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Pilgrim's progress
May. 12th, 2005 08:50 amMaking slow progress on a few things:
1) Finished part 6 of Ciudad de Estrellas the other night. But now comes the really hard part, editing it into shape. This is much worse than normal, and I always go back and edit and edit and edit some more, because what I write on the first time out isn't worthy. I've never understood people who write and post without revising; not only would I rather die than put up something with tons of errors or turns of phrase I could have fixed, most of the good stuff comes farther down the line anyway, and then I don't have to post and repost to fix things I didn't like. But my whole world changed drastically between the first thousand words and the rest of the chapter, and I think there's no way that can't show in the quality (or lack thereof) of the writing. I hope I can smooth it out, but I don't think there's any way to avoid the fact that a different person is writing this thing now. And I need to work on the other stuff, the Buffy WIP and the Mag 7 story, but those are a little more emotional and deeper, I think, in some respects, so harder for me to focus on. It's been incredibly difficult to force myself to write, not the least of which is my short attention span, but also, I just feel like I'm floating in the ether, like I don't know who I am in relation to the characters anymore.
2) Finished my VVC premiere show vid and am now capturing clips for the group vid. I am really pleased with it; it had more than its fair share of stupid technical bumps (including the fact that for some reason, FCE will not let me import Buffy clips without it making them anamorphic squeezy clips), but it came together fast once I got over that hurdle, and I was extremely pleased that my betas liked it as is, and thought it was pretty cool. I was afraid it had crossed over the line from cool to twee, so I'm thrilled that it seems solid enough to show. But I have two more projects, one of which is kind of daunting, so I can't rest on the old laurels. And I'm looking forward to finalizing our (Media Cannibals) remaster of our old Professionals vid, A Fire is Burning, because I'm not kidding when I say that I think it's the best songvid ever made. It may not have splashy effects like all the kiddies think matters these days, it may be an old VCR vid, blah blah, but... watching it to make the digital-age remaster, I am struck over and over by how![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sherrold upped the bar so high on editing with those fast cuts on VCRS, and what a freaking great vid we made. It has everything I love -- relationships, action, story, cool visual stuff, a massively great song... It's been so fun to work on this thing. I wish we could remaster a bunch of our old Pros vids (stop screaming, Sandy!).
3) Am getting closer to buying a new car. It's been annoying in that everyone wants to quote me prices on available cars with options that I don't want, like satellite radio, which is starting to irritate me. I actually enjoy screwing with car salespeople in some ways, and I know how to research what I want, but this one's thrown me for a loop becuase a) the Internet has changed everything and b) the Volkswagen people have all been uniformly polite, to the point of not even asking me my name and number to pester me with later when I took a test drive. But I know my sister would have wanted the car money to go to something new and in better shape, so that I could have a reliable vehicle, and I think she would also have wanted me to have something that makes me smile, so I settled on a Beetle, if I can get the car I want and not one they're trying to sell me. It's either that or a Mini Cooper, but the Beetle will be safer on long commutes when I have to start doing that again. I'm just sad and miserable all the time, but the new Bugs make me smile, and those are in pretty short supply for me these days.
4)The one thing I never seem to make progress on is my short temper with my dad. He just keeps being more and more annoying. I think in some ways the tragedy of the situation has made his age catch up to him, and he is more like an 80-year-old than he was even just a few months ago. But he uses that as an excuse to ignore me or not follow through on things, and all we seem to do is yell at each other lately. I keep trying to rein in my temper, but it's so hard when he does stupid stuff and I have to waste hours trying to fix it. And yesterday he tipped me over the edge when he went and scheduled this interment of my sister's ashes in my mom's grave (her only wish was that her ashes be buried with mom, if it was possible), called a witness interment, but which Dad insists on spelling "inurment," on the only day this month I specifically told him I couldn't be there. I hate ceremonies anyway; I don't get anything out of them and to me they are a waste of time and pointlessly sad, but everyone seems hell-bent on doing this thing, so I feel I must be there. So he cancelled it, since he had scheduled it for other people to come (people, I might add, like my cousins who paid no attention to her in life), and told me to find a date with her friend and the one good cousin. I hate this kind of crap -- it wears me down, saps my energy and creativity, and just makes my sadness even heavier. I know it's hard for him, being stuck with just me now and my sister was the favored daughter, but... we are stuck with each other, and I wish he could accept that I'm not her.
And I wish I had the energy to do some reviews of Veronica Mars and the last few episodes, but I will have to defer to better smarter people on this one who've written about the season finale, likeelz. I loved the last episode, especially, and thought they really tied things up well considering how long the mystery of Lily's death had lingered. It was tense and emotional, and had the things I like best about the show -- her connection to her father, a little bit of danger, knockout humor, complex small-town politics, and class tensions, not to mention the fluctuating relationships between Veronica and her friends, her boyfriends, and her mother. The series started out just okay for me, but by the end had become the one thing I really looked forward to on network TV.
1) Finished part 6 of Ciudad de Estrellas the other night. But now comes the really hard part, editing it into shape. This is much worse than normal, and I always go back and edit and edit and edit some more, because what I write on the first time out isn't worthy. I've never understood people who write and post without revising; not only would I rather die than put up something with tons of errors or turns of phrase I could have fixed, most of the good stuff comes farther down the line anyway, and then I don't have to post and repost to fix things I didn't like. But my whole world changed drastically between the first thousand words and the rest of the chapter, and I think there's no way that can't show in the quality (or lack thereof) of the writing. I hope I can smooth it out, but I don't think there's any way to avoid the fact that a different person is writing this thing now. And I need to work on the other stuff, the Buffy WIP and the Mag 7 story, but those are a little more emotional and deeper, I think, in some respects, so harder for me to focus on. It's been incredibly difficult to force myself to write, not the least of which is my short attention span, but also, I just feel like I'm floating in the ether, like I don't know who I am in relation to the characters anymore.
2) Finished my VVC premiere show vid and am now capturing clips for the group vid. I am really pleased with it; it had more than its fair share of stupid technical bumps (including the fact that for some reason, FCE will not let me import Buffy clips without it making them anamorphic squeezy clips), but it came together fast once I got over that hurdle, and I was extremely pleased that my betas liked it as is, and thought it was pretty cool. I was afraid it had crossed over the line from cool to twee, so I'm thrilled that it seems solid enough to show. But I have two more projects, one of which is kind of daunting, so I can't rest on the old laurels. And I'm looking forward to finalizing our (Media Cannibals) remaster of our old Professionals vid, A Fire is Burning, because I'm not kidding when I say that I think it's the best songvid ever made. It may not have splashy effects like all the kiddies think matters these days, it may be an old VCR vid, blah blah, but... watching it to make the digital-age remaster, I am struck over and over by how
sherrold upped the bar so high on editing with those fast cuts on VCRS, and what a freaking great vid we made. It has everything I love -- relationships, action, story, cool visual stuff, a massively great song... It's been so fun to work on this thing. I wish we could remaster a bunch of our old Pros vids (stop screaming, Sandy!).3) Am getting closer to buying a new car. It's been annoying in that everyone wants to quote me prices on available cars with options that I don't want, like satellite radio, which is starting to irritate me. I actually enjoy screwing with car salespeople in some ways, and I know how to research what I want, but this one's thrown me for a loop becuase a) the Internet has changed everything and b) the Volkswagen people have all been uniformly polite, to the point of not even asking me my name and number to pester me with later when I took a test drive. But I know my sister would have wanted the car money to go to something new and in better shape, so that I could have a reliable vehicle, and I think she would also have wanted me to have something that makes me smile, so I settled on a Beetle, if I can get the car I want and not one they're trying to sell me. It's either that or a Mini Cooper, but the Beetle will be safer on long commutes when I have to start doing that again. I'm just sad and miserable all the time, but the new Bugs make me smile, and those are in pretty short supply for me these days.
4)The one thing I never seem to make progress on is my short temper with my dad. He just keeps being more and more annoying. I think in some ways the tragedy of the situation has made his age catch up to him, and he is more like an 80-year-old than he was even just a few months ago. But he uses that as an excuse to ignore me or not follow through on things, and all we seem to do is yell at each other lately. I keep trying to rein in my temper, but it's so hard when he does stupid stuff and I have to waste hours trying to fix it. And yesterday he tipped me over the edge when he went and scheduled this interment of my sister's ashes in my mom's grave (her only wish was that her ashes be buried with mom, if it was possible), called a witness interment, but which Dad insists on spelling "inurment," on the only day this month I specifically told him I couldn't be there. I hate ceremonies anyway; I don't get anything out of them and to me they are a waste of time and pointlessly sad, but everyone seems hell-bent on doing this thing, so I feel I must be there. So he cancelled it, since he had scheduled it for other people to come (people, I might add, like my cousins who paid no attention to her in life), and told me to find a date with her friend and the one good cousin. I hate this kind of crap -- it wears me down, saps my energy and creativity, and just makes my sadness even heavier. I know it's hard for him, being stuck with just me now and my sister was the favored daughter, but... we are stuck with each other, and I wish he could accept that I'm not her.
And I wish I had the energy to do some reviews of Veronica Mars and the last few episodes, but I will have to defer to better smarter people on this one who've written about the season finale, like
elz. I loved the last episode, especially, and thought they really tied things up well considering how long the mystery of Lily's death had lingered. It was tense and emotional, and had the things I like best about the show -- her connection to her father, a little bit of danger, knockout humor, complex small-town politics, and class tensions, not to mention the fluctuating relationships between Veronica and her friends, her boyfriends, and her mother. The series started out just okay for me, but by the end had become the one thing I really looked forward to on network TV.
