The awesome co-hosts today are Olga Godim, Chemist Ken, Renee Scattergood, and Tamara Narayan!
April 4 question - When your writing life is a bit cloudy or filled with rain, what do you do to dig down and keep on writing?
Sometimes I think I just drown. In a lack of inspiration. Music is usually what pulls me out of it. Whatever is on my radar at the time or pounds hard and fast to inspire a scene.
What do you do?
Are you following TheIWSG on Instagram? Here are the prompts for April:
We need co-hosts for the coming months! If you can co-host on May 2, June 6, July 3, or August 1, please leave a comment below or send me an email. It takes at least four co-hosts each month to keep up with everyone. Thanks!
There’s also a Self-Publishing Conference coming up on April 14 and it’s free to register for it.
Revolution 2050!
Hi, Alex—thanks for inviting me! And hello ninja army!
After a brief but bloody civil war, the North American Commonwealth dominates the eastern half of the former United States. The NAC is controlled by a totalitarian regime called the Directorate. The Directorate controls the media. It enforces its ideology through fear, intimidation, and the ever-present brainwashing. Sam Moore is a Directorate member and high school “teacher” in what is little more than a government run indoctrination center. By 2050, a whole generation has lived under the Directorate’s iron fist, and one wonders if there is any spark of freedom left?
The western portion of the former U.S., called the Western Alliance, is populated by liberty-loving souls. I couldn’t write the story without including the natural clash of ideologies, which I believer mirror today’s political world. However, the story’s focus is on loyalty, love, family and a fight for freedom.
Alex, thanks so much for the invite and allowing me a few words with your ninja army!
I'm a former long-haul trucker and live in East Texas. I graduated from the University of Texas at Tyler with a Bachelor's degree in history and minored in English. I've taught high school U.S. history and American Government for the past 20 years. I'm also a private pilot and when not teaching or writing, I'm in the air.
I’m on Twitter @jay_chalk, Facebook, and reviews are at Goodreads.
Find Revolution 2050 at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo
Movie Reviews
I had a little trouble getting into it at first and worried I wouldn’t enjoy it. (I also worried that I’d reached an age where I couldn’t enjoy anything anymore!) However, as the film rolled along, my enjoyment rose.
Interesting way to sell a movie – a young man playing a video game. In the beginning, I literally thought I was watching someone play a game and wondered if that was all the film would be. But as the movie got me involved in the characters – real as well as the avatars – I was swept up in the story as only Spielberg can do.
There are a billion references in the film. It will be fun to rewatch and catch more of them. Mecha Godzilla, Firefly, Batman – it’s all there!)
In this day and age, we expect the animation to be great and it was spectacular.
So, despite my hesitation at the beginning, it turned out to be a great film.
Recommended
This movie came out at the end of December and I was stunned by all of the good reviews. And the fact it made almost a billion dollars. A billion!!! So I finally had to check it out.
And you know what? It was actually a really fun movie.
The board game morphs into a video game, pulling in a kid from the mid-2000’s. Twenty years later, four more teens are pulled into the game. They have to win the game in order to return to the real world.
Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart were both in Central Intelligence, another movie I didn’t expect to like. But I did. Now throw in Jack Black and Karen Gillan and it’s a ton of fun. The four must learn to work together if they hope to get out alive, and in a realistic fashion, they do.
In the wrong hands, this could have been a train wreck. But the director balances all of the elements – the action, the humor, the stars – perfectly. It’s not deep, but it’s funny and enjoyable.
Highly recommended.
This film won Best Picture and Best Director, so of course I was eager to see it.
Unfortunately, I’m still not quite sure what I think.
I liked it. The imagery and sets are so incredible. They have del Toro all over them.
There are a lot of uncomfortable elements. And the director put them in to highlight what would be taboo in the sixties. They aren’t there for shock value or because the director felt compelled to include them. They simply show a side that no one wanted to admit existed.
Woman falls in love with fish. Well, there is a reason and validation for that. You just have to watch until the very end.
Many years ago, del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth was up for best picture. And while I consider it to be the most depressing film I have ever seen, it was also brilliant. I also think it was a better film and more deserving of Best Picture than this film. As far as enjoyable, I think his Hellboy films are far more fun and certainly more watchable.
I’m glad I saw it, but it’s not a film I’ll watch again.
Recommended to those with an open mind.
April Movie Preview
Here are the upcoming theatrical releases for April! As always, descriptions courtesy of the IMDB. Snark provided by me.
6 –
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
Director: John Krasinski
Stars: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds
I hadn’t heard anything about this film until recently – it was probably in a quiet place…
20 –
Primatologist Davis Okoye shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent gorilla who has been in his care since birth. But a rogue genetic experiment gone awry transforms this gentle ape into a raging monster. As these newly created monsters tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with a discredited genetic engineer to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.
Director: Brad Peyton
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Will Yun Lee, Malin Akerman
And hot on the heels of my post about video games to crappy movies…but maybe Johnson can save this one.
27 –
The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
Directors: Anthony Russo | Joe Russo
Stars: Karen Gillan, Josh Brolin, Letitia Wright, Chris Evans
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!!
What do you do to keep writing during dark times? Can you co-host in the coming months? Picking up Revolution 2050? Did you see Ready Player One yet? Seen Jumanji or Shape of Water? And what films excite you this month?
With the A to Z Challenge in full swing this month, I’ll be taking some time off since I’m not participating. Look for my next post in two weeks when I have a special guest who was involved in the movie industry.
