one I have in the hopper at the moment with the legs to carry a movie.
I'd cast Hugh Jackman as Will, assuming I couldn't have a crack at it myself;
Isla Fisher as Katie;
Lisa McCune as Melissa;
Eric Bana as Rob;
Sam Worthington as Ian; and
Claudia Karvan as Sally.
Certainly fun to think about...
Devil's Advocate
I put a bit of thought into it to make sure the names are realistic and match the personality to some extent. I don't like highly sexualised stripper names, even for strippers and prostitutes. I agree that names should be ethnically appropriate too. But at the end of the day, the name is just a brand that will end up being associated with that character regardless.
So as long as there's no Candi - with an "I" - or Japanese villager called Sharon, it doesn't matter too much.
So as long as there's no Candi - with an "I" - or Japanese villager called Sharon, it doesn't matter too much.
Devil's Advocate
Leftover turducken, and hopefully some freshly made sweet potato mash and gravy to go with it. For those of you who don't know, turducken is a fingering of stuffing inside a cock of chicken in a fisting of duck shoved up a turkey wrapped in bacon. Then it all goes inside me.
If I'm lucky, there'll also be some leftover trifle for dessert, but it's my wife's "Christmas Month", so that's me shafted. I'll have to see if I can scavenge a stray rum ball that may have rolled under the couch in the frenzy yesterday.
If I'm lucky, there'll also be some leftover trifle for dessert, but it's my wife's "Christmas Month", so that's me shafted. I'll have to see if I can scavenge a stray rum ball that may have rolled under the couch in the frenzy yesterday.
Devil's Advocate
Quote by avrgblkgrl
I reread it, reread it, reread it and reread it before I submit a story.
Every once in a while I may go back and read something after
submission; it may be something I wrote last month or two years ago.
It's painful because each time I see a mistake, I see where I could have
done better or I wonder why in the hell did I let someone read that.46gdL6RFlzGAC5Xf
Pretty much this.
Although from time to time, like now for instance when I'm in a bit of a slump, I will reread my old stories to try and kick start a bit of inspiration. I find it helps to remind myself that I can actually write.
Devil's Advocate
Cowgirl's fine, and a great way to get things started, but I prefer doggy style between the two. 
While access to the goodies takes a little more work, there's something so sexy about leaning over her, or her craning up to kiss, fondle and squeeze. That over-the-shoulder eye contact is a game changer. Oh, and when she reaches up to brace herself against the headboard... hot damn! But bottom line, I think it's the control for me. I prefer to be in charge.
The only downside is the occasional loss of traction.
While access to the goodies takes a little more work, there's something so sexy about leaning over her, or her craning up to kiss, fondle and squeeze. That over-the-shoulder eye contact is a game changer. Oh, and when she reaches up to brace herself against the headboard... hot damn! But bottom line, I think it's the control for me. I prefer to be in charge.
The only downside is the occasional loss of traction.
Devil's Advocate
Quote by Dancing_Doll
Walking Dead fucked us good. Like in the ass. With no lube. And yet somehow, I'm still happy because after the stress, shock and tears, now it feels really good. Welcome back, Glenn.]
Some of my favourite writing from you, Doll.
Glen's miraculous escape was definitely an ah-come-the-fuck-on moment, but at the same time, I was instantly relieved he made it. he's far too cool a character to kill off at this stage, with nobody else even remotely able to fill his shoes.
Great episode all round though. They certainly know how to ratchet up the tension, and on so many different fronts too.
But I don't know what Enid's deal is. I thought she was supposed to be the Wolves inside man with all that "we" and "us" business with Carl as the attack kicked off a few weeks back. I was waiting for her to lure Glen into an ambush or something. Still, the angry teen thing got very old very quickly.
And Eugene... useless as tits on a bull. I still like him though. He's great comic relief. I'm hoping he has his moment. By the look of next week's episode, we'll soon know either way.
