I reached the 6000 word mark on the story in progress, but it’s a downward mark. I started at 9600 words and am aiming at 5000-5500. Got rid of 700 words on the current pass, and I still have a few pages of manuscript left to go. Shouldn’t have any trouble hitting the goal with a little leeway to build back up again.
I found out from Sperling and Kupfer via their account on Facebook that Tutto su Stephen King, the Italian translation of The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, will be released on October 26. When I made that announcement, I amassed a bunch of new Italian friends. I’m usually quite obsessive about numbers, but I’m fairly oblivious to my total number of Facebook friends—except now that I see that I have 993 I can’t help but observe that I’m close to 1000. Does that matter? Not really, but it is a threshold to cross.
I’ve had the Season 6 Lost DVD box set for a while but I just got around to taking the shrink wrap off it last night. Of course I went straight to the special features disk and played around to find the Easter Eggs. I’ve gotten quite good at it. It’s interesting to see how the trajectory toward the end of the series affected the cast and crew.
Then I went on to watch NCIS and who should I see in the first scene but Bernard? And, later, on an NCIS rerun, in the same episode, Locke and Charles Widmore. Always good to see William Devane, who’s been showing up in the Jesse Stone TV movies of late. I wonder if the interns are going to be around for a while. Gibbs seems to be mellowing.
I started Moonlight Mile, the new Kenzie-Gennaro novel by Dennis Lehane last night and made it through the first hundred pages. One theme that is brought up a few times is how a person can do the right thing and still end up being wrong. The resolution of Gone, Baby Gone is morally and ethically complex, and the implications of Kenzie’s choice at the end of that book keep cropping up. The novel takes place about a dozen years later (corresponding to the number of years since the previous books in the series were published), and there have been some dramatic changes in the lives of Patrick and Angie. Still, certain things about their characters are unchanged, and those facets want to come to the surface despite their best intentions. At times the novel feels a bit like a meatier, pagier Robert B. Parker.
Episode 4 of Sons of Anarchy had a lot to do with lies and the truth. Jimmy’s lying, the priest is lying, only Maureen seems to be telling the truth…and did she just say “dick-fueled” to the priest? Even Gemma’s new ID is lying…about her age, which pisses her off. (“Bitch aged me two years”)
Jax is finally telling Tara the truth about everything, whereas Tara has decided to start lying to Jax and making faces at Jax when he doesn’t clean with Gemma. I’m not sure I understand her reasons for not wanting to tell Jax about the dead caretaker—the decision seemed both impetuous and arbitrary and, in the final analysis, her resolve didn’t last very long (hence today’s subject line).
I was interested to see that the episode was cowritten by Liz Sagal (do you remember Double Trouble, the short-lived sitcom that featured her and her twin sister?), who also happens to be Katey Sagal’s sister. And Hal Holbrook is fantastic, especially during the scenes at the end when he has to be agitated at the senior home.
