My review of ALIEN: CONVENANT (** contains mild spoilers **)

** Contains Spoilers **

Alien: Covenant - A Review

Source: IMBb - Alien: Covenant

I went with a friend to see Alien: Covenant last night, and we were surprised to find it was more of a comedy than an actual scary movie. I don't think they intended it to be funny, but we laughed a lot. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the film - that will always happen for me when there are so many stupid characters who do dumb things and therefore end up dead.

The whole movie plotline wouldn't have even existed if not for one very idiotic decision early on that set the spaceship on an unplanned course. "Oh yeah, let's go check out this mysterious planet that is just PERFECT, but that we somehow never found before when we scanned everywhere for suitable planets." The captain was warned not to divert from the planned course, but he just took it under advisement and went ahead anyway and did a dumb-arse thing.

So, that set the tone for the entire movie - lots of stupid decisions, like "Oh I'm just gonna go do a pee, I won't be long." YEAH RIGHT. YOU WILL BE VERY LONG. YOU WON'T BE COMING BACK FROM THAT PEE.

Basically I was disappointed, particularly thinking about the original movies and how epic they were. And I'm sorry, but this new "bad-ass lady" character can't hold a candle to Ripley.

When inspiration strikes

Light vector created by Freepik

You know how sometimes you're really busy with all sorts of non-writing-related stuff, and you're getting more and more exhausted and you know you need a holiday? Well, my next holiday's not till late July, and I'm definitely weary, but I have also been struck by the compulsion to write. That's not even including the fact that I'm eager to edit basically every work I've written so far (novels, at least). No, this is about writing something new.

Well, sort of new. I'm compelled to write yet another SUNDOWN-related story. So I've started that. I should be editing what I already have, like I've sworn to do. But this story I'm writing is filling a gap that needed filling - it's the story of Jared and Jenna and their love...and their ultimate grisly demise.

I don't know what it is about this series that always pulls me back, but there sure is something! So I'm writing the story of Jared and Jenna, and it's flowing really well so far. I know how it ends, so that's not a problem. I know a lot of what goes on throughout, but I had to think for a while about what point to start at. I had one false start, before settling on where it should all begin - their actual first meeting.

It may end up being a novella, which is fine with me. Once it's done, that'll be another main gap in this series filled, and I can move onto editing everything and anything.

My kitty cat

Smog, a cheeky and cherished kitty. 2008 - 2017

I lost my beautiful kitty last week. It's been a pretty horrible week but time waits for no woman, so I've had to "get back on the horse" in terms of going to work each day and getting through the day. Still, it's not really getting any easier. I miss my naughty boy.

Just today when thinking about updating this blog, I was reminded of this below average quality poem I wrote in 2005 after losing my childhood kitty (she got to age 18 though, unlike my boy above who was only 9). I thought I'd share the poem:

Back in your box - 11/8/2005

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Baby in a box

You touched her hand so tenderly

Tentatively

You knew not where you went

But you felt safe enough to return her gesture of kindness

A little one

Left alone at such a young age

Your sister gone

Who knows who had the better fortune

You or her

But we all know you had great fortune indeed

My little one

A face I cannot imagine forgetting

But I bet the image will fade in time

I think I need another thousand photos

To remember you by

Before we put you back in your box

And bury you

Anyway...my plan is to make a big photo book of my boy's life, to remember him by. I'm not really the type to bring ashes home, and don't have much room to bury pets in my back yard (it's mostly paved). So I will have to hang onto his collar and paw print given by the vet, even though it totally does not look like the Smoggy paws I knew so well. I will have to flip through his photo book once I have that done, and hang onto his memory.

NaNo reflection post

Here are my NaNo 2016 results, in a series of images.

I iz a winner!

My final word tally for 2016.
This 50k consisted of approximately 33,000 for my novella,
then bits & pieces of other novels to bump up the
word count to 50k.

My Author Bio on the NaNo site.
In attempting to reach 50k, I managed to finish two of my other
unfinished novels, THE PHOTOGRAPH and TURKEY BOURKE,
so all in all I am very happy with this year's NaNo effort.
I also wrote some more on two of my RAGEWATER novels,
which I have not done in quite a few years. Yay for that!

So that's that for another year. Now my list of "finished novels that are definitely not ready for publication" is even longer. :)

I should probably use every NaNo month from here on out to actually edit novels, not write new ones. It's good to get WIPs finished though. Less loose ends hanging around waving in the wind.