Just A Little Red

The Worst New Shows Of Fall 2014

Posted on November 3, 2014 by DMW

With all of the new Fall TV shows out there, it can be a process of trial and error to know which ones are actually worth your time. Now that most of the new shows of the season have premiered I did the homework for you (your welcome 😉 ) to the new shows that aren’t going to last, the shows that I’m thinking will get a very early renewal and all of the shows that fall in between.

There are 23 new shows this fall season, so I have spread them out into three posts: The Best, The Worst and The Filler. This first post marks the worst because I want to have my say before all of these shows are canceled, which could really be any day now!

The Worst New Shows Of Fall 2014

“Project Runway: Threads”

My Rating 2.5 out of 10 Stars

This is a spin-off series based on “Project Runway” (one of the only two reality shows I watch) where three young designers compete for a prize package worth over $25,000 every week. Each prize includes $10,000 to use at any Jo-Ann Fabrics and Craft Store or on their website; a scholarship to the summer program at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles (including travel expenses), a top-of-the-line sewing and embroidery studio courtesy of Brother International and the winning designer’s look will appear in Seventeen Magazine.

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Posted in Entertainment, Opinion, Reviews, television, TV | Tagged "A To Z", "Fall 2014", "Manhattan Love Story", "Marry Me", "Project Runway: Threads", "reality show", "TV season", "worst of TV", Black-Ish, cancelled, Mulaney, review, Selfie, sitcom, TV | 2 Comments

Calling All NanoWrimos! National Novel Writing Month Is Here!

Posted on November 2, 2014 by DMW

So, it’s November. Do you know what that means? It is National Novel Writing Month and I don’t know about you, but that means it’s time to get my butt into gear. In truth, I have never actually participated in National Novel Writing Month before. I have used it to get motivated with revising my memoir (last year) and before that I hadn’t really thought much of it. I didn’t realize there was an entire online community and just how many of my friends, colleagues, and clients used it as a way to kick-start a project they wanted to start (or for some wanted to finish) and I think it is great. I for one, plan to hold myself accountable by posting my daily word counts on Facebook. I am also registering with the official website and am curious as to what they have as far as resources and a local community to help the writing flow.

I am pretty excited for a couple of reasons. The first is that I have spent the last two years focused on my memoir, when I consider fiction to be my creative writing roots/foundation. I have only written two works of fiction (both short stories) in the last five years. I need to get back to it. The second reason is what I am writing this month… I love thrillers. They are my favorite thing to read, and they always will be, but I have never even considered writing one before. I have always focused on coming-of-age, subtle commentaries or autobiographical instances I don’t want to claim as my own when it comes to writing fiction. Write what you know – I have that down. But now, this month, I am writing what I love to read.

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Posted in community, fiction, Inspiration, Personal, Writing | Tagged "daily writing", "write what you know", "write what you love to read", nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, novel, Thriller | Leave a comment

Happy Halloween (It’s All About The Candy For Me)

Posted on October 31, 2014 by DMW

Halloween is fun, but I’m not someone who is incredibly into the holiday, like some people I know. I have friends and family whose favorite holiday falls on October 31. For me, I like it enough. I never really got to do the whole costume or trick-or-treat thing growing up. And my life involved pretending to be so many things other than myself, it was exhausting, so I’m not sure ‘pretending’ would have appealed to me, even if I had the chance, like it does others. But I get it.

Pretending to be someone else can be fun. You can try on a different face, another character, and not have to face any judgments (for the most part) afterwards. It is a time to be experimental, put on a face that you have always wanted to wear, and just have fun. And let’s not forget – CANDY! I mean I think that for most kids, it is as much about the candy as it is about the costumes. I mean I’m an adult, and I am totally about the candy! 😉 I love passing out the candy to all of the trick-or-treaters who come a knocking. We seriously get over 100 kids every year – and that is not an exaggeration.

When the day comes that Roy (my husband) and I finally have kids, I know I will be much more excited about the holiday. I can see myself getting excited about whatever my kids choose for their costumes, buying it or making it myself. I think about doing a kid-friendly haunted house in our home or having a fun-for-the-family Halloween party (both children and adults). But for now, it’s just my husband and me. So it really is all about the candy. I guess that’s why the real holiday for me is on November 1, beginning at midnight: all Halloween candy is half off at your local store!

I mean sure this occurs after Easter and Valentine’s Day as well, but the real time to stock up is Halloween. Perhaps it is for the variety, but it is more likely because candy is cheap in BULK quantities. And if you have read my pantry blog (Defeating The Black Hole Inside Our House: Also Known As The Pantry) you already know just how much of a candy, particularly chocolate, problem I have. My house may be neat, but if they had a “Hoarders: Sweet Tooth Edition” it’s a pretty safe bet I would make a TV debut. 😛

Happy Halloween and to my fellow candy (CHOCOLATE!) enthusiasts (this doesn’t seem to do my love of chocolate justice, perhaps devotee is better) Happy Day After Halloween Candy Midnight Madness! You know where I’ll be at 11:59pm tonight…. 😉

-DMW

Posted in Family, Halloween, Holidays, home, Personal | Tagged candy, chocolate, costume, fun, pretend, tradition, trick-or-treat | Leave a comment

My Slasher Movie Moment: When My Real Life Imitated A Horror Flick

Posted on October 30, 2014 by DMW

What if your life suddenly became a slasher movie? My life isn’t a slasher movie, but while I was living in Inglewood, California I did have a slasher movie moment including a terrifying shower scene, the power being cut, someone unseen walking through the halls, and an escaped killer on the loose. Life is more bizarre than fiction, and I have certainly found that to be true. Even though it was only two hours of my life and I obviously survived, it doesn’t make it any less creepy and straight out of a horror movie, and here it is, my slasher movie moment.

I lived in Inglewood, California when I was 22 and 23. It was a three bedroom condo that was very LA. I had two roommates: Marissa, another ravishing redhead (I mean seriously, tall, ridiculously thin yet with subtle curves, total model material) who was two years younger than me and Marcus who owned the condo (and was about ten years older than me). For the most part I have good memories of the condo. Marissa was nice and Marcus was harmless (a gay flight attendant who was kind of high maintenance but he was almost always traveling). Every now and then there were tiny spats like who ate my x, or it was X’s turn to clean the bathroom, but just the occasional small, and as far as roommates go, usual stuff.

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Posted in Entertainment, Halloween, humor, Life, Personal | Tagged "car crash", "escaped convict", "lights out", "power outage", "real life", "shower scene", "someone is in the house", horror, intruder, knife, slasher movie, Thriller | 2 Comments

Now That It’s Back… Starting Over Again

Posted on October 27, 2014 by DMW

I sent my memoir out to a writer who I trust completely to tear it apart, and now… it’s back. I just opened the box containing the actual pages and all of its margin comments (the person I sent it to is old school and wanted a physical copy instead of a word document). The pages didn’t tell me anything new that I didn’t get from the notes she (my editor/book coach/friend/mentor – I could call her so many things) sent me before I received the physical manuscript. It took time to digest it all, and now that I have as much as I can, I both feel sick, and free or relieved at the same time.

So, basically I was very successful at what I set out to do. I wanted to create an authentic experience of what it was like for me dying and coming back and then fighting to stick around for a year full of hospitals, drugs, chemo, dialysis, surgeries and all other kinds of things that were necessary to simply exist. Everything was life and death, and I felt absolutely lost. For me, a memoir isn’t about the objective truth, but the writer’s truth. Their experience and their innermost everything… and I did that. The only problem is that my vision in recreating that authentic experience was just too much. The reader feels like every scene, every appointment is equally heavy, equally important, and always a matter of life and death, because this was how I felt. But on the page this means that there is no climax, and the scenes meant to be the most dramatic are just like all of the rest. The reader becomes as lost as I felt, and while that was my intention, it was a misguided one.

I can’t believe my MFA and experience as an editor worked against me. All of those creative writing courses and programs that stressed “Show, Don’t Tell” must have done a number on me, because that is all that I did. I just showed, scene after scene with agonizing detail… but without the exposition or some telling, the reader was often floating aimlessly in the space that was my story. What was worse, without the necessary exposition I was actually missing the heart of the story. As it was, I mostly had an incredibly detailed sequence of events. Well… crap!

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