I finished reviewing the copyedited manuscript of The Dark Tower Companion over the weekend and returned it to my editor at NAL. I’ll see it again after the proofreader has had a crack at it, and then again in galley form, presumably. Less than five months until publication.
I wrote a 500 word essay for a contest after I finished as a way of changing gears again. I’m going to start working on a novel any day now, though probably not until after the end of the month. I have what I thought was the first chapter finished, but this morning I realized that there needs to be an earlier chapter and I have a lot of it in my head. It just arrived, fully formed. Cool when that happens.
I finished Double Feature by Owen King a couple of days ago and started Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. I’m a big fan of McEwan’s work. This one is a first person narrative about a young woman who brings down the career of a spy. Now why does that sound familiar?
I’ve been watching Weeds in small bites for the past few weeks. With 25 minute episodes, it’s easy to sneak one in here and there. All sorts of surprising performances by players in bit parts. One of my favorites is Lee Majors as the weird guy from the Minutemen. Majors has his moments. He was okay in Fall Guy, but his acting skills have always been kind of iffy. He leaps into this part, though. Albert Brooks was great as Andy’s dad, too. The shift to Ren Mar in season 4 allows them to switch things up quite a bit. I like Mary Louise Parker a lot. Her eyes look almost black and they’re usually so widely open they seem in danger of falling out. There’s one rather disconcerting scene when the family is seated at the table and she’s apologizing to them in turn. The camera is straight on and the other characters aren’t visible. She looks from left to right and for one second she looks straight at the camera, which is generally a no-no. As I said: disconcerting.
I finally got around to watching last week’s two-hour Burn Notice, which was really just two episodes mashed together. There always finding new ways to switch things up and keep Michael from settling down permanently. They even torched his apartment, so that’s different.
The “documentary” gag has been used a bunch of times before. On Castle this week, the film crew wasn’t following Beckett or Castle, but rather the rock band that became wrapped up in a murder investigation. The way most of the characters played up to the camera was a little hokey, but I liked the way Beckett handled it at the end. She seems so uptight much of the time that when she has fun and does something spontaneous, it’s a surprise.
NCIS was a little different this week, too. I didn’t know it was going to be a two-parter, for one thing, but the focus of the episode wasn’t so much on the crime as on the PTSD suffered by the suspected killer. And then the nifty reveal at the end. Well done. Haven’t had time to watch the 90-minute Sons of Anarchy from last night yet, though. There are too many shows on at 9 p.m. Central. Last night there was NCIS and then nothing for an hour and then three shows I like all at once.
