Moving Day

Everybody update your links, my blog has moved!

It can now be found at my website. So for any news or ramblings, please be sure to check in there from now on!

The address is: http://dewyatt.net

All Quiet On The Western Front…

Figured I ought to write something here, though there’s not much news to write about. Still working on getting Bait And Switch published, and right now am waiting to hear back from a publisher. I do really want to have it out by the end of 2015, though, so here’s hoping.

That’s about all the news I have at the moment. I did see the Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (I refuse to use the extraneous “the”). I really have to say I was underwhelmed by it, as I have been the entire series.

I think the biggest flaw was attempting to stretch it into three movies, even with the additions from other Tolkien materials. However the invented subplots really just didn’t work. I could see why they might have wanted to tie it more directly into the Lord of the Rings, but the subplot of Azog’s pursuit for vengeance against Thorin dovetailing into Sauron’s preparations for his return just ended up taking time from subplots that were already in the book; for example Beorn ending up a glorified extra. I think the actual canon reason Gandalf decided to aid Thorin’s quest (to get rid of Smaug and prevent him from being a player in any future conflict against the West) was enough of a connection.

Speaking of, Smaug’s end just felt incredibly anticlimactic after all the build up in the second film. They really should have cut out the entire battle between him and the Dwarves inside the mountain, which really ended up kind of ridiculous, and instead used his death by Bard’s hand as the climax of the second film and ended it after his fall. That would have been a natural ending for the second film (especially considering they used escaping Goblin Town for this purpose at the end of the first), instead of leaving this battle feeling tacked on to the beginning of BoFA.

And of course there’s the love triangle between Kíli, Legolas, and Tauriel. I can’t think of any reason why this entire subplot was at all necessary for the film. There was no real chemistry between any of the actors, which is a shame, because Aidan Turner did provide a superb performance otherwise. I was less impressed with Evangeline Lily, while Orlando Bloom doesn’t so much act as drift mundanely from over the top acrobatic feat to over the top acrobatic feat. It could have been cut and changed almost nothing (we already had Kíli in berserker mode over Azog killing Fíli, so his death was already set up).

All in all, the best parts of BoFA, as with ALL the Hobbit films, were the parts that were actually lifted right from the page. It’s just a shame they were interspersed with so much invented fluff.

I’m kind of curious to see what the numerous “single film” fan edits are able to do with this material, as frankly, they really could have done a quite complete adaptation of the book as a single film, even including the additions from the White Council. The fact that Return of the King made over $1 billion globally despite a running time of 3.5 hours for the theatrical edition should have been sufficient proof that yes, if the movie is good, audiences WILL buy a ticket for a 3-hour film.

I do still want to see how the Extended Edition comes out, but overall, I honestly face the end of the Middle-earth film saga with a sigh of relief.

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Progress

Well, Bait And Switch is making the rounds looking for a sucker…er…I mean agent or publisher, and Prize Play’s outline is finished. Now that means I’ve actually got to start writing it…

Maybe it’s the insanity of the past month (starting a new day job, sending off BaS, the Acura died and I needed a new car. And pay taxes on the new car. And title the new car. And get plates for the new car) but bleh, been hard to work up the motivation to actually do something.

I’d enter a title here if I had one…

I suppose I oughta post something here.

The draft for Bait and Switch is finished. And I’ve got perhaps half of the next book, Prize Play, outlined. Oh, and I finished the calendar for my other project: A full, 19-year Metonic Cycle, with  all the lunar phases, eclipses, solstices and equinoxes noted.

So…that’s about it.

Home Stretch

The draft of Bait and Switch is quickly nearing completion. If I’m able to wrap things up as I’m expecting I’ve got three chapters to finish, and a little over 10,000 words to write. This will push the draft word count to just over 100,000. That might come down in the final version as there may be some filler that can be cut to tighten things up a bit once editing begins (I’ve made it a point to NOT try to revise while in the process of drafting. If I go back to earlier chapters it’s for detail checking) but I don’t expect it to change drastically unless I need to do a significant cutting or expansion.

That reminds me, I’m going to need to do something about an editor. Friend and family input is certainly nice, but it still will need a professional edit. I went with a good service recommended to me by another author for No Good Deed…, but I think that’s going to be a bit out of my price range on something three times that length.

First thing’s first, though. Get the damn draft finished. THEN panic over editing.

Updates

Well, the Draft of Bait and Switch is nearing completion. It’s a bit over 80,000 words right now, and it should reach 90-95k by the time I write the final words.

Saw two more reviews for No Good Deed… so maybe that will slowly start picking up a bit of momentum.

Still working on the calendar for my other project, but that, too, is almost finished.

It sounds like I’m actually making progress.

Progress

Well, the draft for Bait and Switch is in the home stretch. Just about 63,000 words, so somewhere between 3/4 and 2/3 finished, and getting to the climax now.

In other news, another, much larger project I’ve been working on for a couple years now is finally making progress. It’s a LONG way from done, and right now I’m working out some calendar issues before I can really continue writing. Yes, calendar. It’s got its own internal calendar. And thanks to NASA’s data it will even have lunar phases and eclipses, too! But good GOD is it a lot of work to set up. On top of the ton of OTHER background work and research involved.

Yeah, it’s going to take a lot of work.

But no peaks. I want to maintain the mystery and suspense as long as I can.

Non-Update Update

I really need to post here more, but blah, I have so little to really say.

Work proceeds on Bait and Switch, clearing 50,000 words and somewhere I imagine over the halfway mark. I’m still not sure what the final wordcount will be, but still looks like the 80-90,000 range.

Just read today that Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf is being released in May. It was supposed to be published a few years ago but it was pulled without any other comment. Quite disappointing considering that Tolkien was the main driving force it getting Beowulf accepted for its actual literary merits, and not just as an academic curiosity. It’s a translation that should have been available a long time ago.

So….yeah, back to work.

Slow progress…

So Bait and Switch is coming along. Slowly. Word count just passed 40,000, which is already almost 10,000 longer than No Good Deed… and I’m expecting to end somewhere in the 70-90,000 range. Hopefully. Gah, it’s just going so fricken’ slooooooooooooooooooooow….