It’s amazing how many extraneous words end up in the first draft of my stories. The one I finished yesterday came in at 3250 words, well over the upper limit for the market of 3000. Given that I wanted to weave in a few extra observations during the rewrite, I despaired of getting it down to the right length. After just one pass this morning, I came in at 2950 words, including the ones I wanted to add. For the most part, this reduction comes from a selective pruning of individual or small groups unnecessary words, although there were a few sentences that were lopped in toto. If I had a wish about my writing, it’s that I could learn to not include these words in the first place, but that doesn’t seem to be the way I work. Add and then take away. That’s how it goes. There are probably many words I could delete from this blog entry without changing the meaning. Maybe all of them.
I finished PD James’s book about detective novels and started a Robert B. Parker Jesse Stone novel called Split Image. This is the first Parker I’ve read on my Kindle and the brevity of the chapters is emphasized by the eBook’s table of contents, which is just a list of its many, many chapters with hotlinks so you can jump to one at a click. Many, many, chapters.
Last night was the first Criminal Intent in the post-Goran-and-Eames era. It wasn’t bad, as they go. Nichols is no Goran, but he’s fun to watch, especially when he’s all a-dither over a long time foe who has always managed to avoid prosecution while running an extensive criminal enterprise. I liked the Irish music over the opening scene, though it was a little loud. The singer was Alan Doyle of Newfoundland’s Great Big Sea.
I wonder if there is a television actor working today who hasn’t at some point been on an episode of one of the Law & Order franchises. When I was at the gym yesterday I saw “Eloise Hawking” from Lost. In fact, just about everyone from Lost has been on L&O. I was thinking of starting a list, but that would just be crazy.
Speaking of Lost and crazy, today’s image is my brief synopsis of last night’s episode, Everyone Loves Hugo.
Okay, who was thinking about Arzt when Ilana dropped her satchel? Don’t they ever learn? Boy, what a surprise that was–in a way. I wonder what the actress thought when she saw the script.
ILANA:
God help us…
(Ilana is wiped off the face of the planet by an enormous explosion)
And her epitaph is delivered by Ben, who says without any hint of irony, “I guess the island was done with her.”
We now know what the buzzing voices were all about, even though for several seasons we were lead to believe they were harbingers of the Others. Michael makes his apology, and Hurley’s cool with that. “Don’t get yourself killed.” Not bad advice from someone who did. Of course, the message is drummed home by having Hurley find Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground in Ilana’s pack. Michael is sending notes from the underground. “Dead people are more reliable than alive people,” Hurley explains.
First Ilana, and then the Black Rock. Miles chides him for not warning his friends what he was planning to do. “I did say, ‘run,'” Hurley responds.
Hurley’s the man now. Hurley’s in charge. Even Jack is listening to Hurley, because Jacob is telling him the way things should be. Except when he isn’t, and then Hurley has to wing it. He’s grown more self assured, telling Richard he doesn’t have to prove anything to him. Then he draws the line in the sand “You can either come with me or you can keep blowing stuff up.” Only three people select Option B, and Jack confesses how hard it is for him to sit back and let other people tell him what to do. Jack has given up the mantle of leadership and I think he’s secretly relieved. He sure looks happier. I liked the way Kate smiled at him, too, when Hurley showed up, waving a torch he stole from Jeff Probst on Survivor, to confront the MiB. He’s almost as laid back as Island Desmond.
Aw, Libby and Hurley finally get to have the date Hurley was planning before Michael went off the reservation and shot her in the gut. The psych ward looked pretty much the same as before–even the same game of Connect Four. No sign of Dave, though, right? As much as this being Hurley’s story, it was also Desmond’s. In the sideways world, he’s acting like the secret matchmaker from a show like Fantasy Island, except Mr. Roark never ran anyone down. Whoa–who saw that coming? To be fair, it was a kind of karmic retribution. You throw me down the well in one world and I’ll mow you down like a dog in the street in another. I don’t think that either one of them is dead, and perhaps Sideways Locke will have, via a near death experience, some kind of epiphany that will have implications for the MiB. (To whom Hurley uttered the immortal lines, “Um, hey, I don’t know who you are, dude, but what do you want?”)
Any theories on who the kid in the jungle is? The one Fake-Locke told Desmond to ignore. He’s bigger than before, right? Older? Perhaps the vessel of Jacob developing and waiting to be refilled by whoever takes over his job?
By the end of the episode, we see yet another example of the nature of the sideways universe. Hurley thinks he has the thing that he wants (not to be cursed) but he doesn’t have what he really wants–the thing he lost on the island. Given freedom of choose, what will the individual characters ultimately choose for themselves. I believe that will be the take-home message from the show. Like Ben choosing to go with Ilana when he was presented with that option.
