Monday Miscellany: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

It started and ended with The Avengers. I caught the final showing of the movie yesterday evening, which is why my Blog Roundup post was so late. Now we're playing the waiting game until September 25 and the DVD release. Can it be September now? (Well, okay, so it's coming back to the on-post theater at the end of July, and I may very well try to go see it then.)

To be perfectly honest, I didn't to a lot of work this month. After about the middle of the month, I only logged in to Blogger a few times to make sure the posts were going up properly. I didn't log into my email or check my Facebook page, though I can see now that I probably should have since the formatting book went live. Oops. Oh, well. I'll get my thank yous out soon.

What I did do was a lot of personal and fandom writing, a lot of thinking, and a lot of planning. I discovered a few great websites and blogs that I'll be sharing over the next little while and I even created a new tumblelog of my own. I watched a lot of movies. And, perhaps most important, I just spent a lot of time playing and reading with my kiddo. Actually, reading with her is pretty much all of the reading I did this month. I read one short story from Delilah Devlin and a little bit of Richard Marcinko's autobiography, but that was only in the last few days.

Going hard with this writing thing has sucked the enjoyment out of reading for me. I needed some time away from editing and Being Serious to learn to enjoy being entertained again.

And I did learn to enjoy it! I haven't kept up an internal monologue of criticism on a single movie all month. I've even read some fanfiction that I didn't immediately want to tear apart. It has been wonderful.

For any of you struggling with your writing, and being able to enjoy reading, I whole-heartedly suggest taking time off. Don't do anything useful for a set period of time and see how much better off you are at the end of it.

Monday Miscellany: Movies!

One of the things I'm planning to do with this time off is see a bunch of movies I've missed since I did that silly thing and fell in love, then started a family. I used to be a huge movie nerd. Huge. So huge I seriously considered applying to USC to get into the film school. In the days before IMDB, I was the movie database for my family, my parents' friends, and some of my friends.

And then I met the love of my life (an actual person) and, well... some things became less important than spending time with him and working. I still went to the theater about four times a month, but that was only four times a month, and I wasn't renting three or four movies every Saturday night anymore.

The only genre of movie I tend to avoid is romantic comedies. I'm not a fan. I make exceptions, however, if I'm a big fan of the lead actor or actress or if it's a story I'm particularly fond of. I also make exceptions if I've been drinking tequila. I don't know what it is about tequila, but it always makes me want to watch chick flicks. I saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past in the theater because of tequila. Oh, yeah. I sobered up halfway through. That is not a movie I recommend seeing sober.

One of the chick flicks I'm planning to see is What's Your Number? which stars Anna Faris and Chris Evans. Anna Faris is an actress I make an exception for. The same goes for Chris Evans. (Have you guys seen the Scary Movie spoofs or House Bunny? Or Not Another Teen Movie or The Losers? Those are all good times.) Actually, I'm hoping to work my way through all of the Chris Evans movies I've missed since the Fantastic Four. Apparently, there's a great indie one in which he plays a drug-addicted lawyer.

I'd like to get caught up on the Jason Bourne movies because I loved the first one and I'm really excited about the next one. I haven't seen The King's Speech or Black Swan and I've heard great things about Blue Valentine. I'd like to see The Resident all the way through because Jeffrey Dean Morgan makes my heart beat a little faster. I missed the latest Sherlock Holmes movie. Jensen Ackles did a couple of movies--My Bloody Valentine and Ten Inch Hero--that I missed and I'd like to see.

And I haven't even touched on the movies I want to see for the actresses, the screenwriters, or the directors!

It's going to be a busy month.