The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 21

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 21

Chapter 1 of Mutt's Novel is Complete in Draft

My first chapter, titled "Sweet Music, Pretty Flowers" is now in the books! Or in the book, singular, perhaps. Of course, it's only the first draft of the chapter, I need to do some editing and rewriting to get it into some kind of shape. But I just felt it was worth nothing. Now that I have a Prologue and a Chapter 1 written, this novel is officially on its way. Of course, I do have the minor problem of Chapter 2 looming before me, and every subsequent chapter after that. Furthermore, since this one took weeks to write, you can see how painstaking this process is going to be.

Chapter 1 will not be posted on this blog, nor will any of the other chapters. Although I may succumb to the temptation to post a brief excerpt or two as the writing continues. For the three consistent readers of this blog, of which I am 1/3, I am sure this will come as heartbreaking news, but since those will be the three people that possibly will purchase the novel when it hits bookstores (and maybe my parents would pick up a copy) they'll just have to suck it up and wait for the big release.

No other news to report on the novel front, but I just felt like this milestone ought to be marked.

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Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.