Sleep was weird and wacky last night. Fell asleep on the couch at a ridiculously early hour–around 7PM–then woke up at around midnight. Matthew was putting on Resident Evil (a la NetFlix) and since I hadn’t seen it, I decided to put my glasses on, stay up, and watch it too. ‘Course, I’ve got a pronounced terror and aversion to shambling dead things. It’s the slow-moving scary things that get me for some reason. Leggy worms and zombies give me the screaming willies, but I’m dandy with snakes and vampires. So I watched about two-thirds of the movie, the beginning and the end, and took my glasses off and listened to the middle, zombie-laden third, periodically pestering Matthew with “So what’s happening now?” and “Who’s that screaming?” as I peered at the television with my egregiously myopic eyes. Blurriness is a good buffer against visual terror.
So now I’ve experienced Resident Evil sans the zombie portions. They captured the mood and feeling excellently–from what I saw. I really like the soundtrack and how well it meshed with the movie. I think Marilyn Manson should switch career gears and just do soundtracks.
I’m contemplating seeing Resident Evil 2, but somehow taking off my glasses (or covering my eyes) in the theater doesn’t seem right.
However, fun, escapist, adventure-horror flick notwithstanding, it means my sleep was fractured. I had a difficult time getting back to sleep after the movie, not because of the movie (since I had taken pains to immure myself from the Eugie-traumatizing bits), but because my brain wouldn’t shut down. Tossing, turning, miscellaneous limb repositioning. When I finally did fall asleep, it was a fitful slumber, chock full of weird dreams. Blah.
Facing another day of post dysfunctional sleep, I decided to aggressively self-medicate. Had a double-tall cup of coffee, a pot of green tea, and two Sudafeds. Result: pounding heart, sniffly nose, and the shakes. Mood: incessantly glum.
Stupid brain.
Writing Stuff:
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine paid me for “Body and Soul Art.” Woohoo! Those Aussie folks run a high-quality production. I’m very pleased with my experience with them. Greatly looking forward to seeing “The Life and Times of Penguin” next year in their February issue.
Fantasy story progress: 300 new words. I think I wrote myself into a corner. Not sure how, as I had the whole damn plot outlined in my head. But the main character ended up in a different place, personality-wise, than I planned, and now I’m stymied.
While stewing about that, I revived an old story concept. One of my writers groups is having a Shelley story challenge, where we all try to write something for Halloween. This is a story I was mulling a couple Halloweens ago for a Samhain-themed anthology but never made much progress on. It’d be ideal for the Shelley challenge, assuming I finish it. Looking over my notes and my initial outline, I think I know why I stopped working on it. The plot looks like it’ll be longer than short story length. Might end up being a novelette, maybe longer. I think I got discouraged when I realized that. Now that I’ve actually completed a novella-length work, perhaps I’ll be able to see this project through. Or maybe I’ll write a couple thousand words and give up again.