Aim For The Heart: September 2007

I've now seen the first ten episodes of Heroes, and I have to say, it's one of the more addictive serial dramas I've ever seen. The storyline is shaping up nicely; Masi Oka completely owns the role of Hiro Nakamura; and the "is he good or bad?" element of Claire's dad makes for tense viewing. Probably my least favorite character is Ali Larter's, though I enjoy Micah and D.L. I can see Nathan Petrelli going the villain route, pitting Nathan and Peter against each other. I expect to find out that Mohinder has some powers, and I wasn't surprised to find out Micah did. One bit part character I really liked was Charlie, the red-haired waitress Hiro falls in love with. The actress did a fantastic job with the character.

The storyline picks up speed after the first two episodes, though it's still just one long story told over the course of the entire season. No "monster of the week" style episodes that I can tell.

Also, I watched D.O. A. Dead or Alive tonight, the movie adaptation of the video game, and I can honestly say it was one of the most fun movies I've seen this year. The action was frequent and over the top, and while I wouldn't have minded a few more barechested men, I also recognize that I wasn't entirely the target audience (I think it was the frequent "ass cam" shots of the often bikini-clad beautiful women that gave it away.)

I saw a trailer online for an upcoming TV show called Moonlight. In it, the hero is a brooding vampire private detective who falls in love with a mortal woman and has to fight against his vampiric nature. While the show has the potential to be interesting, all I could think of while watching it was, "Haven't we already done this one before?" It would be hard to top Joss Whedon's characters, action, and dialog, so what will this show offer that's different from what Buffy and Angel already gave us? I'll guess I'll find out if/when I catch it on DVD.

Also, while I'm on the subject of TV shows, the one that sounds most interesting is Reaper. In it, a young slacker finds out on his 21st birthday that his parents sold his soul to the devil. The devil (who is appropriately handsome and debonaire), puts him to work collecting escaped hellbound souls. The few clips I saw looked rather funny, so I hope it holds up and that people like it enough to keep it on the air. Which won't be me, for the record. I only watch shows on DVD. I'm hoping for the day that direct-to-DVD shows take off, but until that day comes, I will only catch them when they're on DVD, commercial-free and with no waiting between episodes.

And finally, saw my first two episodes of Heroes yesterday. I like it so far. I like shows that end on a cliffhanger. (Because I don't have to wait a week between episodes. I'd hate it if I had to wait a week between shows.)

Over on Nathan Bransford's blog, he was hosting a first lines writing challenge, with the promise of a partial manuscript read to the winner. Hundreds of entries. Most were quite good. Some were outstanding. Some were just plain confusing.

Voting will be limited to one selection after it's been narrowed down by Nathan and Anne Dayton, but so many of the entries were excellent, I thought I would post my favorites.

With comments and in no particular order (except the first one, which is my hands-down favorite):

Here is the question the people of my hometown of Vigilant, Michigan want answered: Why did I, Grace Johnson, an African-American high school senior, an honor student, take two bullets to protect the life of the white supremacist jackass Jonathan Gilmore? --Lafreya

This one immediately grabbed me, because I wanted to know the answer to that question, too.

Isn't it peculiar how a man seated in his pickup truck on the side of an isolated country road with a pistol in his mouth will consider getting out of the cab so that he doesn't make a mess of things? --Eric

There was a sadness to this line that made me want to read more. Did he kill himself? You already get a sense that he cares about people, that maybe he's not quite ready to do it.

I was six years old the first time I watched a man die; my father put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. --Lostdreams

This sentence says a lot. First, that the character has a first time to see someone die, implying that there are subsequent times. Second, there's something cold and heartless in the phrase "watched a man die." Has this once innocent six-year-old since become a killer himself?

Jerry hated his job – and not just because it involved collecting bad ideas – he hated his job because, on February 14th, 1975, he dropped a very bad idea – accidentally, of course – into the head of a five-year-old boy. Ten years later, that boy caused Armageddon. --Jen

I like the questions this one raises. Why is Jerry collecting ideas? How did the boy cause Armageddon and why?

Just after dark, death grabbed me by the ass. --Ray

Short and funny. It's easy to lose the humor in writing like this, but I definitely would've kept reading to see if it stuck.

Rüdiger stood on the broken outer wall of Streitberg castle, plucked a hair from his nose, rubbed it between his finger and thumb, then flicked it away and wiped his hand on his round belly. This siege had gone on long enough. --Scott

It's really the second sentence that makes the first one work so well. The rhythm of the two is perfect, and there's an incredible amount of detail in these few words. You just know he's going to start bellowing to the troops next.

Their green eyes met across the bomb-shattered corpse of the zombie. --Scott MacHaffie

This sentence was just plain funny. Any time you can put zombies in your book, you're guaranteed a winner.

Other fantastic entries, no comments:

My girl friend was furious with me, my boss wanted to fire me, the IRS wanted to question me, the mob wanted to kill me, my dog was indifferent to me, and my gold fish was dead; clearly my circumstances had only improved slightly since Monday afternoon. --Helen The Amusing Muse

Jack had never been at gunpoint before. It wasn't nearly as romantic as it seemed in the movies. --Reid

My husband stood in the driveway waving his arms around as if blaming me for the kitten stuck in the tree, so I took the gun out of my handbag and shot the furry problem out of the tree and then pointed the gun at my arm-waving husband and smiled. I would be solving lots of problems today. --Church lady

On a November night three weeks before he was murdered, Preston Lomax was making a list of all the people who wanted to kill him. --Steve Axelrod

If it was up to me, it would rain exactly 14.3% of the time. --Wolf

My first thought was, "There's so much blood." Actually, that's not true, that's just something I've always heard people usually say in this situation. Really, my first thought was, "What the fuck?" --Reid

When God falls asleep at the wheel something bad is bound to happen. --Fred

So I've been thinking of growing a backbone. --Amanda Capel

I was fifteen years old and shoving a geometry book into my locker, located second from the left beside Mrs. Moroney's homeroom, when I learned my father was a serial killer. --L. Amadeus

Until she looked through Rebecca's front window, Tabitha had seen only three dead bodies in her life. --Heather Wardell

When I was a little girl, I thought every town had its own vampire. --Margaret

None of this would have happened if "Gullibility" had been at the top of my "Character Faults To Be Addressed" list. --R.C.

As far as Alex could see, nothing was wrong with the fixer-upper except for the corpse decomposing on the kitchen floor. --Danette Hayworth

When the UAV codenamed Blackjack first cracked the air above the Lady Garian, only two people could have foreseen the slaughter that followed: one was busy running a dungeon in Warlock Realms, the other out buying cake. --Troy Masters

I don't dislike my grandmother, she just talks entirely too much for a dead woman and really, it is getting harder and harder to explain to Gordie why things keep randomly flying around my room. --Sheri

Consider this: when your mother pimps you out at age sixteen to fat, white, railway workers who sweat out their foetid imaginings on your young body, and afterwards whisper to you of their foul children and kaffir-hating wives before kissing you goodbye and promising to be back, then the first nineteen-year-old john she brings you will seem like a sweet, sweet prince. --Charlotte

On his last birthday, Danny Davis turned twelve. --Idea Man

After I ate Ed and took over as VP of Sales, Charlie installed a shark cage in his office for our weekly one-on-one's. --Skottk

My death was never reported to the police. --David L. McAfee

It was just like any other family gathering, except it was the first with all of us dead. --Tricia Grissom

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Here are the top choices another challenger thought worthy of mention.

Take any well known bestselling writer, and you will find a group of unpublished writers who think that writer's work is the epitome of hack writing and that their readers are all stupid. This was brought to light in a recent thread on the Absolute Write boards after an unpublished writer referred to the readers of two very popular authors as "cows." As a fan of one of those writers, to say I was insulted is an understatement.

Why would any writer who actually wants to be published do this? Is it jealousy? Would they be quick to think so poorly of those writers and their readers if they, too, were on the NYT bestseller lists with every book they released? Why in the hell would anyone who wants to make a living as a writer risk alienating potential readers by insulting another author's readership? Some of those readers might have been more than happy to read your stuff, too...until you insulted them.

You don't have to like the same stuff as everyone else. I certainly don't. There are authors whose works I wouldn't read on a fifteen-hour plane trip where the only other reading material was the in-flight magazine. But I would never call that writer's work garbage or say anything about his or her readers. If you want to be a professional, you behave like one. Watch what you say in public. You're not as anonymous as you think, and you never know who might be watching.

I've been getting some emails regarding the ARG for The Electric Church, the new futuristic noir novel coming by Jeff Somers coming out this month. Unfortunately, I can't help anyone at the moment since it seems you need a copy of the book to continue with the puzzles, and that's something I don't have. I read the book as a Word doc, and it's likely the version I read isn't exactly as it'll be published.

The book is due out this month (I believe the 25th), so it won't be a long wait. Did I mention it's an awesome book? Maybe once or twice. It's worth repeating.