Deleting drama? And V for Vendetta

Erm, several people on my flist (deannahoak, nhw, neil_beren, shawn_scarber, and snurri) have suddenly deleted their LJs in the last few hours. Did I miss something?

Watched V for Vendetta yesterday. I very much liked it. I bet Hollywood was biting its nails about this one, what with the hero using terrorist tactics and all. Natalie Portman did a very convincing job of portraying Evey, a woman whose conscience and sense of moral obligation are crippled by her fear. However, there was a certain gratuitous feel to the superhero element, like it wasn’t necessary for the story. The dystopic vision and the call for the common people to rise up against a corrupt and abusive government were powerful enough without resorting to flashy fight scenes.

The mood of this movie was closer to 1984 than to Zorro, and the action elements felt a bit out of place. Still, there was a certain satisfaction to the beat-em-up parts in the opening, and the action did lighten a movie which otherwise would’ve been pretty grim. I haven’t read the comic book, so I don’t know whether the character of V was fleshed out better in the original source material.

   


Writing Stuff

Finished composing and sent off my answers to Lynne Jamneck’s interview questions.

Also put down a bid for a freelance opportunity. This whole “bid” thing is totally new to me. How much I’ve been paid as a writer has been all across the board, and I’ve never been the one to dictate how much I get.

I definitely want this job, but I don’t want to undervalue myself either. Just because I’ve accepted peanuts for writing something doesn’t mean I think my writing isn’t worth more. It’s a pragmatist thing. If I only make a pittance, it’s still a pittance more than I had.

I’ve got no idea whether my bid was competitive or not. It’s for an article-writing gig which also involves some comprehensive research, and instead of charging an hourly fee for the research and pairing that with a per-word rate for the articles, I bundled everything together into a flat rate for the articles with research included.

Was that the right thing to do? I have no idea. I’m so out of my depth.

New Words/Editing:
– 900 on the Swan Lake story that I’ve been neglecting. Very relieved to be putting some wordage down again on fiction, even if the words came out at 3AM, as in this case.
– 400 on my current freelance gig, plus editing passes on previous words. Hoping to wrap this baby up in the next day or so and get it out the door.

Club 100 For Writers
      29

500/day
      40

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24 Responses to Deleting drama? And V for Vendetta

  1. teratologist says:

    Is today the breastfeeding icon boycott? I know planned on participating in that.

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Oh! That’s probably it. I thought it was scheduled for the 6th, but I didn’t think of time zones and when people actually might delete their journals. Thanks!

      • zhai says:

        Yeah, it’s the protest. I think a lot of people deleted them early. Tempted to do the same over here, but I didn’t/haven’t given much notice.

        I think what everyone ought to do is organize an effort to simultaneously post naked primary user icons on the same day…

        • Hee. I like that idea too.

        • galateadia says:

          now that sounds much more interesting than deleting my journal…
          it’s a protest i can get behind. 😉

        • amokk says:

          If I were in charge and feeling spiteful, I’d schedule today to be a journal purge day, so all deleted jourals get fully trashed from the databases.

          • zhai says:

            They couldn’t do that and harm these folks without going against their own policy, since even journals marked for deletion are held in a grace period for 30 days. It would be a great way to lose a lot of paid accounts, though.

          • amokk says:

            There’s the condition in the TOS that you agree that they can change it whenever they want. As far as paid, they’ve already paid. They want to throw their money away by deleting their journal, that’s their choice.

    • mtfay says:

      Is today the breastfeeding icon boycott?

      The what? I never hear what the cool kids are doing:(.

      • Eugie Foster says:

        In a nutshell, in protest against Six Apart/Livejournal’s decree that icons depicting breastfeeding women which display any part of the aureole or nipple is offensive and therefore account suspendable, people are deleting their LJs for one day, today the 6th. More details here.

  2. kaoslyon says:

    Interestingly enough, the entire last third of the movie was nearly a complete reworking from the series.

    However, I think the changes they made ended up being more effective in conveying the central themes of both the series and the movie.

    You can get the whole series in a trade paperback. It reads more like a novel than a comic. I highly recommend.

  3. nmsunbear says:

    How did you get V for Vendetta from Netflix? When I look it up on Netflix, it says they don’t know when it’s coming out on DVD. Very strange!

  4. markdeniz says:

    I’m deleting mine soon too…

    … only joking…

    … or am I?

  5. aliettedb says:

    Characters are better fleshed out in the comic, but I thought the movie did a very good job of it. Really disturbed me, in a good way 😉

    I’d definitely recommend the comic to you.

  6. Keeping my fingers crossed for your freelance opportunity! 😀

  7. skeletal504 says:

    Hey, I’m sorry to bug you, but I have a question that you might be able to help me with… do you know of a site that lists *reputable* literary agents? I’m trying to compile a list, for future reference (since many of the publishing companies I want to submit to ask that you go through an agent). If you can name a few sites, awesome… if not, that’s cool, sorry to be a prat. 😉

  8. mtfay says:

    If you are trying to get a foothold, piling everything into a flat fee is an effective way to do so, as long as you are good at estimating your research time. But don’t do that too long in the same market area or they will come to expect that’s the way you will always do it. If you are going to be doing a lot of freelancing or copywriting, I have a book I’ll send you on that area.

  9. nwhyte says:

    By the way I am letting stay deleted. It was supposedly my fiction-writing journal, but since I’m not writing any fiction it seemed surplus to requirements.

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