I usually do a good amount of writing at malls. It doesn’t
always work out (see my entry on Mallrats). But I write in malls because if I
write at home I start thinking of other things I need to do, like cleaning.
Last Saturday, I was in Bellevue Square. (Bellevue is the largest
suburb of Seattle.) It connects by a skybridge to Lincoln Square.
Here’s a view from it looking north:
Oddly enough, there is no glass on this side of the
skybridge. They must have figured that having glass on the south was all that
was needed to keep the wind from blowing through.
Here’s a view looking south:
Here is from a different angle. It’s a little hard to see,
but there are three movie posters, each as tall as a floor—a very tall floor.
They showcase A Quiet Place 2 and Bad Boys for Life. I’m not sure
what the third movie is. Any guesses?
I’m a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and to a
lesser extent, of Angel. (See my post “What if Buffy had Never Been?”)
If you care about either series, please read the tweets by Charisma Carpenter,
who played Cordelia, here:
I’m not in favor of the cancel culture. But if someone gets
the idea to cancel a certain someone, not my fault.
Addendum: Sarah Michelle Geller posted on Instagram that she
doesn’t want to be forever associated with Joss Whedon. Michelle Trachtenberg,
who played Buffy’s sister Dawn, reposted that and added there was a rule that
Joss Whedon would not be allowed in a room alone with her again.
Zoe (Isabel May) is somewhat of an unusual high schooler, in
that she’s comfortable handling guns because her father has taught her how to
hunt. (Although, such teens who have been introduced into a healthy gun culture
are more common than some think.)
But something’s gone wrong with Zoe emotionally. As one teacher
flat-out tells her to her face, she used to be outgoing and cheerful. Now she’s
withdrawn and become flippant with her teachers. She even tells the only friend
she has left, “This is high school. Nothing that happens here matters in the
real world.”
So on senior prank day, she’s not impressed by the hijinks
that go on. But when a van crashes into the cafeteria and students dressed in black
cold-bloodedly shoot a number of other students, everything changes.
Covered in blood, Zoe manages to escape the school. But then
she slows to a stop. Will she turn around to warn other students to run? Will
she fight?
Run Hide Fight is quite the unusual movie. It shows in
gritty detail what a prolonged school shooting looks like, without being
exploitational. If you make a comment on this, please don’t mention politics.
Some reviewers think they see partisan politics in this movie, but the politics
is in their heads.
Everything rests on Isabel May’s shoulders, and she does
carry the movie. It pretty much zips along from start to finish. She does not
play Zoe (which means “life”) as an over-the-top action hero. She is actually
terrified during much of the movie. And Zoe has to work out her emotional
problems during the course of all the violence.
Isabel May is twenty, so she was nineteen or twenty when she
played the seventeen-year-old. She mentioned in an interview that fear of a school
shooting was a real part of her life.
Is Run Hide Fight a great movie? It has a few continuity
problems, and a few of the scenes seem forced. But it is well worth watching,
and I am not aware of any other movie like this out there.
(If you don’t want to see several students get shot to
death, and if you can’t stand the sight of blood, this movie is not for you.)
As a little social commentary, I have been shown more than
once the standard workplace video that shows the options of run, hide, or fight
in an active shooter situation, and the pragmatic explanations of when to use
which option. But schools are given only one option: hide. Schools lock down in
an active shooter situation.
There was a situation at a school that won’t be mentioned
here, in which students in a completely different building were locked down,
instead of being allowed to flee. This makes no sense, especially since some
shooters go from classroom to classroom. Certain administrators have decided
this is the lowest-risk option in terms of insurance and public image and their
own careers, but the students’ lives are not given the highest priority.
I feel sorry for teachers who are stuck in this system. If
they go against administration policy and have their students flee, they could
be sued if a student gets injured. It wouldn’t have to be something as dramatic as
a student getting shot. If a student breaks an ankle while fleeing, the teacher
could be in big trouble.
Those videos that businesses use to show their employees to
run, hide, or fight should be remade featuring teenagers and shown to high schools.
It gets trickier with ages younger than that, but the blind insistence on a one-size-fits-all
policy is an act of cowardice that does not serve students well.
My cell phone seemed to die recently. It just wouldn’t power
on. I knew I hadn’t run the battery down too much, and even if I had, it should power
up enough to tell me the battery was low. So on a hunch, I replaced the battery.
Instead of the top-of-the-line S series of Samsungs, my
phone is from the mid-level J series. I chose this particular phone because the
battery could be replaced. There are too many reviews of the more expensive phones
where a minority of buyers gave one-star reviews because the battery stopped
working after a couple of months.
I think my phone is on the 3G network. At some point, when
5G phones become standard, I may pick up a cheap 4G.
Barbara Shelley, an actress known for her statuesque beauty,
passed away. Some of you may know her as Sorasta in some 1984 episodes of Doctor
Who.
I know her from the 1967 movie Quatermass and the Pit,
which was shown in America as Five Millions Years to Earth. This had a
stunning effect on me when I was young. Unlike most female leads of the time in
such movies, she played a crucial role in terms of research. She showed a
skeptical Dr. Quatermass that the pit being excavated had a history going back
centuries of odd occurrences. She also pointed out that the older name “Hob”
for Hobbs End was a name for the Devil.
This movie is still available on eBay. There is a
mini-series with the same name, but the movie has this badly-lit cover.
Barbara (which was the character’s name) had a couple other
crucial roles in the movie, which you’ll have to watch to find out. I won’t
show the poster for that movie, because it is horribly exploitational.
But here is part of the poster for Village of the Damned.
I cut out the weird top of the poster. This was the original
1960 British version, which was far more creepy than the much louder 1995
American version.
Getting writing advice is a tricky thing. I hired a
freelance editor to go over my fairy version of The War of the Worlds,
tentatively called Fairy War. She gave a lot of interesting advice. Of
course, it’s up to me to decide what to accept or decline.
Fairy War mainly takes place in the London area, but
I had some side chapters take place in Seattle. The freelance editor thought my
story was too long, so she advised me to cut the Seattle chapters.
public domain
I did so, keeping the Seattle chapters in a separate
file. After that, I made other cuts that shortened the story by about
10,000 words. But then one of my beta readers said it dragged in the middle.
That was where my Seattle chapters had been the most dramatic. Also, a former
agent who gives online advice I really trust says agents and editors expect
fantasy to be a little longer than I had thought. (The addition of fairies
makes my story more on the fantasy side.) Although beginning writers should not
push the limits, I’ve decided to add the Seattle chapters back in.
However, when going over these chapters I realized there
were too many minor characters. I’ll have to eliminate one of them. So it turns
out a pixie named Mona will not make the cut. Here’s the scene where she’s introduced.
#
Wycliffe was
about to inquire what more he could do to help when a barmaid came over,
smelling of rose water, holding a tankard they hadn’t ordered.
She set it down
gently. “I apologize for interrupting.”
They stared at
her in curiosity. Then Portia reached out and glided her hand down the
barmaid’s arm. “Fellow pixie.”
“I heard what
you’re planning. They’ll probably attack tomorrow, right? I want to help.”
Tingo looked at
her skeptically. “I don’t know what fighting skill you have. And it’s not clear
what us women will do. Perhaps you should stay here.”
#
Now we’ll never know what Mona would have done. So sad.
Last Saturday I went to Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, north of
Seattle. I was shocked to find the restaurants still open in the food court,
but with no place to sit down. All the tables had chairs stacked on top of them,
with yellow tape sealing them off. Some metal tables and chairs were outside,
but they were all taken.
So I sat down on a rock. This was not as arduous as it
sounds; a number of large rocks are carved as horizontal monoliths so people
can walk or sit on them. As I was eating, I noticed a seagull just sitting on
the grass. It looked right at me as I took a picture.
It turned its head ever farther, as if deciding this human
holding an object wasn’t a threat. Then it flew off. I don’t think it was cause
and effect; I just happened to get a picture at almost the last second.
As advertised, I attended a great writers conference. The Pacific
Northwest Writers Conference normally meets in SeaTac (yes, the city thought
that would be a great name for a place between Seattle and Tacoma), but it was
virtual this year. I paid $175 for just the Saturday sessions. Was it worth it?
Yes it was.
Easily the best session was by Nicole Persun. She’s
comparatively young, but she is a great writing coach. Think of going to a gym
and finding out a trainer there is young but has a lot of experience. Nicole
gave a very detailed presentation on editing at both the macro level and the
micro level.
I’m going to go over my manuscripts the way she said to.
Not to be ignored was Pam Binder. a very experienced writer
who gave tips to energize the middle of a novel, which often sags.
A fascinating session was “Cop Talk and Procedures.” Officers
from a number of different agencies shared their experiences. As everyone
knows, police officers in New York City are visibly present and highly
respected. In Seattle, they try not to be visible and are shown much less
respect, though they have high standards for behavior. An important background feature
for contemporary stories is the different levels of visibility of and respect
for police in different cities.
Most realistic shows on police: The Wire is good for
corruption and ethics, Southland has realistic characters, Barney
Miller has realistic relationships, Breaking Bad has realistic cases,
End of Watch gets the banter right. Hill Street Blues was also
recommended for realistic relationships, but I know that commentators said they
were consistently bad on how the law works.
I wondered if it was worth it to watch the awards ceremony,
but when I tuned in, that was clearly the right choice. Aspiring writers had
submitted their manuscripts in categories like science fiction/fantasy, suspense,
memoir, etc. The looks on the faces of the winners, some of whom have presumably
been more or less quarantined for a while, made it a joyous event.
It’s hard to explain how great the conference was. It was a
relief, after so many things have been shut down.
