Musings on Constipated Angst

There's a lot of angst out there.  Yeah, we're all stopped up with it.  Sometimes what we need a good ol' perspective laxative.

It's easy to get caught up in the "woe is me" syndrome.  It happens in every vocation and job I've ever been in.  Humanity tends to focus on the bad.  It doesn't surprise me when I see a message board or a blog where someone is bemoaning something about the vocation of writing.

Personally, I love writing and that's why I have a whole blog where it's just fiction writing five days a week.  It's the type of thing you choose to do because you love it, not for money or pats on the back.  So enjoy writing and flush the crap from your mind that's stopping you from enjoying it.

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly Stuart Matthew Davis.  

Birthdays- A Tool to Help in My Plan for World Domination

I will dominate the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was my birthday and inevitably people ask "What do you want for your birthday?"  Rather than ask for something for personal pleasure, I asked for money or things that would help my writing and publishing career.  I want my work and my writing in everyone's hands.  Rather than dipping into savings or getting a loan, utilize those people around you who will give you something you need and you don't even have to ask- They will ask you because it's your birthday!

If you are truly passionate about something like writing or any other endeavor, use those special occasions like birthdays to futher your cause.  Don't ask for a shirt or a wallet or a watch...unless that shirt has an advertisement for your business on it.  Even better, buy other people the shirt for your birthday, then tell them that what you want for your birthday is for them to wear your shirt out in public.

In short, sacrifice the smaller pleasures in life for your pursuit of world domination....however you may define it.

Mood Reading for Writing

Just like romance, sometimes it is helpful to get in the right mood for writing.  Depending on the type of story or book I'm writing, I like to read something in a similar style or genre beforehand.

For instance, my current fiction blog serial  is a crime thriller with lots of dialogue and some odd characters.  I read some Elmore Leonard to get in the mood.

I'll be writing my follow up to The Last Chance Players in the next few months, so I'll be reading my personal favorite writer, Ross MacDonald.  He wrote some of the best hard-boiled detective fiction and I hope to one day write as well as he did.

Anybody else ever do in any mood reading?

Noir Movie Review- The Lineup (1958)

Why you should see it-  The Bad Guys.  The villains in this movie are the most interesting characters.  They fly into San Francisco to retrieve some heroin from innocent people who have been made drug mules unaware.  The drugs are stashed in dolls and silverware and the like.  The bad guys are pure evil and yet they somehow come off as interesting and attractive.  The actors playing the trio are great, headed up by Eli Wallach, most famous for his work as Tuco in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.


Why you shouldn't see it-  The Good Guys.  They are boring.  This movie was based on a TV show I had never heard of.   If the show was anything like the movie, I can understand why I had never heard of it.  The movie starts out as a police procedural with way, way, way, way too much exposition(did I emphasize way enough).  You have to wait almost a third of the way through the movie to get to the bad guys who provide the meat of the movie.

Take my Poll!- Genre Benders

In light of Cowboys & Aliens coming out this summer, I was thinking about some genre mash-ups that I would be interested in writing.  I have a few ideas that fall into genre bending territory, but I wondered what you, the reader, would like to read the most.  Would you rather read.....

1)  A Western Noir

2)  A Post-Apocalyptic Western

3)  A Young Adult Heist book

Let me know in the comments below!

Movies That Suprised Me By How Good They Were Part 3

It seems the only way you can see the movie Illegal is in this two-pack above.  I rented this movie because I am a sucker for actors who are characters unto themselves-  Bogart, Eastwood, Nicholson and to a lesser extent the star of this film, Edward G Robinson.  Forever he will be known as the classic gangster.

In this film, he doesn't play a gangster, but a DA who has fallen from grace.  He ends up making waves as a small time defender who is beyond crafty and is able to nab the scum of the underworld he couldn't get to as a DA.

This movie is fast paced, fun and other good words that start with F.

Movies That Suprised Me By How Good They Were Part 2

I had never seen a Burt Reynolds movie I really liked until this one (nor have never seen a Burt Reynolds movie I have liked since).  I Netflixed White Lightning when I was on a Seventies car chase kick.  I wanted to see as many movies as possible with 70s muscle cars and I liked the grittiness of 70s movies.

This one was toward the end of that kick because I was running out of good movies.  I had low expectations.  Based upon Burt and based upon the plot I was expecting a cheesy Smokey and the Bandit type movie.  I was wrong.

From the moment the movie started, I was drawn in by the music and the scenery.  It was a serious movie with Burt turning out to be the baddest redneck I had ever seen.  This movie is certified Seventies cool!