Day 29

12:45

Woken up a little later today - about midday. Feel determined to do better today with my work. I've really got to start mapping out the next story, and quickly. As it is, it feels about half-formed now in my head - and I'm treading a fine line between forcing out something before the thinking is finished, and indulging myself by not working hard enough to actually finish this off.

We'll see.

02:30

Made my word count today. First time on an original project since the 18th, so that's real progress.

I'm also so tired my eyeballs ache. So I'm going to go to bed now, and try to be a more diligent writer - and blogger - tomorrow.

Also I saw Frost/Nixon today. I was really looking forwards to it but was a little bit disappointed. It's a good film, but there's little dramatic momentum at its heart. It is not a clash of the Titans; it's a Titan and a minnow. There is very little of the dramatic sparring I thought would occur, and in fact Nixon's admissions towards the end are suggested to be something he decides very consciously to do, rather than being trapped into an admission through days of Frost's brilliant debating. And Frost seems to set up a David-Goliath confrontation solely by ignoring his researchers to go drinking, partying and to attend movie premieres - in other words, his underdog status is only achieved through his own dilettante behaviour - which really doesn't encourage us to sympathise with him.

It's still a good film - well made and very well acted. It's the dramatic structure of the film that is lacking - a Rocky-style build up with no Rocky-style denouement. And in the end, it does the opposite, I believe, of what it intends: it makes Nixon's opponents seem to be flighty and shallow hypocrites, while the president himself becomes a grand, sympathetic, and tragic figure. My limited understanding of U.S. political history suggests he was a brilliant politician but a completely corrupt man, and that we should have more sympathy with the victims of his policies (especially the Vietnamese and Cambodians) than we do with him. In this aspect, the film fails. I left the cinema hoping he would have succeeded in rehabilitating his image, rather than being pleased that he failed.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Actually, that's probably about four dollars' worth of two cents.

Head and eyes hurt. Going to bed.

word count: 2,012
hours writing: 4.5