Last night we went to see Black Swan. I’d heard lots of good reviews about it, that it was a really dark, clever film and so on, so thought we’d go and see it. Of course it’s also getting loads of awards and nominations – that should’ve been my clue, really.

You see, I’ve got to admit that while it was OK, I really wasn’t blown away by it, the way I’d expected to be. Maybe that’s the problem – the expectactions were high, so it was likely to be a disappointment. In my experience, the films that get highly rated and rewarded by the various awards organisations (Bafta, Oscars, SWG, etc. etc.) tend to turn out to be utter garbage. I don’t know why, but it’s a generalisation that seems to apply.  In fairness, Bafta awards seem to be somewhat more ‘tuned in’ than the Oscars etc., but there’s still a fair number of remarkably dull films in that list of winners.

As for Black Swan, it was OK. It just wasn’t anywhere near as clever, dark, or disturbing as it wanted to be – or indeed as it could’ve been.

I liked a number of the ideas in it, but you know what? If the film had just been about the ballerinas in the run-up to a production of Swan Lake, about their obsessions, the physical and mental exercises they undertake, and everything they go through, I’d have watched it and been fascinated. Indeed the shots of the impressive muscle development in the ballet performer’s backs and shoulders, and the physical torture their feet go through were (for me at least) the most memorable scenes in the entire film.

Worth watching? Yes. Worth watching if you’re expecting a lot from it? Probably not.

I’ve got a book in my head, and I can’t remember the name, the author, or anything. It’s incredibly annoying, because I want to re-read it, but there’s nothing I can do to trip my memory.

It’s a book about a killer, and starts off with the killer walking out of the woods, holding a girl’s hand.

It’s only at the end of the chapter that you realise the hand is all he has of the girl, as he puts the hand in his pocket.

And that’s it, that’s all I can clearly remember of this book. It would’ve been late eighties, early nineties, and probably by an American author (or at least set in America)

So – any ideas?

So, following on from how (badly) I’ve done in 2009/10, what’re the plans for 2010/11 ?

Honestly, I don’t really know.  I guess the main points can be brought down to :

• Write more
• Take more photos
• Do more websites
• Get more business
• Pay stuff off
• Get off the antidepressants

Other than that, more of my activity will be down to altering life, seeing friends, travelling, doing other odds and sods along the way.

I don’t know what the run-up to 40 will bring, but right now the thing that I do want to do is not stress about it over the next year.

We’ll see.

This time last year, this was the list of what I wanted to do in 2009/10…

1. Mortgage renewal
2. Build up own business
3. Design/Launch some of the sites I’ve got ideas for (I know, that’s an ongoing thing – but different sites/ideas this time, as always)
4. Write more – I want to get at least one solid piece done. I failed in 2009, but it’s still a plan for 2010 instead.
5. Photograph more – again, I’ve got some ideas for big projects on this, I just need to get started on them.
6. Lose more weight – I want to lose at least another stone in the next year, and ideally more. But a stone will be the target for now.
7. Get to the gym more – something I’ve really slacked on this year
8. Do some business planning, and figure out (to some degree at least) what the fuck I want to do next with my life.
9. Get back in touch with (and visit) various friends I’ve been useless with for the last couple of years.

So, how did I do?

1. Yeah, didn’t do the renewal.
2. Still working on that, allbeit slowly
3. I did launch a couple of new sites over the year, but nowhere near as many as I wanted to. Mind you, I’ve also culled out a number of the ones that aren’t going to work out, too.
4. Certainly written more, along with submitting a couple of small pieces to competitions and the like.
5. Photography hasn’t been so successful. I haven’t had the inspiration or motivation as yet – there’s been a number of things I have done, but not what I was planning to do.
6. Lost weight – I’m down a stone on where I was, with the intention of losing more.
7. I didn’t get to the gym at all
8. I didn’t really do much in the way of business planning, although equally I’ve had enough to keep me going over the year.
9. I got in touch with friends, saw a few, and then went back to being crap.

All told, not a great year for achievement. Stuff’s been done – just not as much as I wanted to, and/or not in the sections I planned it to be.  All told, it’s a bit of a worry, with the culmination in a year’s time of that five year plan – but then, there’s been lots of change in that five years, if I look back to where I was when I started it. So I can live with that – there’s been progress, work and change, they just hasn’t taken me along the path/road I expected them to.

Earlier this week I submitted a script to the Short Script Competition at the London Screenwriter’s Festival. It was an idea I’d had that I thought worked pretty well, but it was hurried in the way it was written, as lots of other things all happened at about the same time.

Anyway, the results were given today, and I didn’t get anywhere. The odds were always going to be low, in fairness. As it turned out,  there were 115 entries all told, and from the look of it my script wasn’t even in the top 25. I’m going to try and get a bit more feedback about where it went wrong, but we’ll just have to see.

As it is, I’m happy to have at least submitted the script. To me that was the important thing. I want to get more experienced at that, at writing, finishing, and submitting – that’s the way these things need to go.

Life’s been a bit quiet round here of late, what with one thing and another.

One of the bits that’s reduced my writing time here has been the Short Script Competition for the London Screenwriter’s Festival , whose deadline was today. (In a couple of hours, in fact)

I’d had an idea for the project, which I wrote in CeltX (again) and wanted to get finished and submitted. And today I got it all done, dusted and submitted.

I don’t know how it’ll do – no idea at all, to be honest – but regardless, I’m happy with having completed it and got it in for the deadline. Even if nothing at all comes of it, it’s another idea completed, written, and submitted.

That makes it the second script (admittedly, short script) completed and submitted to competitions this year. My writing plan for 2010 was to get at least one – and hopefully more – bits written, and I’ve done that. I’m not going to stop there- there’s still a lot to write and a lot of ideas in my head – but at least I’m doing it now. It’s taken far too long to get to this point.