Celebrate the Small Things

It's Friday and I'm glad. No complaints about the impending loss of free time for the next two days, because I will happily turn into a short-order cook/laundress/maid in order to sleep in. Getting up at 5:15 or 5:45 Mon.-Fri. is killing me, y'all. Killing me!

Bed = Happiness

(Image: cupcakexoxo)

Let me interrupt my rant to thank the host and co-hosts of this weekly blog hop: Lexa Cain and L.G. Keltner and Tonja Drecker.

In addition to sleep, I'm celebrating the movie It. I saw It yesterday. It was going to be a busy day, so I had to get my exercise in early. What better way to celebrate "It Movie Day" than with a bike ride? I even passed by some honest-to-goodness balloons on my route. Thankfully they were white and green (and being used to advertise vacancies in an apartment complex) instead of red.

Red balloon plus sewer grate equals creeptastic photo. Thanks Blondinrikard Froberg!

The movie itself had a lot going for it. The actors fit their parts, the clown was terrifying, and the special effects were used wisely without going overboard. They tried to stuff as much information about the dark history of Derry into the film as time would allow. The most frightening part, for me, was the first ten minutes when Georgie Denbrough meets Pennywise for the first and last time. 

Image: Wikipedia

Despite all the things the film gets right, I still left the theatre a little bummed. There's so much in the book that just can not fit into a two hour film. I understand that. But I wish I could have seen the dam the Losers build across the Kenduskeag in the Barrens along with the underground chamber where they performed the Ritual of Chüd. Or the chapter where Bill and Ritchie encounter a werewolf, Stan's meeting with the dead boys in the Standpipe, Beverly's dash across town after her father goes insane, or Richie's encounter with the Paul Bunyon statue. 

Image: The actual Paul Bunyon statue in Bangor Maine. No wonder it gives the residents the creeps! The ax in his right hand is bad enough, but check out that tool in his left. Picture by Doug Folkerts.

All of those are key action sequences, but I also miss some of the small stuff. There's a beautifully written chapter about Ben staying late after school in the winter to help the librarian stack books and later his walk through the desolate frozen town (right before he meets the Mummy). I love that part, but it couldn't be in the movie. All the kids' first encounters with Pennywise had to occur around the same time in the summer, so major changes had to be made in the film. 

Image: Jamie McCaffrey

It makes me wish that the book had been turned into a series by HBO or Netflix and given the kind of attention to detail seen with Game of Thrones or 13 Reasons Why. Ditto The Dark Tower. The liberties they took to stuff a seven-book series into a single movie are cringeworthy.  Oh well. Maybe someone will make a series out of The Talisman someday.

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Lastly, I got notice from fellow blogger and author C. Lee McKenzie that her novel, Double Negative, is in a list for Readers Choice Awards for YA and Middle Grade books (page 12/16). If you'd like to vote for her book, here's the link: https://www.tckpublishing.com/readers-choice-voting

Voting ends on December 10. Here's what it's about:

Double Negative

Publisher: Evernight Teen, July 24, 2014 (Digital & Paperback)

Reviews: Evernight Teen - Amazon & Goodreads 

"My life was going, going, gone, and I hadn't been laid yet. I couldn't gointo the slammer before that happened." Hutch McQueen.

Sixteen-year-old Hutchinson McQueen is trapped between an abusive mother and an absentee father. Shackled by poor vision and poor reading skills, he squeaks through classes with his talent for eavesdropping and memorizing what he hears. After another suspension from school and suffering through one of his mother’s violent attacks, he escapes to a friend’s house that turns out to be a meth lab. The lab is raided and Hutch lands in juvenile detention. When the court sentences him to six months in a new juvenile program, he meets a teacher with Alzheimer’s who will change his life and hers.

Now Available at: 

Amazon Kindle • Amazon Paperback • Barnes & Noble • Smashwords

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What's the earliest you've gotten up in the morning for school or work? Have you seen the movie It or read the book? How about Double Negative?