2013 Resolutely Downton

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It is the day, that we sternly sit in front of the blank page and dutifully self-assess.  Sometimes this is marred by the previous night bender.  Perhaps that is just me.  I discovered how to watch Netflix on my phone last night at the same time I decided to "try out" this Downtown Abby show I have been hearing about from Facebook "friends."  It was New Years eve, a girl can live it up a bit.  I came staggering out of my bedroom at ten this morning with no sleep, eyes darkly shadowed and glassy and a terrible cramp in my hand from balancing my phone and the charger plug all night.   The Facebook "friends" failed to add a warning that watching the show will transport you into the most fantastic time machine where you lose yourself and all awareness of time and prior commitments or duties.  Not putting one in the best position to begin a fresh new year.  After watching I suddenly can barely help myself from clinging to their most beautiful canter of speech they use. It is a bit more appealing to the ear than when I went on that summer long Dog the Bounty Hunter binge and spoke a most lucid form of Hawaiian ghetto slang ever heard in these parts of Texas. I finished one season last night.  Then decided if I was useless that I would only feel better about my situation as long as I had someone with me so I started my mother on the series.   It is now nearly midnight and I have accomplished one thing today....watched season one.  So much for my self-assessment.   I would like to sit here and explain how I will correct this all tomorrow but I have found season two on Hulu.  I will not come out of this for another day.

On the bright side...on this second round of viewings I have decided that this is the most perfectly written show.

Characters: 
They are all brilliant!  So perfectly broken and beautiful at the same time compelling and true to themselves.  You know the choices they will make but are shocked still.  The goodness and honor you see in them inspires but stands in stark contrast to the evil slips and character flaws they can't fight.

Setting:
What an amazing time period to tell a story in! The regular introduction to base levels of what today are considered modern tools taken for granted are their own colorful side stories.  And then there is the Abbey.  Lord be, that place is spectacular but the rooms feel familiar and are home.  There is no monologue about the history or importance of the building...it is understood.

Plot line:  
Each episode is perfect complete story reconnecting to a masterful closure yet connecting to the overall bigger picture.   It is not a single tale but a handful of them that intertwine and weave before you.  As a writer I am in awe of the skill it took to piece this together so perfectly.  There is not a plot line yet that has bored me or that was superfluous to the brand or the over arching progression of the story.  I would love to see how they have mapped this all out.

As a young, beginning writer I would have languished and beat myself up over "lost" days like this. Getting older I can see these days are necessary.  When you are writing it feels like there is no fitting this together and that it is impossible to have this many objectives and goals for a single piece you need these days...where you went on "vacation" and lost yourself completely to another writer's world and it felt perfect.  You can notch it in your belt and know that this exist and is possible and if it has been done can be done again.

In 2013 whose writing are you going to get lost in?