Plotting & Stuff

Whatever the new Doctor Who episode was called...it was awesome. I can't wait for the next one. I love the weeping angels.

In Creative Writing, our assignment is to plot out a novel, making sure we follow 3-Act, and preferably also 8-Sequence structure. So I'm taking advantage of the time and working on the plot for The Family Business. At the moment, it's turning out to be more of a comedy than I thought it would be. Hopefully I can pull it off. As of now, I'll be doing it for NaNoWriMo this year.
Our unit on plotting has been fascinating.

Editing another 50 pages of Clockwork to send to you. Once I give you these, you'll have read up through page 150. Sorry these are late.

Not much else has been happening, other than that I found a cool new blog: http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com. Mostly about plotting (we were told to explore the post archives during class today).

I can't watch a movie anymore without thinking "Look! A ticking clock!" or "Long Dark Night of the Soul!" or "Gathering the Team scene!"

It's rather annoying. Even though it's probably helpful.

The Victory of the Daleks

Of course the Daleks had to come back. They always do. I like the spin of them pretending to work for Britain to lure the Doctor there. But why are the new, better ones different colors? That kinda bothers me. The white one made me think of Stormtroopers, which matched the very Star Wars-esque action scene. The Dalek jump to Hyperspace looked an awful lot like the jump to light-speed, too.

I'm sure the Doctor would have blown up the TARDIS if necessary...but I guessed from the first that the "self destruct" was a piece of food.

It's really a mark of how much he's become "better" that he was originally willing to blow up Gallifrey to destroy the Daleks...but couldn't do it again (with Earth).

The bit with the TARDIS key was great.

And, I'm finishing this post several days later, so I have no idea what I was planning on saying after that. Sorry.

Another crack in time! 

Parody Musicals

I finished typing The Other Oz today, with a page count of 50 on the dot. Now, I didn't use traditional formatting, so if I did it the way scripts are supposed to be, it would be different.
I'm not going to let you read it. It's that bad. No, really, it is. I'm not being modest.
And so, to give you something else to do, I will recommend a different musical that is a parody of a well-known and loved story.

A Very Potter Musical is, as you have probably guessed, a musical that combines books 1,2, 6, and 7 of the Harry Potter series. It is my favorite musical ever, and is available for everyone to watch on the glorious place known as YouTube. For free. It's hilarious. The sequel (A Very Potter Sequel) will be posted sometime in June.

Visit http://www.youtube.com/starkidpotter to watch.

The soundtrack is available for free download on their website.

So forget about my parody musical, and go watch theirs. I guarantee you will laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Meaning in Literature

Some books have loads of hidden meanings and messages. In some books, almost everything is a metaphor. Some people enjoy guessing at what they're metaphors for. These people are looking for meaning in literature beyond what the author intended for them to find. That's all fine and dandy. If you find something profound in a book that has a positive impact on your life, who cares whether or not it was supposed to be taken that way?

However, problems arise when you actually ask the author of said book(s) about it.

The following is from YA author Maureen Johnson's twitter page. The "John" is fellow YA author John Green, who I have mentioned several times in the past.

maureenjohnson 

  

Q: "Why do cars feature so much in your books?" John: "Well, they're good ways of getting people around."#meaninginliterature


John is currently on tour with co-author David Levithan for their new book Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I read this book, and it is very excellent, and I recommend it to all of you, but that's not the point. Maureen joined them for a few events, and has been reporting on proceedings via Twitter.


People of the world: in the words of one of the Potter Pundits (a group of university scholars who specialize in the Harry Potter books and are featured on the podcast known as Pottercast), "sometimes a wand is just a wand," and sometimes a car is really only a car.


So when you ask me if I was poking fun of Twilight: no...but if you want to take it that way, that's fine by me. 
As to what I actually meant...I don't think I'll tell you.


By the time we next meet, you will all have (hopefully) read chapters 21-37, and will therefore be almost halfway done with the book. At this rate, I'll be back to reading you short stories in only a month or two. :)


Tangent on WGWG:


Summary: John wrote the odd chapters, about one character named Will Grayson, and David Levithan wrote the even chapters, about a different character named Will Grayson. The characters meet about a third or so of the way through the book. John's Will Grayson grapples with being anti-relationship while helping his best friend Tiny produce the world's greatest high school musical, which happens to be a slightly fictionalized version of Tiny's life story.
A funny book, and insightful book, and in all, a very enjoyable book.

Four More Reviews

 I've watched a lot of new movies in the past two days, so I think I'll review them for you.

Earlier today, my family and I went to see How To Train Your Dragon. A review on http://www.shurtugal.com (the Eragon fansite that I have in my Google Reader) said it was the "movie Eragon should have been," which I agree with. This movie was great. I highly recommend it. I laughed not almost constantly, but almost almost constantly, for the first few minutes of the movie. The rest was also funny.

When we got home, I checked my iPod to see the time in London (it was almost 10 pm), decided that Doctor Who might be on YouTube by then (it was) and then we watched that.
Looking back, I think I enjoyed "The Eleventh Hour" more than this one, even though I want to give this one a better review.
I very much like the idea of "Protest," "Forget," and "Abdicate" buttons.  The space whale is cool, even though it is completely impossible for such a thing to evolve. Since when has sci-fi ever been realistic?
At first, I thought the woman who turned out to be the queen was River Song, and then my dad speculated that she might have been one of Martha's descendants...but of course, she wasn't.
I was a bit surprised when the Doctor wanted to take Amy home. She was just acting out of care for him.
And Winston Churchill's my eighth cousin 5 times removed. My cousin knows the Doctor! :D

Last night, we watched Bedazzled (witht Brendan Frazer). The plot was really predictable, but I enjoyed the twists put on each of his wishes. It was also very funny. In all: not the greatest movie, but not un-worth watching. It was fun watching him act so many different roles in the same movie.

After finishing that movie, we debated Spiderman, and X-Men, but then ended up popping in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, which was hilarious, albeit very awkward to watch with others. Fortunately, my mom had gone to bed already. :) Watching movies/TV shows with excessive amounts of vomit seems to be something I've done much more than usual recently (Doctor Who, this, and the only episode of South Park I've ever watched: The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs, which makes fun of writing and censorship).


I'm almost finished typing The Other Oz, and I'll probably edit Clockwork for you tomorrow morning.

Spiders & Mosquitoes

Just a note: Axel Man doesn't actually hate mosquitoes. And he's also a hypocrite when it comes to spiders.

I'll leave it to you to figure out what that means.

Everything will make sense eventually, I promise. Things get even weirder than they are...but it will all make sense later. Hopefully, that is, and if it doesn't, you guys can tell me and then I'll change it so it does.

Rebuttle on the New Doctor Who

I'm writing this as a new post because I don't know if people read the comments.
Take note: some things I say in this post might be different from my last one, since the episode has since sunk in more and such.

CLARIFICATIONS:

I've absolutely no problem with the aliens being cheesy. Actually, when Prisoner 0 was in the form of the humans, it wasn't cheesy at all. Just the eyes and the snake.

I did notice that bit. That bit was excellent. I had to move so my back was against the wall. I agree that not all the episodes should be scary. It was just that this one started out seeming like it was going to be a scary one...and then it became progressively less so. If it had started out less scary and then built up, or the scariness had been spread out more evenly, that would have been better.

When I say (about Matt Smith as the Doctor) "I like him," I don't mean "meh." I mean I genuinely like him as the Doctor, and I think he will be quite good. During the last half, I spent a fair amount of time replying to stuff he said, which is a good sign when it comes to characters (yes, I talk to TV characters. Sorry.). Yes, he did have many great lines. My initial reaction to him was less than he deserved (see? I was wrong about my prejudice having evaporated). But he's still missing...something. Not sure what.



I didn't hate those episodes, so I don't have that reason. "The Girl In the Fireplace" is one of my favorites also. I hadn't realized Moffat wrote that one too. I haven't watched any of the old episodes (not completely, anyway-just fragments) so I don't have that either.

Oh, well, of course it's the best since Stolen Earth.

Actually, you know what? Writing this post has made me hopelessly confused as to what I actually think of the episode, so maybe all of you should just ignore me. I'll stop reviewing things, and just watch them. Okay?

But one thing is for sure: I'm really looking forward to next weekend and the new episode.

On the new Doctor Who

This blog, regardless of how I originally intended it to be, is not at all professional. So I may as well tell you what I think about "The Eleventh Hour." I'll try not to spoil the plot for you.

The aliens and effects were pretty fake-looking, but that's okay. I told my dad that and he said "That means you're a true Doctor Who fan." I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't really mind. I do wish it was better, but it's okay.

The beginning, once the Doctor and Amelia went upstairs to look at the crack in the wall and stuff, was pretty tense. I was disappointed when the rest of the episode didn't follow through. Maybe Moffat didn't want to scare people off, since he's written lots of the scarier episodes in previous seasons.

As for Matt Smith as the Doctor...I like him. He's cool. I like the previous two better (so far), and don't start thinking "that's because you're not over Tennant leaving," because when the 9th Doctor regenerated, I was sad, but the first episode with the 10th completely won me over into liking him more, and this one didn't do it for me. I'm over the regeneration, and I'm making an objective judgement. Or so I think, anyways.

I like the old TARDIS better, too. I don't like the clock, and the typewriter's cool, but I like the laptop better. This TARDIS, as my sister said, is "more geometric," so it's less plant-like, which is one of the things I liked about the old one. I love the mention of the library and swimming pool at the beginning.

And what was up with those eyes? I thought they would be so creepy...and then they weren't, which pretty much sums up the episode. Stuff would be scary...and then it wasn't. Like the comatose people talking. It was reminding me of "The Empty Child" (and that and "The Doctor Dances," in my opinion, are some of the most terrifying episodes, except for "Midnight"), and then that aspect of it was sort of dropped.

Amy's obsession with the Doctor when she was younger makes me slightly worried for their relationship in the future, but I think it'll be alright. Amy's probably gotten over it by now, and even if she hasn't, I bet she can hide it until she does.

(Warning: slight spoiler coming up)

When I saw the wedding dress, I was afraid she'd made dolls of herself marrying the Doctor, which made me think "oh no," but then it turned out to be okay. Was she marrying the nurse, or the other guy (Jeff?)?

(end of spoilery)

I love the "I'm definitely a mad man with a box."

The old theme song was better.

So in short, I liked the episode, but thought it could have been better, I don't hate the new Doctor, and I'm excited for the rest of the season.

Now go into the comments and start disagreeing with me.