Flashback to '96
I have been frantically working on notes for Forgotten Castles as I continue to get ready for a hardcover copy. Sadly, my notes will not make it into the hardcover version (unless I literally put the notes into the pages) as it needs to be done by March 1st. Maybe, instead of doing a different story in paperback in June, I'll update the old Forgotten Castles paperback version. Undecided. In any case, this has made me think about my book in ways I haven't thought about it before. I have new ideas, new questions that need to be answered, problems that need to be solved and plot holes that need to be covered. But the good thing is that I'm thinking about it and revamping it, even if it so far is only in my head and a few notes on some index cards.
In an effort to continue getting the feel for the time period, I've been doing more research into 1996, as well as 1995. I want to know what happened just before the story starts, as well as what's happening as the story develops. Fashion is a big one, as well as hairstyles. I'm coming up with a few ideas as to what the characters look like better than I had. Which was essentially nothing. I had vague ideas on what Justin, Cora, Tammy, Jenny, Bobby and Sebastian looked like. Now I'm trying to fit them to the styles of the day. Jenny, being Californian, is going to have a Californian chic look - cute baby doll dresses, nice blouses and jeans, maybe some vests. Tammy is going to be more urban, with the big colorful geometric print shirts and leggings. Cora is, what Malinda has helped me term, Bubblegum Goth. Goth style but with bright colors. I always felt like she liked to shop at Hot Topic, so this works. Bobby is going to kind of be like Jason Lee in Mallrats and wear a baseball cap. Malinda reminded me of how the boys would wear their caps at school and be all concerned with how well the brim bent in just that right way, using rubberbands to keep the shape when they weren't wearing it, and woe to the person to actually tried to touch the brim. Vaguely remember that. Sebastian would probably be again, more urban, with t-shirts and buttondown shirts over it. Justin is the most clean-cut of the group. He'd possibly be pseudo-grunge, with wearing the plaid shirts, but also wear buttondown shirts with collars (you know, those alligator polo shirts), but probably plenty of t-shirts as well. Konnel kind of runs the gammot on clothes - a little goth, a little grunge, a little hiphop. He's a bit of a chameleon, but I'm sure one of his favorite styles is a t-shirt and jeans with a hoodie thrown over it. Still working on hairstyles, but I think Bobby's is going to be more Nirvana and Justin almost in a Bieber-esque (which technically is Beatles-esque) 'do. The girls are a little trickier, but Tammy might have braids. Cora's is short, I know that. Sebastian is probably short and curly. Still undecided about Konnel's exact 'do.
Anyway, besides fashion, I checked out movies and tv shows. Hackers came out in September of '95, which is freakin' perfect! I know Toy Story came out in November and was still out in places at Valentine's Day, I've already referenced it in the story. But Dragonheart came out Memorial Day weekend. How perfect is that! I can totally use it to segue into Konnel asking Iris about other magical creatures, like dragons. Independence Day was out that year and now I must totally reference it somehow.
The Summer Olympics was in Atlanta that year. Not sure if I need to reference it, but it could be something that's on TV in the background at one point or something. Since the Super Bowl just happened, I went to check out Super Bowl XXX commercials. Nothing like the Budwiser frog commercial, sadly, 'cause that would have been totally cool and I would have been all on that like white on rice. A lot of the commercials were from Olympic sponsors and made references to the Olympics. But the cool thing is the weird little trivia I learned from reading the Wikipedia pages about that year's game.
Part of it was predicted on Quantum Leap six years earlier!
This is a direct quote from Wikipedia:
"A portion of this Super Bowl was "predicted" six years earlier by NBC series Quantum Leap. In the January 17, 1990 episode "All Americans", Al (Dean Stockwell) says in conversation with Sam, "I've been watching Super Bowl XXX. Ooo, Sam, the Steelers are down by 3. You wouldn't believe..." The Steelers were the AFC team in the game. They trailed by 3 twice in the game: unremarkably, early in the second quarter (3-0); but again at the critical turning point late in the 4th quarter (20-17) that ultimately gave the Cowboys the win and would lend credence to Al's suspense at the game's ending."
Holy shit! How freakin' awesome is that!? And you know that now that I know this, I have to reference it somewhere, somehow. I mean, come on, that's too cool not to have everyone know about it! At least, everyone who loved Quantum Leap. Which was a freakin' awesome show and I know it's one Konnel would have watched.
So that's what's been going on right now. I've got a few dolly bits of news - got a new girl, a MNF Lishe on a C-line body. She's my Gervase and she looks freakin' awesome. I went out and took a few snow pictures with some of the kids. It's been really pretty with all the snow, but damn if I'm not getting tired of all the shoveling. It's like freakin' 1996&1997 out there! Yes, another '96 reference. There was a big blizzard on January 7th, 1996, which I already referenced, but I remember there being a lot of snow back in the 90's. Way more than we've had the last ten years or so. This is a little more like the winter I grew up in. Not sayin' that I'm particularly excited about it, shoveling sucks and I don't even get to go sledding anymore, but it's pretty - most of the time. Today is all gross and icy and slushy, so not quite as pretty as Monday and yesterday when the snow was all fluffy and powdery. I got a few pictures of the pretty snow before it went away under all this ice. Haven't had a chance to take a look at it yet, though. I should have taken some pictures of Xu in the snow - he likes the snow. And Teddy - my little wolf boy would be adorable in the snow, I'm just worried about his little feet.
I've also been watching really, really old MST3K episodes, all the way back to '87! Slowly the episodes got funny, as there wasn't as much riffing in the beginning. Wasn't that funny. But now I'm on season 2, Kevin Murphy is the voice of Servo and Mike Nelson is one of the head writers. Joel is still the lead and I have three more seasons before Mike takes over. Joel's ok, and he's funny enough, but he's a little too easy-going with his predicament and Mike was always much funnier. But it's been fun watching these old episodes, and even just as interesting watching horrible movies. It's always interesting watching horrible writing, as it's just as good a teaching device as reading a good book. I can see what the writer's did wrong and what was cheesy and say "I'm not going to write things like that".
But hopefully I can get things done in time for my hardcover. If only I could stop playing Warcraft long enough to get some writing done. lol
In an effort to continue getting the feel for the time period, I've been doing more research into 1996, as well as 1995. I want to know what happened just before the story starts, as well as what's happening as the story develops. Fashion is a big one, as well as hairstyles. I'm coming up with a few ideas as to what the characters look like better than I had. Which was essentially nothing. I had vague ideas on what Justin, Cora, Tammy, Jenny, Bobby and Sebastian looked like. Now I'm trying to fit them to the styles of the day. Jenny, being Californian, is going to have a Californian chic look - cute baby doll dresses, nice blouses and jeans, maybe some vests. Tammy is going to be more urban, with the big colorful geometric print shirts and leggings. Cora is, what Malinda has helped me term, Bubblegum Goth. Goth style but with bright colors. I always felt like she liked to shop at Hot Topic, so this works. Bobby is going to kind of be like Jason Lee in Mallrats and wear a baseball cap. Malinda reminded me of how the boys would wear their caps at school and be all concerned with how well the brim bent in just that right way, using rubberbands to keep the shape when they weren't wearing it, and woe to the person to actually tried to touch the brim. Vaguely remember that. Sebastian would probably be again, more urban, with t-shirts and buttondown shirts over it. Justin is the most clean-cut of the group. He'd possibly be pseudo-grunge, with wearing the plaid shirts, but also wear buttondown shirts with collars (you know, those alligator polo shirts), but probably plenty of t-shirts as well. Konnel kind of runs the gammot on clothes - a little goth, a little grunge, a little hiphop. He's a bit of a chameleon, but I'm sure one of his favorite styles is a t-shirt and jeans with a hoodie thrown over it. Still working on hairstyles, but I think Bobby's is going to be more Nirvana and Justin almost in a Bieber-esque (which technically is Beatles-esque) 'do. The girls are a little trickier, but Tammy might have braids. Cora's is short, I know that. Sebastian is probably short and curly. Still undecided about Konnel's exact 'do.
Anyway, besides fashion, I checked out movies and tv shows. Hackers came out in September of '95, which is freakin' perfect! I know Toy Story came out in November and was still out in places at Valentine's Day, I've already referenced it in the story. But Dragonheart came out Memorial Day weekend. How perfect is that! I can totally use it to segue into Konnel asking Iris about other magical creatures, like dragons. Independence Day was out that year and now I must totally reference it somehow.
The Summer Olympics was in Atlanta that year. Not sure if I need to reference it, but it could be something that's on TV in the background at one point or something. Since the Super Bowl just happened, I went to check out Super Bowl XXX commercials. Nothing like the Budwiser frog commercial, sadly, 'cause that would have been totally cool and I would have been all on that like white on rice. A lot of the commercials were from Olympic sponsors and made references to the Olympics. But the cool thing is the weird little trivia I learned from reading the Wikipedia pages about that year's game.
Part of it was predicted on Quantum Leap six years earlier!
This is a direct quote from Wikipedia:
"A portion of this Super Bowl was "predicted" six years earlier by NBC series Quantum Leap. In the January 17, 1990 episode "All Americans", Al (Dean Stockwell) says in conversation with Sam, "I've been watching Super Bowl XXX. Ooo, Sam, the Steelers are down by 3. You wouldn't believe..." The Steelers were the AFC team in the game. They trailed by 3 twice in the game: unremarkably, early in the second quarter (3-0); but again at the critical turning point late in the 4th quarter (20-17) that ultimately gave the Cowboys the win and would lend credence to Al's suspense at the game's ending."
Holy shit! How freakin' awesome is that!? And you know that now that I know this, I have to reference it somewhere, somehow. I mean, come on, that's too cool not to have everyone know about it! At least, everyone who loved Quantum Leap. Which was a freakin' awesome show and I know it's one Konnel would have watched.
So that's what's been going on right now. I've got a few dolly bits of news - got a new girl, a MNF Lishe on a C-line body. She's my Gervase and she looks freakin' awesome. I went out and took a few snow pictures with some of the kids. It's been really pretty with all the snow, but damn if I'm not getting tired of all the shoveling. It's like freakin' 1996&1997 out there! Yes, another '96 reference. There was a big blizzard on January 7th, 1996, which I already referenced, but I remember there being a lot of snow back in the 90's. Way more than we've had the last ten years or so. This is a little more like the winter I grew up in. Not sayin' that I'm particularly excited about it, shoveling sucks and I don't even get to go sledding anymore, but it's pretty - most of the time. Today is all gross and icy and slushy, so not quite as pretty as Monday and yesterday when the snow was all fluffy and powdery. I got a few pictures of the pretty snow before it went away under all this ice. Haven't had a chance to take a look at it yet, though. I should have taken some pictures of Xu in the snow - he likes the snow. And Teddy - my little wolf boy would be adorable in the snow, I'm just worried about his little feet.
I've also been watching really, really old MST3K episodes, all the way back to '87! Slowly the episodes got funny, as there wasn't as much riffing in the beginning. Wasn't that funny. But now I'm on season 2, Kevin Murphy is the voice of Servo and Mike Nelson is one of the head writers. Joel is still the lead and I have three more seasons before Mike takes over. Joel's ok, and he's funny enough, but he's a little too easy-going with his predicament and Mike was always much funnier. But it's been fun watching these old episodes, and even just as interesting watching horrible movies. It's always interesting watching horrible writing, as it's just as good a teaching device as reading a good book. I can see what the writer's did wrong and what was cheesy and say "I'm not going to write things like that".
But hopefully I can get things done in time for my hardcover. If only I could stop playing Warcraft long enough to get some writing done. lol