I love my new(ish) laser printer, a Brother HL-2070N. For years, all I had were bubblejet and inkjet printers. Generating a novel manuscript on one of those puppies—no way. Wave bye-bye to an ink cartridge and keep feeding sheets of paper into the hopper. In less than ten minutes yesterday evening I printed out the entire manuscript, didn’t have to refill the paper tray once, the print was crisp and clean, and I could do this twenty more times before expending the toner cartridge. Beauty. It’s only black-and-white, but I can live with that.
It’s the first time I’ve printed out any portion of the manuscript. In the old days, I used to print as I went, a chapter at a time. This time I finished the first raw draft and spent the last three weeks doing a rough edit before generating what I consider the first real draft. It came in at 225 pages, 70,000 words. These last three days have been very productive—I got more done in them than I had in the previous two weeks. I have a page of notes that I want to address, and I want to read the thing in hardcopy and make some more minor edits before passing it on to my agent for his feedback. I’m hoping to get it out the door by the end of the month. I think it holds up pretty well. One part of the penultimate chapter was a little lame when I got to it, but it didn’t take much to fix it.
I’m still working on The Reapers by John Connolly. The book takes off in the mid-section and the famous Charlie Parker has now entered the building in person rather than by reference, so I expect a kick-ass finale.
The last movie in our weekend marathon was Mad Money, starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes, along with Ted Danson. Bleh. A movie whose moral compass is so badly whacked that I hardly know where to begin. The ultimate message seems to be that it’s okay to steal if there’s no real victim, and even when you have to pay the piper it’s okay to cheat then, too. The only redeeming feature of the movie was a bit part appearance by the husband of one of my wife’s friends. He was the guy who played Junior, the owner of the bar where the trio planned their heist. He was also in The Mist as one of the more unfortunate grocery store employees. The actors were all sorta okay and the plot had holes bigger than lunar craters, but I thought the ending was the ultimate in bad messages.
I have the first half of A&E’s Andromeda Strain on DVR to watch this evening before the second part airs. I’ve heard mixed reviews of this one, too. The original film was tense and effective. I’m not sure what was to be gained by remaking it.
