once inside i couldn't believe my eyes

One of Steve's cow-orkers actually came out with us last night. She had never done so before because of the imaginary line between work and play, and worried that Steve would tattle on her. Finally reassured her that he wouldn't, and I think she believed him. Anyway I fell madly in love with her drunken repetitiveness and cheeks as cute as mine. It was a fun night. We started at Siam - which I'm not sure if I liked or not, the first DJ was no good but the one playing when we left was ok - hit Contour of course, and then back home for nearly nekkid hot tubbing. Afterwards, we fell asleep watching Blade.

( and now, something you didn't want to know about me )

we can write if we want to

How totally unnecessary.

--

I finally caved in and bought the About A Boy DVD. And Steve bought the novel the other day - so I read it, too. Although I didn't really enjoy High Fidelity the novel, objectively I saw evidence of craft. I mean this novel is actually a slightly more interesting story than the other one, but the characters don't hit you in the gut quite as hard. Still pretty hard though - they have that brutal and painful honesty that Rob did, although no one is quite the fucking jerk that he is.

I keep saying that there's two things you have to do to write a good book - you have to have an interesting story, and you have to be able to tell it. I think one of the best ways to tell it is to have sympathetic characters. For years and years The Eyes of the Dragon by King was the pinnacle of a well-told story for me - though if you think about it, the plot is pretty weak and formulaic. But you fall in love with the characters. That's always been my bag, too. I don't have so many interesting stories to tell, as just a bunch of stuff happening to people I love. (Although technically they aren't actually people.) This is why I can't bear Tolkien; first of all, he can't tell a story for shit, and second of all, well, I didn't feel for the characters, anyway. Except Bilbo Baggins. No one else, though.