The End's in Sight

Trivia:  Spent part of my coffee drinking time watching a flicker try to get birdseed out of our feeder.  The feeder is designed for small song birds and squirrel proof.  The flicker kept hopping around the trellis and on the feeder trying to break into the food.  It finally gave up.  

Now, all we have to do is wait for the finches etc. to find the feeder.  The cats want their TV.

Lessons from my Reading -- rather, Watching:  I'm flitting from book to book at the moment, much like the flicker.  None of them have caught my attention, so I went back to an old favorite -- Jim Butcher's Dresden Files.  The TV series which my son and daughter sent me after they had watched them.

I'm enjoying them, but ...  I think I'm getting an object lesson in the "dumbing down of America".  The books are rich in plot, subplot, and character.  The TV series views like hi-lo reader.  One simple plotline with Dresden often standing around looking like a doofus for about 40 minutes.  (Guess commercials are eating up more and more of the story time.)

Comments:  The lycanthrope episode did feature FBI agents but not the scarry group who used belts to change.  Billy and his pack were no where in sight either. --  I did like the expanded role of the slightly monastic Bob, but a Jeep instead of the Blue Beetle?  I missed the image of a six-foot-plus guy squeezing into a bug.

The simplicity of the stories makes me wonder how much input Butcher had in the series.  (Maybe I should have looked at the production credits instead of turning the player off.  My bad.)  Still, TV/movie adaptations often disappoint which is why I tend to read the books without seeing the movie.  At the moment, I can only think of two movies that did the books justice:  The Lord of the Rings cycle, Smoke Signals, and a couple of the Harry Potters.   (Which Potters, I can't remember.) 

(Disclaimer:  The above is all based on memory.  The books in the series are on loan to the same kids above.)


Progress:  Critiquing.  I forgot to send out my chapters to both of the groups I work with.  Oh, well, got to get on the stick.

Tangled.  Lanquishes.

Emma.  The end's in sight!  Maybe two-and-a-half chapters to go, unless some complication I don't know about shows up.  I was despairing of ever getting an ending on the draft.  A nice feeling to know that I'll have drafted another book this year (with another lurking in the wings).

Now I've got to do some serious rewriting.   And, maybe, try some marketing?