My writing week 3 (10)

Hi all,

I enjoyed watching a repeat of the Tuesday Night Book Club on Sunday where they discussed adaptations of novels into movies. They talked about popular titles, most of which I had read and/or seen. Jaws and Lord of the Flies were too novels that they thought were well adapted to the screen. The screenwriter on the panel said he thought 2001 was a good adaption too. I wonder if he realised that 2001 was adapted from a short story, The Sentinel, with the novel being written after the movie’s release.

Movies which they thought failed to translate the novel to the screen included One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Golden Compass. I really have to agree on the Golden Compass, with most of the Northern Lights novel’s questioning of religion removed. They didn’t like Bliss either, which I loved, but I am yet to read the novel.

I was delighted to hear that John Marsden’s Tomorrow series, all action YA novels, has been made into a movie. The show increased my disappointment with my local cinema for not screening The Road. It seems the only way the local cinema would have screened it is if Adam Sandler had played “the man” and it had been turned it a teenage comedy about farting.

I’ve been busy cleaning up the back yard after hiring a huge (and I thought unfillable) skip last Friday, but it’s nearly full and I still have about a fifth of the backyard to weed. Only one blister so far. Still have some junk to take out of the garage and back shed to put in it too, which should do a good job of weighing down all the garden waste.

I visited my father at the nursing home on Monday and I am now sure that he doesn’t remember me anymore. My mother is convinced he doesn’t know either of us. In some ways that is a good thing because he doesn’t miss home. He actually appears to like it there. All he does is eat, shuffle around the place, and sometimes sleep.

Either my mother or I get a call on average once a week telling us he has fallen over. He has only scratched and bruised himself so far, but it is only a matter of time before he does some real damage. If it wasn’t for that inevitability he would probably last a few years in a sort of semi-dream state, where he forgets that he pooped his pants ten minutes after it is cleaned up.

He can’t read, doesn’t listen to the radio, doesn’t watch television. He takes in no information about the outside world what-so-ever. We try to talk to him, he gets up and wanders away. Just shoot me if my brain ever deteriorates to that stage.

I have found very little time to write. When I get some new glasses in two weeks everything should become clearer and my writing efforts will increase. The short story I am writing, like many stories I start, has begun to morph into something bigger, I hope I can keep it under 10,000 words. Stalking Tigers was originally meant to be a longish short story and is currently 130,000 words, a previous short story I wrote for my master is now up to 12,000 words with an estimated 150,000 to go.

My weekly survey of the top 100 kindle ebooks showed some new developments. The first el-cheapo $2 book did not appear to tenth spot on the list. All up, there were 20 $2 books, a substantial drop form the 26 on average of previous weeks, but this drop was more than made up for by a big increase in books in the $2.25 to $3.50 bracket, there were 11 of them and two freebies. I did not see any articles in The Age about ebooks last week – is the massive propaganda assault dwindling?

Graham.