The Sting
March 28, 2001
7:19 a.m.
In the end, there's the work. I'm still plotting, of course. I'm still figuring out the details. But this morning, I caught a whiff of the new storyline, and so I broke Rule 1 (which is a crappy rule, by the way). I let my imagination carry me for a few minutes, and they stretched to a few more minutes, and next thing I knew I had four hundred, and then six hundred, and then eight hundred new words committed to the page. This was good work. It's keeper work in the sense that it gives the story acceleration that it needed. It raises the stakes for both a few characters as well as for my imaginary world as a whole. The prose isn't real nice, yet. But it will be. So I'm happy this morning. Yes, it's cheating a little. Adding words now breaks the spirit of the Dare I have in mind for next month. But to heck with that, right?   The three of us went out and saw "Heartbreakers" this past weekend. For those who haven't seen it, I'll just say it's a con movie, and leave it at that. But on the way home, Lisa and Brigid were talking about it. Brigid said she liked the movie, and talked about all the twists in it. And somewhere in there, Lisa asked if she had seen The Sting, yet. "No," Brigid answered. So we went rented it on the way home. The Oscars were Sunday night, of course, so we watched them instead of The Sting (which some of you may say was a mistake, but as many of you know, I'm a sucker for award shows and I think Lisa is, too). But we got to The Sting Monday night. It had been a long time since I had seen it. Brigid, of course, was stung big time, and we spent a long time afterward talking about the twists and the turns of the plot. And we got so into it that we had to watch it again last night. It was really fascinating. Watch this movie sometime soon. It's is, perhaps the most perfect example of efficient, slight-of-hand plotting and set-up I can think of. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is secondary (or in other words, there are no red herrings--though the first time watcher is almost certain to be scratching their heads throughout half the movie). You can see this best in the second watching, of course. If you have not seen this film (heck, it's what 28 years old now ... so I figure maybe a few folks haven't) do so soon. It's a great movie. Watch it the first time just for the pure joy of it. But then go back and watch it again. And again. If you can't learn something from watching it, then you're not trying hard enough. Have a great one...  Watch the movie ... ya falla? Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"If you grow up ... in the suburbs of anywhere, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. This moment is directly connected to those childhood imaginings. And for anybody who's on the downside of advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible." Russell Crowe |
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