Grifter Movies
I've seen
The Grifters
The Lady Eve
Paper Moon
The Sting
House of Cards
The Spanish Prisoner
Big Hand for a Little Lady
Catch Me if You Can
Heartbreakers
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Six Degrees of Separation
To watch
Nine Queens (AKA Nueve reinas)
Confidence
Matchstick Men
Hustle (tv)
This isn't meant to be comprehensive, it's all off the top of my head. I'm sure I've forgotten some both that I've seen and that I know of and would like to see.
Sometimes you think your work is The Shit, sometimes you think your work ain't shit. Sometimes you pinball between those two extremes a dozen times within a couple seconds.
Tomorrow is the 15th. It's all but assurred I won't make my goal of a complete contiguous draft by then. I'm not beating myself up though, progress has been good and I am still really close.
I wrote the last line of my novel.
Hold that applause. It's not the end of this draft. I have several scenes in the middle that I have yet to write and a few transitions as well. But I am getting close to finishing this draft and it's exciting as hell. My goal is to have it complete and contigous by the 15th of this month. Back when I set that goal I knew it was ambitious. Now that I am closer to the date I now know that the word is actually "ludicrous."
I have a list of things to do, various items to fix before the complete contiguous drafts is officially called done. Then I am going to set it aside for a week or so before beginning revisions. During that time I might write nothing, but I am chomping at the bit to get started on the sequel. I have come up with just a kick-ass ending for book two. I'm also excited at the prospect of a writing the next book in a more intentional way with more preparation and more understanding of how to write a novel.
Bouchercon, the big mystery conference of each year is in Anchorage this year. There are panels of course, but the real point of most of these sorts of conventions is getting face time with editors and agents.
I think I am going.
This week I read Matchstick Men; A Novel About Grifters With Issues by Eric Garcia. Because I am writing a book about a con-artist I resisted reading this or watching the Nicholas Cage movie based on it until now. This ain't no Paper Moon, this book is a heart-breaker, even if you see (as I did) the quadruple blow-off coming. Sweet Dream Baby by Sterling Watson. Watson is co-chair with Dennis Lehane of Writers in Paradise, the conference I have attended the last two Januarys. A year and a half after buying this volume I finally got around to reading it, and the book is fantastic. This is a genuine noir story and remarkably it's written from the point of view of a twelve year old boy. Many neo-noirs I read try to replicate the feel by emphasizing the environment that they associate with Noir; usually LA in the '40's or '50s. Some are more successful than others at this. This book doesn't attempt that at all and so the moments where the story turns dark are more shocking. |
