Wilfulcait says five random things make an entry.

[mrissa]

And you wouldn't call wilfulcait a liar, would you? Of course not. So let's see:

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is not good. Not at all good. Not even slightly. But it enchanted Robin, and therefore the outing was a success. And Robin is, as he pointed out to his mother before our departure, always good for Auntie mrissa. And always good at movies. And so there was no problem at all. (He was so excited he had to hop the whole way from his house to my car and from the car to the movie theater. And we had to stop to admire the poster of the movie we were going to see -- admire may be too mild a verb here, actually.)

One of the lyrics -- three words of lyric -- at the Richard Shindell concert gave me an idea for another short story no one will buy because the optimists will say it is too depressing and the depressives will find it too upbeat. So I'm not rushing to get it finished this very minute. On the other hand, I think it's going to be good, so I will get it written one of these days. Made notes, wrote scenelets, saved the file, went on with other things.

As usual, I went to buy birthday cards and couldn't find anything really great for the April birthdays of people I send cards to. On the other hand, I've now got a card addressed and stashed in my bottom desk drawer for December. After this many years of friendship, sometimes you just spot the thing that makes you giggle, and it has to go to its proper person.

There are some pieces of hopefulness that are far better for coming the day after April Fool's Day.

I am working on the theory that there are two kinds of Big Fat Fantasy: Places To Go, People To Kill and What A Lovely Night For a Pleasure Cruise Through Eel-Infested Waters. In the former, the fantasy is big and fat because there is just a heck of a lot happening in it. In the latter, it's because the things that are happening take their time to develop. One is not necessarily better than the other, but I think most authors who write BFF have a direction of leaning. The characteristic mistakes of each are different. The thing about the Pleasure Cruise school is that 1) you have to make the cruise actually pleasant/interesting; and 2) you have to show the eels often enough and to enough extent that no one is surprised when she does, in fact, get eaten by eels at this time.

That's five, I guess.

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I like the BFF theory. I would say Martin is definitely an example of Places To Go, People To Kill. And though it isn't really BFF in the usual sense of the term, Dean's Tam Lin is What A Lovely Night For a Pleasure Cruise Through Eel-Infested Waters, though in her case it's more What A Lovely Four Years For A Liberal Arts Education Among Faeries.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It really is like that. College at a liberal arts institution in southern MN, I mean.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I really understand the second. Would those be the quest sorts of BFF? Or the Lost in Faerie sorts?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily the quest sort, but some types of the quest sort. If you have a quest and every step is necessary to the attainment of that quest, and there are a lot of steps, you have PTG,PTK. If you have flashbacks to the main character's childhood and only peripherally relevant events, or if you have detours to things that are pretty cool but not directly related to accomplishing the plot or any subplots, you have WALNFAPCTE-IW.

I'm reading a Robin Hobb novel right now. Robin Hobb is definitely on a pleasure-cruise. Megan Lindholm, on the other hand, more often has places to go, people to kill. But Megan Lindholm's fantasies are not big and fat.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Christopher Robin goes
Hoppity, hoppity,
Hoppity, hoppity, hop
Whenever I ask him politely to stop
He says he can't possibly stop.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I did not ask Robin David to stop, because Auntie mrissa does not have to make him walk nicely or deal with disappointment or any of those other little things. It is good being the auntie.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I was so excited when I saw the poster for TMNT. Then I saw a preview and noticed that it's animated. And not in the good way like the cartoon.

That was the end of that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeeah. I may be the only person of approximately our age who was there without any past fondness for the Turtles. In fact I used to associate them with losing a friend for a time, even though it was nothing TMNT-related -- it was just that he got Turtle-obsessed around the time he stopped acting like my friend, when we were 11 -- but anyway. I strongly suspect that people who were going out of some fondness for the Turtles circa 1990 would be disappointed.

On the other hand, April did give Casey a new hockey mask as a gift, so that was very sweet. And Splinter watches soap operas and calls them "my stories," but not all the time.

[steve-dash-o.livejournal.com]

Essentially all of my friends -- except you, I guess -- are nostalgic turtle fans and thought the movie was great. :)