Tuesday, February 19, 2013

best lines OSCAR edition

5 days to OSCAR, and for the first time in years, i'm genuinely excited about the show.
so many good contenders this year!

and i'm thrilled to say part of what makes some of the best picture nominees so amazing is the writing. in honor of the fabulous scripts that made it to the big screen this year, i thought i'd do a movie edition of Best Lines today - featuring my favorite one-liners from a few of the top nominees.
2 WARNINGS:
#1 - there is an f-bomb in one of these quotes.
#2 - said quote may make you spit liquid out of your nose with laughter.

LINCOLN:
-  "Trust? Gentlemen, you seem to have forgotten that our chosen career is politics."
-  "I could write shorter sermons, but when I get started I'm too lazy to stop."
-  "Shall we stop this bleeding?"

DJANGO UNCHAINED:
-  "Your boss looks a little green around the gills."
"He just ain't used to seeing a man ripped apart by dogs is all."
"But you are used to it?"
"I'm just a little more used to Americans than he is."

ARGO:
-  "If we wanted applause, we would have joined the circus."
-  "Brace yourself. It's like talking to those two old fucks from The Muppets."

WRECK IT RALPH:
-  "What's going on in this candy-coated heart of darkness?"

MOONRISE KINGDOM:
- "Our daughter has been abducted by one of these beige lunatics!"
-  "Why do you always use binoculars?"
"It helps me see things closer. Even if they're not very far away. I pretend it's my magic power."

and finally, the line i have quoted so many times in my terrible Scottish accent, Handsome has banned me from saying it around the house:

BRAVE:
-  "I am Merida, and I'll be shooting for my own hand!"

what were some of your favorites? who do we think is going to win in the script-writing categories?

Thursday, February 7, 2013

social media slacker

it's been 4 days since my last tweet.
17 days since i've posted on facebook.
21 days since i've blogged.

...one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said "i'm angry" five days since you laughed at me...
sorry. couldn't resist a little Barenaked Ladies interruption.
and yes, if you know that song, it will now be in your head all day.
you're welcome.

i'm posting my sorry social media stats to illustrate what happens when i'm writing. i'm always tinkering with something, but usually that something gets tossed into the "No!" or "maybe later" files with other partial manuscripts. then it's back to the interwebs!
but this thing happens when i break through the 10,000-word barrier, and suddenly i'm a woman obsessed - tossing aside everything BUT writing.
and that includes social media.

i used to stress about this. i used to worry that if i wasn't being loud online, then no one would hear about my books. i actually put more pressure on myself to tweet than to write.
...until one day i looked up and realized i hadn't reached "The End" on anything new in more than a year. somewhere along the line, my writing time had turned into email-tweet-post-promote time.

i still don't know if any of those things help sell a book, but i know this much: they won't help you write the next one. so i've learned to give myself permission to be a social media slacker every now and then. and if you're like me and find yourself choosing between writing and tweeting, then i give you permission too. a few weeks of internet silence won't kill your career. blank pages just might.

and so ends another post about my love-hate relationship with social media. i will tweet it. i will facebook it. and then i will crawl back inside my writing cave and not worry about it.
...at least for a few days. ;)