ROW80 Update - home stretch!

Golly, this thing ends this week, on Thursday.

Thursday Day 73 - 81 Minutes. I am definitely winding down. While I am doing work, my record keeping has dropped to nil. And I haven't been updating the sidebar at all. Maybe I'll do that when I post this post.

Although I did blog posting today, I decided that from here on in, I'm working on the final polish/rewrite. I've still got some beta reactions trickling in.

Friday Day 74 - 135 minutes. Portfolio Day at work. Very very busy, which left me very very tired. I didn't end up looking much at the student's work, but there seemed to be a decent turnout. I did a little blogging, and I caught up on my paper notes. I'm going to work on the read through tonight -- marking typos, at least, on my Kindle with the notes feature. Then I should be able to do serious work tomorrow. (Note, added in 50 minutes of read-thru editing.)

Saturday Day 75 - Uh, six hours? I have no idea. The counting thing only matters with longer term goals. Right now, I'm just working, because I wanna get this published. I'm really enjoying the read-through, too. (However, I'm getting to the end point where it is going to need more work.)

AND today I realized that the story I'm going to post on the blog here Monday makes for a nice collection of five short short stories to publish too. So by the next ROW80 update on Wednesday, I hope to have that short story collection uploaded.

The collection will be called "5 Twists" -- and all five are stories I've published here on the blog this year. Not all of them are mysteries, so I didn't think of putting them together until I realized they are all twist stories. It wasn't hard to knock out a pure typography cover. (A very nice one, although I needed a second font, and I didn't find one that really suited. But the one I found was close enough for a freebie/99 cent short collection, with sample chapter from new book.)

Now, off to get sleep, and then we'll have dim sum and watch Sherlock tomorrow. Then I'll finish this last run through on the book.

Movies Watched

Lady For A Day (Columbia, 1933). This old Frank Capra flick, based on a Damon Runyon story (and later remade into Pocket Full Of Miracles with Bette Davis) is very much a classic. I don't think there is a good physical copy extant of this. It's dark and scratchy -- but the only restoration I know of has a good sound track, and that particularly important when you have a story as full of snappy dialog as t his.

It was right around this period when American film was finally making a technological recovery from the problems caused by the shift to talkies. For several years before this, the camera had become static, and everything had to be carefully staged for the sake of the new sound systems. Film had temporarily lost all the visual innovation of the great silent directors -- but here we begin to see the return of multiple angles and good editing. Great use of close ups and different angles. (Too bad much of the remaining film is so dark. Watch it in a darkened room so you can see it all.)

The plot is something we haven't seen done with intelligence in a long time -- it became a long-standing TV sitcom trope and has been done to death. (A loveable but pathetic character has to fake high social status for a visiting relative and dignitaries.) However it's fresh and funny and poignant here. Capra, as always, plays UP to the audience. And the performances, by master character actors, are top notch.

See you in the funny papers.