Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, February 14, 2024, or: Closely Watched Packages Arrive; Will I Begin to Write Scene Five for Reunion: Coda’s 13th Chapter?

Late Morning, Wednesday, February 14, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, there, folks. It’s a lovely – if chilly – day here in my corner of rural New Hampshire. Currently, the temperature is 19°F (-7°C) under partly sunny conditions. With humidity at 47% and the wind blowing from the north-northwest at 11 MPH (18 Km/H), the wind chill factor is 14°F (-10°C). Not exactly my ideal combination of weather, but I am in northern New England, and this is my “new normal” now. Today’s forecast calls for partly sunny skies and a high of 24°F (-4°C). Tonight, we can expect mostly clear skies and a low of 14°F (-10°C). That’s cold, all right, but at least there’s no snow in the forecast.

UPS Delivers More Chills (Stephen King-Style Chills, That Is)

As I reported yesterday, I was expecting my monthly “for entertainment only” Amazon order of Stephen King’s 1983 novelette Cycle of the Werewolf and Shout!/Scream Factory’s 2022 Limited Edition 4K UHD/2K Blu-ray reissue of Brian De Palma’s 1976 horror film Carrie, which of course is based on King’s eponymous first novel.

Amazon doesn’t deliver orders in this part of New Hampshire via its fleet of Amazon Prime vehicles; instead, it relies on shipping services such as FedEx, UPS, and the United States Postal Service. Most of my orders have been delivered by UPS without much difficulty, although I have learned the hard way to try to buy things on Amazon when no snow storms are affecting the road network in rural New England.

I originally expected to receive Carrie and Cycle of the Werewolf either in two separate shipments and on two separate days; one item was predicted to arrive yesterday, while another was predicted to arrive today. Apparently an Amazon supervisor realized that it would be less expensive to just pack the Blu-ray and paperback book in the same shipping container, so….

Anyway, I received my package only a few minutes after I published yesterday’s blog post. I was happy to see that I got the 2019 reissue of Cycle of the Werewolf, which is divided into 12 chapters (one for each month on the calendar) and features artwork by Bernie Wrightson, an artist who also provided illustrations for King’s Creepshow, a 1982 tribute to 1950s-era EC Comics horror mags and the 1991 uncut and unabridged edition of The Stand.

I can’t say I love the cover artwork for the three-disc Limited Edition steelbook reissue of Carrie. I don’t necessarily dislike it, really; it’s okay, but the illustration just seems a bit too surrealistic (it reminds me a little bit of Munch’s The Scream) for my taste. I’ll grow used to it in time, just as I’m getting – slowly but surely – used to Madison’s wintry weather.

The Carrie reissue includes:

• Brian De Palma’s Carrie in two formats: 4K UHD Blu-ray and 2K HD Blu-ray
•  Limited edition steelbook packaging
• A third 2K Blu-ray with bonus features, listed below
• The Carrie Trailer Gallery
• Writing Carrie – An Interview with Screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen
• Shooting Carrie – An Interview with Director of Photography Mario Tosi
• Cutting Carrie – An Interview with Editor Paul Hirsch
• Casting Carrie – An Interview with Casting Director Harriet B. Helberg
• Acting Carrie – Interviews with Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, Jack Fisk, William Katt, Piper Laurie, Priscilla Pointer, PJ Soles, and Brian DePalma
• More Acting Carrie – Interviews with William Katt, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley, Piper Laurie, Edie McClurg, and P.J. Soles
• Visualizing Carrie – Interviews with Brian De Palma, Jack Fisk, Lawrence D. Cohen, and Paul Hirsch
• Bucket Of Blood – An Interview with the Maestro Pino Donaggio
• Horror’s Hallowed Grounds – Revisiting the Film’s Original Locations
• A Look at Carrie, The Musical
• TV Spots
• Radio Spots
• Still Galleries – Rare Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Posters, and Lobby Cards
• Stephen King and the Evolution of Carrie Text Gallery

Fun Fact: In one of those neat coincidences that occur in the movie industry, Brian De Palma and George Lucas were casting mostly young actors for two classic 1970s films at the same time: De Palma, of course, was looking for young men and women – mostly – who could pass for high school-age teens, while Lucas was looking for actors to play Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in Star Wars. In Hollywood, time is money, and because Lucas and De Palma were part of the “New Hollywood” group of young filmmakers that also included Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and Steven Spielberg, they decided to do a joint casting call. Thus, William Katt (who plays Tommy Ross in Carrie auditioned for the part of Luke Skywalker, while Amy Irving (who plays Sue Snell) tried out for Princess Leia before Lucas cast Carrie Fisher instead,

On Writing and Storytelling: Action This Day

As I write this before my midday break, I am unsure what my writing efforts will entail. I want to begin the fifth – and hopefully final – scene in Reunion: Coda’s Goodbye, Farewell, and Adios chapter, but I won’t know if that will happen until I come back either at 1 or 2 PM and sit at my desk and start working. If my Muse smiles down at me and grants me her favors, I will at least start Scene Five of Chapter 13, which will be the last one set in Jim Garraty’s high school years. I have a general idea of what must happen in the scene; hopefully Calliope – who is quite fickle at times – will be nice and transmit some inspiration (or at least a few good, solid paragraphs) to start me on my way.

Or, put another way, for both my narrator/protagonist Jim Garraty and me, it’s not the eventual destination that counts…is how we get there.

(I suppose that if I liked to do outlines and plan stories – either for the printed page or the screen – before I began projects, my life as a writer would be easier. I am, unfortunately, not wired that way, so I tell myself the story, paragraph by paragraph, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, as I go along. Yes, I have a general idea – a mental map, if you will – of where my characters must go and what they must do or not do, but that’s about it. This was the case when I wrote Reunion: A Story back in 1998, and it’s true, up to a point, with Reunion: Coda in 2024.

Well, I am not as keen on Valentine’s Day as I used to be, and I don’t have any earthshaking news to share beyond what I’ve said in this entry, so I’ll close for now. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay warm….and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.