It’s the hump year of the seventies, the year that Bill Gates and another guy [Paul Allen: let’s give credit where it’s due] founded a company called Micro-Soft and the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon. Meanwhile, the UK and Iceland, obviously thinking there weren’t enough wars in the world, began their third war over cod. Finally, actor Pedro Pascal, best known for his bit part in a season 5 episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, was born. Also, some films came out. Let’s talk about those.
I can’t recall the very first time I visited the cinema. I do remember going to see various Disney rereleases (such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and I do remember my local Odeon doing a Saturday morning cinema thing. There was at least one occasion where I decided it was more fun to run up and down the aisles than to watch the film, much to the annoyance of some of the other cinemagoers. Hopefully the fact that I remember this moment means I quickly took it to heart and was less disruptive at future screenings.
All of that’s just a roundabout way of saying that 1975 might be the year I first went to the cinema but it also might not! That said, I can definitely confirm that I didn’t see any of the movies we’re about to discuss in the year of their release. Let’s move on.
It’s 1974—the year that Nixon resigned, ABBA won Eurovision (down in sunny old Brighton, no less), and an English teacher called Mr King published his first novel, entitled Carrie. Now, join me as we talk about none of those things.
We’re not even halfway through the seventies and we can already see one of the genres that defined the decade peaking, as well as Mel Brooks more or less single-handedly elevating the satire to blockbuster status. Not only that but we get a number of titles that could comfortably wear the title of Best Film Ever in their respective genres. It might not be my personal best year ever for cinema but it could be a pretty strong contender.
So, without any more waffle … what’s good? What’s not? What’s unseen? What’s missing? Read on!
I’m blogging about the top ten (more or less) movies of every year since I was born. This week it’s time to delve into 1973 where things are starting to pick up.
As per above I’m using two sources for my top ten lists. First is IMDB filtered by year and sorted by Popularity (doing this with User Rating, which would seem the sensible way to go produces … unexpected results). Finding reliable box office rankings is a bit tricky, so for 1971 thru 1976 I’ll be using the North America box office published on The Numbers. From 1977 I’ll be able to use worldwide box office, which will be a bit less geographically biassed. Either way, the goal here is not to provide definite statistics, but simply to provide a nominal list of top movies from the year, both contemporary and retrospectively, with which I can then embarrass myself by revealing how many classic works of modern cinema I’ve failed to see!
With a couple of notable exceptions it looks like 1972 was not so much of a banner year for cinema. That being said, we’re certainly in an interesting transitional stage—budding blockbuster giants like The Godfather, The Poseidon Adventure and more traditional titles such as What’s Up Doc and Jeremiah Johnson share the stage with subversive fare like Pink Flamingos, Deep Throat while Last Tango In Paris further blurs those boundaries. We’re definitely moving … somewhere.
Unsurprisingly, this is a year of movies that I remember my parents talking about, and directly introducing me to in a few cases. Despite that, it’s remarkable how few of the titles listed above I’ve actually seen. So let’s get into it.
Inspired by my friend Clay’s roundup of the top 25 movies of 1999 I’ve decided to blog about the top ten (sorta) movies from every year since I was born. I won’t be fully reviewing each movie because that would be ridiculous, instead I’ll briefly share my personal connection with the movie … including whether or not I’ve even seen it! Since biggest doesn’t necessarily mean best, I’ll be working from both the box office stats for the year and the IMDB rankings. In researching this project I’ve discovered that detailed box office records aren’t available prior to 1977.
My preference going forward will be to use the worldwide box office top 10 as reference, but for 1971 through to 1976 I only have access to the US data. If anyone can point me to a better source than the above listings then please let me know in the comments.
So, 1917 was the year I was born – no, wait—1971. Obviously I didn’t go to the cinema at all that year … at least as far as I know … but I’ve definitely seen several of its movies. Read on to find out what I’ve seen, what I’ve not seen, and what I think is also worthy of note. Let’s begin!
It’s New Year’s Eve 2023 (around 8am) which means it’s the ideal time for me to do my traditional recap of my writing efforts over the year.
The routine
I’ve already recapped the first half of the year right here, so I won’t retread that old ground suffice to say that things have mostly slipped into routine again but I do still need to nail down a proper writing schedule / habit / whatever. For the latter half of 2023 I more or less accepted that I was going to be able to write in the mornings on alternating weeks (for reasons that are far too domestic to bore you with here). While I did find a couple of suitable spots in my workplace I never truly settled on a single, ideal location—it didn’t help that sometimes other people had the audacity to already be sitting in the publically available location that I had preselected for my morning’s writing. People, eh?
So, while I got writing done during the year there was a continual distraction revolving around finding the right place to sit and write, or having to find an alternative place depending on the whims of the rest of the human race.
One thing I did find happening was the occasional urge to write in the evenings: something of a problem given I’d gotten rid of my writing desk. I considered a few possibilities, including writing at my main PC in the front room (oddly, I’ve never felt that comfortable writing on the PC; likely because there’s too much scope for distraction—something that doesn’t happen so much with the ipad). In the end the best solution appeared to be a slight rearrangement of the bedroom (really, the only place sufficiently free of interruption for me to write in) and the purchase of a suitably small desk that wouldn’t prove an obstruction.
After a fair bit of research (and the disappointing lack of availability of what would have been the perfect desk) I settled for a small 60x40cm desk (my purchase decision helped by a healthy discount) and that’s what I’m writing at right now.
If you noted the time at the top of this post you might have already concluded that I’m using this desk for morning writing as well. I’ve tried it out for the last couple of days and, yes, it looks like doing my morning writing before I leave for work may, again, be the best option. We do have some incoming changes to the household morning routine next year (primarily two kids starting high school) so flexibility is going to remain the order of the day for at least a few months yet.
The writing
As per 2022 I opted not to record my word counts in the traditional spreadsheet. I’m still reasonably happy with this approach, though not fully committed, and plan to continue not doing this for 2024. The disadvantage is that I lose the quick at-a-glance reference for all of my writing over the year, but the plus side is that I won’t punish myself when I see how (potentially) low my word counts were.
Starting with a brief summary:
Stories finished: 6
Stories started: 4
One of the major issues with Scrivener (my preferred writing tool) is that it doesn’t provide a revision history, so I get no visibility of the various dates and times that I might have worked on a story. That being noted, I’m fairly certain that all of these stories were started this year, so I’m pretty happy with that output.
Finished stories
Four of those finished stories would count as fan-fiction, inspired separately by Alien, The Thing, The Terminator and an episode of Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix. During the earlier part of the year I found myself needing to write, but lacking the focus to properly develop new stories and characters so dabbling in pre-established universes helped take some of that load off. You can read three of these stories by following the links below:
The Terminator story is part of a planned collection (as outlined in my earlier blog post). There will be five stories—at least that’s the current plan—and I hope to wrap this project up (and release all the stories together) early in 2024.
Of the two other stories one was an unplanned tale inspired by a Magritte painting. It’s predictable, but entertaining and you can read it by following the link below.
The final story was, I believe, inspired by a book I read at the end of last year about the cosmos (The Universe in Your Hand by Christophe Galfard- very good, go and read it if that’s your sort of thing). I’m holding this one back as it’s probably the only story I’ve written this year that is actually submittable for publication anywhere. We’ll see …
Unfinished stories
Of the four unfinished stories, only one of them has been worked on with any degree of earnestness. This is the story I mentioned in my mid-year post about an explorer who discovers a deeply buried secret about the origin of his society. It’s ended up being two stories mashed together and has required a greater degree of world-building than I’m typically used to. And, because I need to make things as hard as possible I’ve opted to tell it using a non-linear narrative with the last half of the story being told backwards. You can probably blame all of the Christopher Nolan films I’ve watched this year for that.
I have written a reasonable chunk of this one and it’s my next writing priority, so keep your fingers crossed that I can pull this one off.
The other three stories were all random ideas that popped up during the year and I’ll share the prompts that got me started on these for your entertainment:
what if being ‘wishlisted’ meant something sinister? what if you were being wishlisted? and for what?
what if there was a literal price for death? a cost associated with every death that you cause, whether deliberate or accidental? (this one very much inspired by the movie In Time, which is pretty good!)
two people hunting each other across a remote planet, neither remembering why (this is the same story I referenced in my previous blog post)
Other projects and novels
I have three other projects that remain very close to my heart, and which I would also like to make progress on in 2024 (somehow this post has shifted from 2023 reflection into a 2024 resolution!)
My collection of short stories linked together by the end of the universe is still very much on the front burner. I mostly need to organise what I’ve done already and work out where the gaps are so I can plan to get those bits written.
The completed novel. Yes, I did complete a novel a year or two ago. While I’m 95% happy with it, I still want to do a final edit before I attempt to send it out. I enjoy editing, but I’m mindful that time spent editing is time not spent writing so I need to be wary of falling into an editing hole for weeks on end.
The sci-fi novel. I wrote about half of a sci-fi novel a few years back. The idea of it keeps on popping back onto my head demanding to be finished. I stalled on this one due to a few small issues with plot logistics, but those are mostly solved now so it’s just a case of refreshing my plans for it and knuckling down. Maybe something for the latter half of next year?
And that’s it! Tune in during 2024 for inevitable updates and wish me luck. In return, I wish you all the best for your writing endeavours or wherever your hobbies or passions take you in 2024.
At some point in the recent past I was struck with an urge to read Who Goes There?, the John W. Campbell novella that inspired one of my favourite movies, The Thing. I can’t recall where that urge came from—maybe it was nothing more than a desire to read something new and yet also familiar—but it was suddenly very important that I read it. Unfortunately it turned out that I did not, in fact, own a copy of Who Goes There? nor could I find a sufficiently cheap copy online that would arrive quick enough to scratch the itch.
What I did have, I soon remembered, was an ebook of Frozen Hell, the original version of Campbell’s novella which I had picked up through Kickstarter several years earlier. This version had been discovered among Campbell’s papers some years after his death. By all accounts it is largely the same as the eventual published version, the inclusion of three introductory chapters being the major difference from the novella.
Reading this triggered something of a descent into a rabbit hole during which I read almost everything Thing-related that I could get my hands on and—because this is how things work—my thoughts on all of them are below!
So, without turning this into too much of a journal type post: it’s not been the most productive start to the year, But it’s fine. I remarried at the end of 2022 and the priority since then has been settling our new merged (double yolk) family (me, my wife, and four – count’em! – four kids). Plus we added a puppy to the mix and Puppywatch took up many of the scraps of spare time that were left for a while (albeit in the cutest way). The good news is the puppy needs less and less direct supervision by the day and the merged family is settling well, so I’ve recently been able to get back into something of a writing routine.
I mentioned a puppy, therefore there must be an obligatory puppy photo …
Inevitably with a big life change like this there are ripple effects and my writing routine was one of the things temporarily caught in the wake. For the last several years I’ve written at a small desk in my bedroom for about 40 minutes each day before leaving for work. However, with twice as many people sharing the house now, the environment is just a little too disruptive for me to be able to focus properly. The [obvious] solution ended up being to leave the house early and find somewhere else to write before starting work for the day. Fortunately I work in a university, which has numerous spots that are conducive to activities such as writing and study and, after trying out various locations, I found the one that worked best for me was [less obviously] a table near the canteen area of our library’s main study level. For various reasons, I’m now writing on alternate weeks but the main thing is that I have a routine again, which means I can get back into some of my writing projects.
I have two main projects that I’m hoping to focus on for now (well, three if you count finding an agent to help me get my novel published). I also have several short stories that I’m in the middle of working on—none of which have anything to do with the above-mentioned projects: I’m nothing if not all over the place.
The main project is one I alluded to in my last post: a collection of stories based around a common plot point: that plot point being the end of the universe. I’ve always wanted to write a collection of short stories that fit together into a larger whole—where each story stands on its own, but you also get something of an overarching beginning, middle, and end—and it seems that this particular idea of people on different worlds facing the impending end of existence in their different ways is The One. I have a few of the stories in the bag already, as well as a decent grasp on major ‘plot’. For the rest I have a shortlist of story prompts (13, including stories already completed) to work from. Maybe this one can reach fruition sometime next year.
Naturally I have been distracted from this project by various other ideas along the way. The second potential project is a short set of stories that might be considered “What If …?” tales inspired by the first Terminator movie. I watched Terminator: Dark Fate in the recentish past (a perfectly good Terminator movie that was perhaps a little too bogged down in the franchise’s iconography) and it prompted me to wonder: how do you tell a fresh story when the original is so effectively self-contained. And how do you avoid—unlike almost every spin-off and sequel— having it revolve around yet another terminator going back to a different point in time.
In the end I came up with three or four ideas that proved interesting enough that they wanted to be turned into stories. I’ve started one of them, but I’m currently debating whether I have this collection openly based on Terminator (and its characters); or whether I change the names and make the source of inspiration a little more vague. I’m leaning towards the latter but since these stories will be pretty transparently based on Terminator (and the reading will likely be more satisfying if you know that) I’ll likely just end up publishing them on my blog (as fanfic) rather than trying to do anything else with them.
And this leaves the two other stories that I’m working on, which I can talk even less about. One is a simple tale of an astronaut stranded on an alien planet with something hunting them—this is my ‘easy’ story that I return to when my mental capacity isn’t really up to solving major plot riddles. The other is a more complex tale about someone uncovering a dark secret from their civiliation’s past. This has been quite a challenge to develop but it’s been a lot of fun discovering the twists and turns of the plot. While I haven’t written a word on this one since last year, I did come up with an interesting twist to take me through the next section of the story which I’m really looking forward to writing.
(Author’s note: I had completely forgotten about these two stories until I came back to edit this blog post, which I started back in February – talk about getting distracted!!)
And then there’s also that unfinished science-fiction novel …
Anyway, there we go: a few projects on the boil, a lot of distractions, and limited capacity to get stuck into them, but I take the view that having some limits on my available time for writing means that I will be a bit more disciplined about taking up the opportunities that do fall across my path, and making the best use of them. Check back in a month or so to see how well that’s going …
2022 was a comparatively big writing year for me: I had two stories published, finished a novel, and started another major writing project. It was also the first year (since I started writing regularly) that I didn’t routinely record my writing stats in a spreadsheet. This is because I, apparently, forgot to set up my spreadsheet for 2022 and not the result of some bold change in my psychological writing strategy. I did, however, jot down most of my writing stats in a notebook which means I still have some data to reflect on.
Broadly speaking (and I can’t easily compare 2022’s stats to previous years) my writing output was probably a bit less than it could have been. It was a weird year, and building more structure and discipline around my writing is a definite goal for 2023. That said, in addition to finishing the aforementioned novel, I also wrote seven new short stories (one of which was published), finished one that I started in 2021, and started three additional stories. That’s not bad.
The Stories
I had the pleasure of seeing one of my earlier stories, The Doorman, published in the Fourth Corona Book of Horror—which you can acquire at all good booksellers should you be curious. I also wrote a story specifically for the Camp Slasher Lake anthology and was delighted to have it selected for publication. You can buy a copy of Camp Slasher Lake Volume 2, which features Disassembler: The Revenge Of Billy Burns as its opening story, on the Fedowar Press website. While I also had three other stories rejected (two of which were shortlisted) by other publications, I’m still happy that my stories are slowly getting out there.
I self-published two new stories on my fiction blog, Slightly Odd Tales. The first is a Halloween-themed tale called Mr Farroway’s Cakes, which I challenged myself to write quite late in October. The second is a Christmas story, The Feast of Christmas, which is the 2021 story that I finished up late this year. I also published a handful of older stories to the blog over the course of the year.
Of the remaining stories that I worked on last year, two were random ideas that simply demanded to be written: one was inspired after watching Terminator: Dark Fate (a perfectly decent sequel which, coincidentally, ‘stole’ an idea I had years ago and never got around to writing concerning the domestic life of a Terminator after it completes its mission). The second story was a technology-related idea I’ve had bouncing around for several years and which, it seems, finally gestated this year—an expression which makes the writing process sound really quite strange and Cronenbergian, so don’t expect me to use that again.
I finished two other stories (and started two more) which were loosely based around a common theme. I’ve long wanted to write a themed short story collection, my original idea being to write a novel where each chapter also works as a standalone short story. That idea hasn’t … germinated, yet. However, something did come up which I’ll probably elaborate separately on in a separate blog post later in the year. For now, as they say, watch this space.
The Writing
In terms of the writing itself—as in, sitting down and actually writing words—I noticed two clear trends in my behaviour this year. The first is that when I do have a clear idea of a story, or a clearly defined project to work on (such as editing my novel) I can be satisfyingly productive. While my average writing session (a 30-35 minute session every morning) yielded around 500 words, there were some days where I drew comfortably close to 1,000 words. Ideally I’d like to get back to my previous average of around 700 words per session, but I still work on the basis that writing any words is better than writing no words.
The second thing I noticed (and which mostly explains the first) was a tendency to get distracted. I will frequently have to stop while writing and let my mind wander ahead through the plot so I know what to write next. In those spaces I found that I kept picking up my phone and getting distracted. The other day I deliberately left my phone out of reach (which will be part of the strategy going forward) and instead picked up a book that was sitting on my desk. While the resolution to this will largely come from self-discipline, I have ordered Johann Hari’s book, Stolen Focus, so I can hopefully better understand why this is happening.
A further element of this comes from my tendency not to overplot my stories—I always come to the blank page with an overall idea of the shape of the story (the main plot, the major events, the pace and tempo, sometimes even a beginning and an end) but it can take me a while to find the story. Some of them come out almost fully-formed, others I go back and forth on until I’ve found the right characters and tone of voice (and a few never quite get there). This can be fun, but it also means a lot more opportunities for me to sit there, stare into space, and get distracted. So, for next year I’m going to look at introducing a little more planning to my work. If all I do is get to the point where I can get up each morning and know exactly what I need to write, then that will count as job done.
Obviously I don’t have the whole year mapped out yet, but I know that my first goal will be structuring this short story project. I’m sure I will get distracted along the way with other tales that demand to be written, but let’s see how this goes for starters.
The Future
I will continue tracking my word counts this year, but in a change to the process I’m going to update my spreadsheet each morning when I finish my writing session. Previously I have scribbled my updates into a convenient notepad and have then, at some laborious point later in the year, transcribed them into my spreadsheet. This just makes the job harder than it needs to be and means I’ve sometimes forgotten what I was working on (especially if my notes aren’t up to scratch). It’s also useful for me to make additional notes if there’s a reason why I haven’t written on a particular day, or have written less than expected.
I’m also thinking of doing monthly writing updates (like this one) for no reason other than it’s a useful way for me to reflect on my progress (and process) and look at what might need changing.
I’m on the fence about whether I should submit more stories. For the most part I just write what I want to write, and not with any particular publication goal in mind. In 2022 I wrote two stories specifically for submission opportunities: one got published and one did not (though I’m very happy with the resulting story).
However, if I’m not going to submit stories regularly then I really need to put more effort into the self-publishing side of things (mostly promotion) which is a lot of work … especially for an introvert like me.
Despite having ‘owned’ Into Thin Air on Kindle for several years, and despite the heavy acclaim surrounding it, it’s taken me until this year to get around to reading Jon Krakauer’s account of his fateful Everest expedition. What ultimately prompted this was a recent episode of Tim Harford’s very excellent Cautionary Tales podcast—not an episode about Everest, but rather a short series of episodes covering Scott’s infamously doomed expedition to the Antarctic. I came away from that fascinated by the extremes some people put themselves through and keen to read more. While I was unable to find a book about Scott and the Antarctic that sufficiently appealed to me I did eventually stumble across that copy of Into Thin Air waiting patiently in my library and thought ‘ah!’
Now, mountaineering and/or climbing is not something that’s ever appealed to me. Not even a teeny bit. I’m not a particularly physical person and I also have what may be either mild vertigo or a realistic fear of falling to my death from a great height. So, yes, climbing is generally off my hobby list. I can sort of understand how some people get satisfaction from pushing their limits and conquering the unconquerable, but the thing that genuinely surprised me while reading Into Thin Air is how absolutely fucking miserable it all sounds.
That said, the author does make it reasonably clear that climbing Everest is unlike most other climbing expeditions he’s embarked upon. There’s a long journey simply to get to the base of Everest (not base camp: just the bottom of the mountain). There are huge costs involved, starting with the visa you need to buy before you will be allowed climb the mountain. Then there’s the acclimatisation, which takes place over several weeks and, judging by its depiction in this book, is among the more gruelling and debilitating processes one can voluntarily put one’s body through. Finally, there’s the climb itself, which judging by this account seems like a constant gamble against time. Can you make it to the top before the weather turns on you? Can you make it back down again before your body grows too frozen and exhausted to move?
The origin of this book comes from a journalist (and experienced climber) being commissioned to climb Everest for a magazine article. The reason it ended up being a book at all is because of the events that took place on the mountain during that particularly brutal expedition. There is some element of retrospect, but this book mostly puts us in the midst of an unfolding tragedy and introduces us to many of the people that it will claim. The author outlines a lot of contributing factors (and doesn’t avoid pointing the finger at himself at times) but at the end of the day this is another strangely compelling story about humans challenging nature and losing.
Adaptations
While not an adaptation of this book, the 2015 movie Everest depicts the same events. I could probably do with watching it again as I recall it being a perfectly competent movie but maybe I’ll get more from it a second time around, having now read an alternative account.
Oddly enough, though, reading this book makes me want to rewatch a completely different and, admittedly, pretty terrible movie about mountaineering: Vertical Limit. It’s dumb and it’s good fun. I hate it and I love it.
One movie I did end up checking out in the wake of reading Into Thin Air was the documentary Free Solo, which follows Alex Honnold’s bid to climb the 3,000 feet vertical rock face of El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, without the benefit of ropes or safety equipment of any kind.
As one of the reviewers on IMDB accurately states: “by far one of the best horror films I have ever seen.”
The Reading
Considering this was an impulse read, it was an agreeably swift and engaging one. Jon Krakuaer delivers some fine writing to help convey the experience and the narrative comes with the grim compulsion to keep turning the page and find out what terrible thing is going to happen next. If it’s your sort of thing, then it’s an easy recommendation.
