Justin Cawthorne dot com

(June 15 – 21)

I have no major writing updates this week (see last week, if you like, which is virtually identical to what this week’s update would be but without the lighting shenanigans). However, I did watch a bunch of movies that were sufficiently distinct from one another that I thought I’d share a few words on each.

Titanic 2. Yes, Titanic 2–not a sequel to the James Cameron film, but a movie about a ship called Titanic 2. I was absolutely counting on this being terrible and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s the perfect bad movie: it strives for heights of unachievable excellence only to fall crashing to the floor under the weight of the incompetence bringing it to the screen. The icing on the cake is that it tries to rip off not only Titanic, but The Poseidon Adventure and The Abyss too. And does all of it terribly. (This is available on Tubi.TV should you want to want to check it’s terribleness out for yourselves).

The Limehouse Golem. An interesting british horror/thriller with a twist. Came across a bit like it could have been the pilot for a high-caliber period-set TV detective series (bit like The Alienist), but looked gorgeous throughout. Doesn’t quite reach the high bar it’s aiming for, but worth a watch.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Over the weekend I found myself in the mood for something vintage and engrossing, and managed to find this 1967 classic on Amazon Prime. It’s a superb example of the kind of thriller they rarely make any more—slow and character-driven, basically—and the movie absolutely thrives on Richard Burton’s performance as the gruff antihero. (This one’s on Prime Video).

Olympus Has Fallen. Saturday night popcorn fare. This made for perfectly good entertainment, but I was fascinated by how brutal it is. I have no problem with on-screen violence but I’ve found that it tends to come in two broad categories:the guns akimbo blockbuster style (with minimum blood); and the no-holds-barred John Wick/The Raid type of violence. This movie presents itself as a popcorn action blockbuster, but does it with R18 violence.

(June 8 – 14)

It’s my very last week of working from home (I’m back in the office next week) which means it’s time to get used to the new normal again, which is essentially the old normal but with the added bonus of deadly plague lurking in the background.

Because this will increase the disruption to my morning routine, and because I’m finding myself increasingly keen to start editing the earlier chapters of my novel, I’ve decided to trial some additional evening writing sessions. These are purely for editing, because that’s the writing discipline my evening brain is best used for, and I’m aiming for roughly an hour (between 8 and 9pm).

So far they have gone very well, despite me spending an extensive segment of my first session trying to get the lighting ‘just right’ in my room. It turns out that the exact same lighting I have for my morning sessions is borderline unacceptable for the evening sessions which take place at exactly the same desk in exactly the same room. Despite swapping various lamps in and out, I’ve ended up sticking with the same lighting arrangement and it doesn’t seem to be negatively affecting my progress. In fact, I’m positively enjoying these little evening writing sessions.

I have also made a change to my morning routine: I’m leaving my phone untouched until I’ve finished my writing. So far, evading the distraction of emails and social media until I’ve gotten some words down seems to be working!

(June 1 – 7)

Minor writing update this week: started a new chapter of the novel. This one’s inspired by children’s stories (fairy tales, primarily) and is another one I’ve been pretty excited about starting. In any case, it’s always good to have a fresh section of the story to get stuck into.

One good thing

This week I watched two films which helped cement a few good lessons on the relationship between character and drama. The first was the very excellent Sexy Beast, which is always a treat and gives us Ben Kingsley playing arguably one of the most terrifying characters ever committed to screen. 

This movie reminded me about two key aspects of building character. The first is that the way a character speaks can give you a great insight into who they are. Sexy Beast is, perhaps, infamous for its almost Shakespearean approach to expletive-riddled language (mostly coming from Ben Kingsley’s character, no less) but it’s not simply that the character swears that makes him stand out; it’s how he swears, and when. It’s in the moments when Ben Kinglsey is at his most dangerous that the expletives flow (and, oh, do they flow!) 

The second, and equally obvious, point is that the way that characters react to another character will do a huge amount of heavy lifting for you. We spend a reasonable amount of time in Sexy Beast with characters we’ve already gotten to know, watching them react to the mere prospect of Ben Kinglsey’s character arriving. The sheer dread reflected on their faces does a lot of the work building his character, but once he appears on screen we learn for ourselves that this initial reaction was more than warranted.

The second movie was Vast Of Night, which has received a lot of well-earned hype surrounding its release on Prime Video. It could hardly be more different from Sexy Beast, but it also takes its time developing its characters. In fact, we’re easily twenty minutes into the film before the main plot kicks off. 

The reason Vast Of Night gets away with this is because the characters are so well developed; they’re idiosyncratic and have very distinct voices; in fact they’re so good we could probably spend a whole movie just listening to them (which is handy, since these two do largely carry the movie).

There’s also another aspect to this highly dialogue-driven movie, which relies on various (occasionally unseen) characters relating their stories. Again, in a similar way to Sexy Beast, Vast Of Night puts a lot of work into the build-up: we know that the characters we get introduced to have something important to tell us, something that will move the plot forward, but the script very skilfully keeps us waiting for it. The result is a superb sense of tension derived from not much more than people sitting in rooms and talking to each other.

One bad thing

I’ve realised that I’m spending a lot of time on my phone in the mornings before I get stuck into my writing, having somehow convinced myself that checking Twitter, Facebook, etc first thing is what I need to do to get my brain in gear. Given the morning schedule is already curtailed due to school stuff, this isn’t helping. Funny thing is, I didn’t really think about it until I saw John Scalzi tweet that he doesn’t ‘log on’ until he’s done his writing for the day. I think I shall have to try that …

(May 25 – 31)

Hurrah! I finished the horror chapter! All in, it took six weeks to get this first draft down, but the story did what it needed to do, so it’s all good.I also dabbled with a short story idea this, although didn’t write much more than a few lines as I’m trying to save my creative juices for the novel. We’re now two chapters (and an epilogue) away from the end, my friends.

In another positive development, my new bedroom heater arrived this week (my bedroom being my main writing space btw). This one’s a smart heater which, among other things, means I can set a timer for it to come on in the mornings and warm up the room ready for me to get out. I also had the bright idea (lol, accidental pun!) of setting my bedside lamp ( which is also smart) to come on at 6am and wake me the fuck up. Why it took me this long to figure this one out I can’t imagine.

Thus far it’s all working splendidly. I can’t claim that my word counts are seeing a dramatic increase, but I am at least managing to get up just after 6am instead of loitering until 6:30 or beyond.

One good thing

The (other) big positive of my week this week was Friday, which shall henceforth be known as the Big Day Of Adulting. I had a number of relatively boring and/or tedious tasks to get done, which included:

• Cancelling my overpriced car insurance renewal, and finding a better deal
• Cancelling my overpriced web hosting renewal, finding a better deal and migrating my blog (and, of course, backing up all my websites first);
• Food shopping;
• Cleaning the house;
• Making some roast tomato sauce with my excess of tomatoes

Long story short is that I, unbelievably, got it all done! In the process I saved a third on my car insurance (and then got a bonus 20% off my contents insurance too). Even more impressively, I got my web hosting down from $300 a year to $150 for three years. Pretty nice saving there.

Just once in a while it pays to Adult (oh, accidental pun again!).

(May 18 – 24)

In a twist which hasn’t really surprised me, but of course seems bloody typical, the horror chapter—the chapter that was supposed to be the easiest one to write—is hella dragging. Perhaps dragging isn’t quite the right term: it’s just taking a long time to get out.

Naturally, it doesn’t help that the kinderbesten being back at school has completely destroyed my comfortable lockdown morning routine. The new colder, darker mornings mean I’m getting up a bit later now, which gives me less than half an hour before I have to start haranguing the elderbeast to rise from his slumber—and once my flow is broken, that’s pretty much it for the writing.

I will say, at least, that the horror chapter has evolved during the writing and is hopefully  turning out nicely, with a few fun twists and turns along the way. Fingers crossed the slog is worth it.

(May 11 – 17)

Not much of an update this week. I’ve finished tinkering (i.e. editing) the first half of the horror chapter, and am now back into writing the rest of it. Happily, along the way I’ve also had a few handy flashes of inspiration that have helped add some fun twists and turns to the chapter.

Pandemic Lyfe

The kinderbesten have finally returned to school this week (the Elderbeast wanted to go, while the Kinderbeast was happy to continue homeschooling—however, kids are required to be back at school as of next week so he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter). 

This means I’ve had my first day or two in months of having the house completely to myself. It’s a slightly strange thing to reflect on: this pandemic means that people have been thrown into each other’s spaces on a much longer term basis than most would be used to. I’ve personally not found this a problem—I quite enjoy being holed up at home with my family–but now we have to shift back into part-time solitude. Ultimately, I’m also pretty comfortable with my own company, so I guess this week didn’t end up feeling quite as strange as it might have.

(May 4 – 10)

Still immersed in the initial edit of the horror chapter. One interesting shift I’m starting to notice is that I’ve stopped keeping a close eye on the word counts. When I started on this project, my very vague word target was based around having a certain number of words per chapter; while I’ve not concerned myself too much with the overall word count, I have been making sure there’s at least a certain number of words going in there.

Initially the drive was to make sure I’d written the Minimum Required number of words for each chapter. Now that I’ve taken my eye off the ball a little, I’m noticing that the word counts are heading somewhat north of the initial chapters. Hopefully this means that I’m comfortable with these characters, and this scenario, and the words are simply flowing much more easily now … and not that these later chapters are going to end up being a tedious slog for readers.

(April 27 – May 3)

Still working on the ‘horror’ chapter and, in what is fast becoming standard practice, the story has already taken a slight twist of its own. Accordingly, I have gone back to re-edit the first half.

This process of swift rewriting has highlighted one nagging concern with my writing, which perhaps stems from the fact that the first draft (for me, at least) is always about just getting the damn story down. As such, my first drafts typically suffer from excessive dialogue tags. I always pay attention to how other authors avoid this, but it’s one of those things that doesn’t seem to come naturally to me; and, therefore, one of things that requires significant work in the subsequent edits.

However, there’s no point having beautifully crafted dialogue tags, or alternatives, if there’s no story in the first place, so I’m trying not to let this distract me too much.

One good thing

This week marks the end of the Easter holidays. While schools are open, I’ve decided to keep the Kinderbesten at home for at least the next two weeks. My one good thing this week is how generously the teachers have prepared for this (in spite of having the rug pulled out from beneath them mid-break, with the surprise announcement that schools would be open after all for all parents who ‘choose’ to send their kids in). It allows for a bit more structure in the learning-from-home day and ensures that my Kinderbesten are able to keep up with their peers in the classroom.

One bad thing

The above being said, I find that having a lesson plan to follow (and assignments to monitor) does require a lot more organisation on my part. I clearly need to put some more time into organising and managing the Kinderbesten’s work, which will be my main focus area for improvement next week …

(April 20 – 26)

I finally started the chapter that I’ve probably been most excited about in the novel: the ‘horror’ chapter. This is, obviously, a genre I feel very comfortable about playing around in. However, I do feel a certain amount of trepidation—after all, if there’s any chapter in the book that absolutely *needs* to work, it’s surely this one. I suspect this will end up being a harder write than the others.

One good thing

This week, for horror Fridate, we watched The Stone Tape. I saw this for the first time some years back, and have been keen for a rewatch ever since. I have to say I was a little dismayed that I didn’t find it anywhere near as creepy as I did the first time around, but that doesn’t mean the rewatch was in any way a disappointment.

What I took away from it was a reminder that genre (and themes) can be merged to great effect. Nigel Kneale, after all, effectively made a career out of exploring horror in science fiction terms. Rather than merely telling a scary science-fiction story, Kneale’s relatively simple technique is to place science-fiction characters in a horror setting which instantly delivers a classic science vs supernatural theme. Obviously, these are two genres that already sit very comfortably together, but some day I’d like to explore whether there are any other genres which can be used to interrogate each other in a similar way.

One bad thing

I continue to be surprised by how relatively ‘empty’ my afternoons are. I’m working part-time for now, which takes up my mornings, but the kindergestalt have gotten in the habit of spending their afternoons constructing elaborate Minecraft worlds, which leaves them requiring minimal supervision from me. I feel like I should be making more use of this time, but it turns out I’m not very practised any more in the use of free time.