I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a blog post-reviewy thing about Whip It for about two weeks now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not going to happen. Not because I think it’s a bad film – it’s utterly charming in its ability to recognise that something can be simultaneously camp as hell and the most important thing in the whole damn world – but because it fits into the same space as contemporary art where I find my critical vocabulary isn’t really up to the task of expressing what I’m thinking about after seeing the film.

 My short, haphazard take on the film goes something like this: it’s endearing. Specifically, the kind of awkward-coming-of-age endearing you find in Taylor Swift film-clip, only Whip Itcome without the puritanical undercurrent that usually causes me to froth at the mouth when encountering Swift’s oeuvre (and thus, Whip It comes closer to having actual substance). The film actually reminds me, very strongly, of Bring It On (another film that didn’t seem like something I’d like that somehow turned out to be highly entertaining) and I kinda wish it existed in a world where Bring It On didn’t because there’s far to many parallels there. The sound-track is phenomenal in its eclecticism, but gets bonus points for including both the Ramones and Yens Leckman.  The most irritating thing about the film is Drew Barrymore’s characters, but only because it’s exactly the same character she played in the Charlie’s Angel’s films with a tendency to act stoned on top. Plus it has Ari Graynor in a minor role (Graynor seems to have become the new incarnation of the cinematic past-time once dubbed “Breckin-Meyer-Spotting”)

It’s also a goddamn spectacular film to watch from a writing point of view because there’s not a damn subplot in the whole thing that doesn’t get a resolution in the end. Admittedly this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but there’s something powerful about knowing that if a film introduces conflict it will provide resolution to it, even if said conflict is just a five-second scene between the protagonist and a minor character in the opening minutes of the story. While Whip It telegraphs a lot of punches on the macro-level (I doubt anyone can’t pick the father’s final scene in the film a full hour before it happens), it gets a pass on this because the resolution of the really minor conflicts are also dragged back into the main plot and made meaningful.  It’s a neat trick, and one I’m gleefully lifting given that I’m in the midst of writing the second draft of Black Candy and dealing with a dozen or so minor characters who walk onstage and do very little after their first appearance.

Seriously, though, you can probably ignore all that and go with this instead: my friend Chris and I are the kind of snarky, mid-to-late-thirties blokes who are continiously dissapointed by films and prone to venting our dissapointment in Waldorf-and-Statler type critiques. As a general rule, it’s a bad idea to go and see film you think you’ll like when either of us are around.

Both of us hit the end of Whip It and said “Yeah, I need to own a copy of this.”

 2) Minimally Acceptable Levels of Productivity

 So I set myself the goal or writing 14,000 words words last week. I didn’t succeed. In fact, I struck a point significantly below success:

On the plus side, it means I’ve hit the minimum accepted levels of productivity for seven straight days now (aka if Peter doesn’t write a thousand words a day he ceases to feel like a human being and makes life miserable for everyone) and actually started to live like a real human being again. There are even parts of my house that are clean, and food that isn’t ordered from the Domino’s website.

That largely means the weekly goal achieved what it needed to achieve, right in time for the rewrites of Cold Cases to land in my inbox.

Recorded here because it’s always like this, time and again, and I always forget and panic when it happens. Life really would be easier if I had a different process. One that involved working routinely and constantly, rather than gnawing at a dozen bits of bone until I find the one that happens to have a little leftover meat.

Now I’m going to listen to Iggy Pop for a half hour, meet my parents for long, and ponder what happens next for Dead Girl Molly and the Soldier-Boy Walther P.

This week I’m getting even more basic and going for straight wordcount goals. Between now and the 7th of March I’m aiming at the following:

In other news, the most excellent peep Jason Fischer is co-editing an upcoming issue of Midnight Echo and he’s looking for cross-genre SF/Horror works.

And I’m almost out of coffee, so that’s it for me this morning.

Which kinda begs the question of what I used to do in the days before youtube. I suspect I just went straight to the Smiths CDs and drank.

Now I’m going to go clean the house, answer two weeks of e-mail, and do my best to rejoin the rest of the human race by some point late this evening.

There might have been squee about that around these parts. The spokesbear gets excitable. You know how it is.

I’ve mostly arrived at this situation through habit, laziness, and the tendency towards belt-tightening when one lives alone and doesn’t get to share around the general costs of living. I’m also aware that it’s not a good state of affairs, especially since I’m taking the easy route of take-away food far more often than I used too (which, yes, contradicts the belt-tightening logic above, but the other part of living alone is *keeping yourself sane* so it pays not to examine my logic too deeply). So last week I contacted one of those organic famer-direct delivery services the internet has on offer, and this afternoon a nice chap has delivered the first box of randomly-assorted in-season fruit and veg to my door.

It’s a veritable cornacopia of tastiness. I know, because I’ve already devoured the first of the nectarines. This is not the bit where the future is awesome.

No, the bit where the future is awesome came after about thirty minutes of searching for the doobie-do that connects my digital camera to my computer and failing. “Woe,” said I, “for now there will be no visuals to accompany the blog post.”

“Hey dumbarse,” said the spokesbear, “you dear realise that your new computer came with a SDHC drive that’ll fit the data thingy from your camera, right?”

And lo, he was correct, and the future corrected my problem before I even realised such things were possible. Freaking awesome. *This* is why it’s good to be a luddite sometimes.

Also, I finished rebuilding a story that’s been sitting around in parts for the last three months, waiting for me to revise it and fix it and sent it out in the world. Productivity FTW!

Also, I have peaches. They are delicious. The fruit half of that box is so not lasting the weekend.

And since today is Friday, and I’m certain of this because I’ve double-checked this time, I’ll be heading off to celebrate the launch of the Tangled Bank anthology where a bunch of fine authors (including Chris Green and Ben Francisco) have been rocking Darwinian Evolution, SF-Short-Story Style.

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 1
Days without chocolate: 9
Today the Spokesbear is: OM-NOM-NOM-NOM.

That said, the momentary mortification hasn’t really done much to dilute the fact that this is a week of awesomeness among my friends. There’s Chris’s launch tomorrow, the official announcement that Angela Slatter will be doing a short-story anthology with Ticonderoga Publications, due for release at Wordcon in September, and we’re counting down the days until Jason Fischer’s zombie novella After the World: Gravesend hits newsagents on Monday.

On top of this there was discounted ginger marmalade on sale at the grocery story today (score!), my laptop repaired and came in towards the lower end of the projected costs (double-score!), and I’ve managed to start watching a  TV series on DVD without spiraling into the twenty-four episode sleepless death march that usually happens when I try and watch a boxed set.

I’ve also settled down to start fine-tuning some stories so they can get submitted on Monday. Doesn’t really give me consecutive writing days, but I can live with that

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 0
Days without chocolate: 8
Today the Spokesbear is: distracted by ginger marmalade.

It’s not a terribly good story yet, and may never be, but there is rewriting to correct that problem should I decide it has the seed of a good story in there.

The important thing is that it’s done, because that’s how The Fear is combatted – you crush it beneath the weight of endlessly finished drafts until it gives up and goes away.

And because I was the model of writerly virtue yesterday, I’m going to go collect mail this morning.

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 1
Days without coke and other soft-drinks: 3
Days without chocolate: 6
Today the Spokesbear is: getting his emo on.

This will not, of course, prevent me from wasting time on the internets.

Current Project: Getting Back to Basics
Number of Stories Submitted in February: 0 of 8
Rejections Accrued in 2010: 0
Consecutive Productive Writing Days: 0
Days without coke and other soft-drinks: 2
Days without chocolate: 5
Today the Spokesbear is: sleeping in.