"Eight dollars for Beer Nuts? This room *is* evil!"

This will be short and to the point because I need to get some sleep. We're leaving early tomorrow for England, where I shall buy all the books I want. *sigh* Giant bookshop=my personal heaven.

Movies I've seen recently:

• Pandorum: Fairly good.
• The Wicker Man--original: Good, strange, sad ending...
• The Wicker Man--remake: Shit. Absolute shit.
• Minority Report: Very good. Loved it.
• 1408: Freaked the hell out of me. So much so I had to stop watching it. But I finished it today and wow. I loved it. Regarding the ending, however... Apparently what I saw is the theatrical ending.

*****SPOILERS*****

When I saw the ending, I thought maybe he had died, because how could the recorder record Katie's voice if she wasn't really there? Then I found out that's the ending where he lives, and Katie's voice on the recorder is EVP, proof for Lily that Mike wasn't lying. I prefer my interpretation.

In the director's cut ending, Mike dies. Then the manage of the hotel sees him in the backseat of his car, then we see Mike in the hotel room and he fades away or something. (I didn't actually see it.)

*****END OF SPOILERS*****

Writing

Since I last blogged, I ended up writing a total of 501 words on Saturday and Sunday I wrote the same amount. Monday was a failure. Tuesday I wrote 480 words. I was stuck, but got unstuck. How did I do this? I used a variation of "When in doubt, kill a character" and introduced a new character. (Well, not really a new character...)

Adding conflict solves writer's block. Most of the time.

But today I have written zero, zilch, nil words. I'm hoping I'll manage to write at least 150 words before going to sleep--which I should be doing NOW.

Tomorrow, I won't be able to write on my laptop until we get to the hotel. Then on Friday same deal. But Saturday, there will be TWO hours on a ferry--with internet access! Which might harm my productivity, but whatever.

Now I'm off to write 150 words in chapter 18 and then print said chapter so I can at least try to write in the car.

First: I overpack. Scratch that--my family overpacks. This time, we vowed to use smaller suitcases. And yet I end up with:

• small suitcase of clothes
• vanity box of bathroom things
• handbag for the car trip: notebooks, pens, books, iPod, phone...
• huge bag with more books, DVDs, iPod dock, phone charger...
• laptop bag

And that's it. Yup: We don't travel light. And yet, that's us traveling light.

That means exactly what you think it means: we used to travel with a LOTTA shit. How much? Well... *said in the manner of Samantha Stephens*

The car would be filled up.

To the ceiling.

Will update Saturday. And Courtney's post about how she writes will be posted Tuesday the 20th of July.