Pressure, The Life I Lead

So a guy I've never heard of named Anthony Maras directed a movie about Dwight D. Eisenhower and the meteorological preparations for D-Day. In it, Brendan Fraser plays Eisenhower and Andrew Scott plays James Stagg, a Scottish meteorologist, who is apparently the best damned weatherman on that side of the Atlantic or something.

So, here's the thing. It's fine. It's totally decent. Good acting, kind of a little corny in parts. It feels kind of like an Oscar movie Paint by Numbers if that makes sense. It's all like get Brendan Fraser and have him play a historical figure who yells a lot and gets watery eyes (he's goooood at that) and has to make very important wartime decisions. It's about history and teamwork and killin Nazi scum. That was refreshing, seeing Americans reject Nazis.

Speaking of Americans... they did a really good job (by good I mean almost too good) showing the difference between the loud, cocky, annoying Americans and the stuffy, condescending smug asshole Allied forces.

Especially Damien Lewis, who made this face through the whole movie and was doing his best David Niven impersonation.

Andrew Scott is good, playing a pretty difficult guy in general. Just a real snotty, uptight guy.

One thing that was a little difficult is that Brendan Fraser is a really good actor and all, but I struggle to find him intimidating. He's just too goddamned sweet.

He's supposed to be a tough guy General, and he is, and he's good, but like... he's also George of the Jungle and Link from Encino Man, so it's a little bit of crossed wires, but that's alright. For the record, I'm 100% here for the Brendan Fraser renaissance. This movie was fine. Three stars.

So I've been working on this trilogy of stories. I finished the first one earlier this year and I'm really happy with how it came out. I've got an editor working on it right now and we're about to get started on the audiobook.

The books are called Gut Feeling, Uncontrollable Urge, and Freedom of Choice. The series is The Life I Lead. It's about a neurodivergent woman exploring her new found sexual awakening with her best friend. I suppose it's a romance, though I don't call it that. I also hate describing my own writing as "literary fiction" but I don't know what else to call it, because it's not exactly erotica, it's not exactly a romance, it's a character piece about a woman coming into her own and discovering herself. The sexy parts and the romance is kind of secondary to the character portrait. The whole series is about 140K so too much for one book, but just right for three little books.

I hope people read this and enjoy it. I hope it lands with the right audience. I think it's really good, and I think it's a very different kind of story for me. There are no are no vampires or serial killers or pop stars or Jack the Ripper or anything. Just people doing people stuff.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me.