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Aliens and Editing

Art in Liverpool http://www.artinliverpool.com/blog/blogarch/literature/  and Nerve Magazine http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/misc/articles/word_is.htm  both carry write-ups of the recent Word Is They Say (WITS) literary festival in Liverpool, which I took part in.

One of the funniest films I've watched in a long time is Jake West's Evil Aliens, produced by Tim Dennison. The blurb on the back of the DVD box says, "Michelle Fox (Emily Booth) takes a film crew to deepest, darkest Wales to investigate claims of alien abduction. The television crew don't believe a word of the story until the real stars arrive. They're aliens and they're not friendly."

What follows is a hilarious spoof splatter/gore film - hardly my usual preferred choice of genre, but this truly was so funny. Suffice to say that I'll never see a combine harvester again without remembering this film. Recommended!

In contrast, one of the most boring films I've seen in my entire life was Bringing Up Baby starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The non-stop onslaught of frenetic, semi-hysterical babble was enough to induce a headache. The plot was so unlikely that the film ceased to be a comedy and devolved instead into mere idiocy.

As I type this, the fence to one side of our front garden is being replaced. During the recent storm, the entire fence was ripped off its posts. The poor men are now having to contend with the 2" to 3" long, sharp thorns of my berberis hedge, which I planted to deter two-legged visitors. The workmen have assured me the hedge works well - ahem!

I've been busy with my writing, as usual. I'm currently transferring all my editings and tweakings which have been written on the paper MS to CD, giving a final polish at the same time. This will be the version of Tamsin which I'll be sending to prospective publishers and agents. The word-count, this time around, has differed in only tiny quantities as I've changed the odd word here and there. Beyond this, I risk falling into the trap of tweaking forever, in search of a perfection which doesn't exist. So far, I've done up to chapter 6, so there's quite a long way to go yet - but as most publishers only want to see the first three chapters initially, it's now time to begin aiming energy at the next stage.
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