Coming Attractions

After a month of writing 400 to 600 words everyday (a feat of extraordinary willpower by a lifelong procrastinator, if I do say so myself), I thought that my post-Halloween blogging life wouldn’t begin again for another week or two.

Such is not the case!

I feel as though I’ve exercised enough for the past month that any substantial time off will result in a loss of conditioning. I’ve built up some writing muscles that I don’t want to see fall away to flab again any time soon. I’m may be more Bill Bixby than Lou Ferrigno, muscle-wise, but that’s no reason to stop now.

So, I thought I’d put together a kind of a “snipe reel” of coming attractions for LARPing Real Life to keep me focused. Here’s what you can expect to see over the next few months.

NaNoWriMo

First up, I wanted to use the past month blogging as a springboard to spend the next month writing a novel.

Full disclosure: I’ve had an outline and the first four chapters of a giallo-esque novel sitting around in various notebooks and Word docs for a couple of years now. My National Novel Writing Month project, therefore, won’t be something brand new that I’ll be writing from scratch. I may or may not count the words I’ve already written towards the goal of 50,000 words that NaNoWriMo that I’ve set for myself. We’ll have to see how I’m looking productivity-wise as we close in on 1 December.

Still, I think I can get a lot done this month if I use my experiences blogging in October in a positive way. Whatever the outcome, I’m hoping to have The Statue with the Crimson Shadow in good shape by the end of November. Stay tuned to this channel for updates. If you are taking part in NaNoWriMo, too, then look me up on their website. You can find me here.

Shelf Reading

I’ve got a lot of books. Some are more interesting than others. It could be fun to dive into my personal library and share some titles with you. I’ve got a great edition of Daphne Du Maurier stories and a growing collection of George Baxt “celebrity detective” mystery novels that I’d like to show off in the coming weeks.

Movie Reviews

I think the main focus of this blog will always be TV shows and movies. I’ve had notes and a few false beginnings of a post about the made-for-TV movie, Through Naked Eyes (1983). It’s got David Soul and Pam Dawber who live in opposing apartment buildings. He’s a flautist. She’s magazine writer. They peep on each other. Oh, and there’s a black-gloved killer stalking the corridors. Through Naked Eyes is an example of what I refer to as the “diet giallo” genre. It’s a made-for-TV movie, so it can’t get as violent and weird as an Italian crime picture (know the world over as a giallo), but it does exhibit some of the tropes of the genre: voyeurism, stalking, paranoia, a mystery, and a knife-wielding killer whose POV the audience sometimes shares. So, in a sense, you get the taste of giallo, without all the calories. It’s new and improved Diet Giallo!

I’ve also got a look at the many versions of Carl Stephenson’s 1938 short story, “Leiningen Versus the Ants.” At the beginning of the shelter-in-place portion of the COVID pandemic, I spent a lot of time fighting an ant invasion in my apartment. I thought a lot about Them! (1954), Phase IV (1974), It Happened at Lakewood Manor (1977), and this Stephenson story. Like some of my posts during October, I’ll be sharing links to and discussing the short story, the radio show, and the movie. It’s a classic “humanity v. nature” story that I recall reading in junior high. It should be fun to write about.

…and the rest

I’m brainstorming some other ideas. I’ve got a couple short stories that may make it in this space. I’d like to take a turn at some music review writing. And there are always more TV shows and movies to watch and write about.

So…go grab some treats from the concession stand…make yourself comfortable…and stay tuned!