Artwork tonight from Peter Ellenshaw – concpept art for the Cygnus, the massive derelict ship from the disappointing The Black Hole, Disney’s misguided answer to Star Wars. The ship, though, was definitely cool…and the inspiration for the refinery platform in my Icarus pilot.
But, onto tonight’s entry: I follow this account on twitter called “First Time Trekker.” It’s this woman, self-proclaimed general nerd, who’s finally watching Star Trek for the first time. She’s just about to finish The Original Series (she started with TNG), and *I* have just finished TOS, so I was curious to kind of get a postmortem on her thoughts of the show, overall. Anyway, that led me to some Trek podcasts that she’s done, and I listened to some of them while I was working today.
I find her account amazingly entertaining, not only because there was a decent amount of overlap between what she was watching and what I was watching, but also because she seems to have the same sort of snark and fun that I have and the Ho has when I/we watch Trek. That simultaneous genuine reverence for a show that I truly love and is very precious to me…and the observation of the absurd amazingness that Trek pumps out ALL THE TIME. That’s hilarious Mostly, however, I really enjoy the account because she’s watching Trek for the FIRST time. It’s all new. The *plot* of these episodes is unfolding in REAL TIME. That’s really, truly something special, and it’s something that happens only once.
The first time for me watching all of these Trek episodes was very different. I was a child. As I mentioned a couple nights ago, I just started with The Next Generation, and *instantly* as soon as that ship popped on the screen, and that title music began, and I heard Patrick Stewart’s classically toned voice, and the blips and bleeps and rumble of the Enterprise ambience…I’m instantly 9 years old again, and 13, and 15…watching it all again as an adult is certainly another “first time,” since I’m so much more educated and experienced now with story-telling; beyond even just how television has changed in the last 25 years. But, it will always still also be a child in me watching these episodes, as I wind my way through them from beginning to end.
I got my work done today. There were distractions, oh were there ever, that threatened to derail me…but I stayed the course. I finished everything I needed to. I’m gonna do the same shit tomorrow, folks, and the day after that. I want four days “off” of work completely. It will be such gloriousness. Figure out what my dream schedule for these “writing” days. Ah! A man can dream.
I got a call from my long lost friend JayRob today. He was calling to say that he’d “lent” my novel manuscript to his dad who was going to be on a long flight, and that his dad came home to report that he’d loved it and couldn’t put it down. First of all, I freaking love that Jay actually went out of his way to get his dad to read the thing, and second, it’s always immensely relieving to hear that someone has been entertained by a piece of writing. I was talking about it with him, and it’s true: I really have no idea if my writing is good or bad, guys. I don’t. I work on things till they satisfy ME…but I’m entirely incapable of judging whether or not someone else is going to be taken into the world that I’ve created. I completely rely, I’m learning very quickly, on other people to read it, and react. I can’t predict it. All I know is what *I* like, and I just try to go with that. HOPEFULLY, most other people will hitch the same ride…but I’m ever fearful they won’t.
Got my writing hour done today, too, and I will tomorrow as well. Let’s see…I did some podcasting research. There are all kind of apps and plug-ins that you can use these days to take care of all the podcast coding for you, and I looked into some of it.
Oh! I also started watching The Signal, which I’d recorded from Cinemax I think a couple days ago. It was instantly interesting. Surprising. I’m not actually sure how good it’s going to remain till the end, BUT, I immediately saw some interesting GOOD choices being made right from the very first scene. I also like this young-ish kid that’s playing the lead. How many times have I said something like that? Not often, it feels like. Anyway, I’m intrigued. We’ll see tomorrow (probably) if they manage to not fuck it up.
I think that’s it for tonight. It’s time for the sleeps. More work, more writing, and more Trek tomorrow. Today was all about the podcasts 😛 Catch you all on the flip!