Half an hour, definitely half an hour blog today as this is definitely procrastinating today.

I feel terrible today. I've been feeling bad for days now, it started almost a week ago, maybe? I thought it would ended by now. Wasn't sure how I'd feel today but I should have known judging from how bad I felt as soon as I woke up in my bed. Not as bad as I've felt many times in the past when I've opened my eyes but it certainly felt familiar. Small things are triggering me, things that really should upset me or least should just bug me for a maximum of five minutes.

  More on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Halloween Rain'

The other thing that the cover brings to mind is the old school Photoshop text and framing, well, I assume it's Photoshop or something similar. I mean, it looks already really. It's the "modern" font as in it's the font the show used for most of its run, just not its first season. Or was it less than one season? I'm a bit confused because this book came out in the first year of the show so how is it using the logo / font from season 2? Maybe I'm wrong and that changed the logo in the show quicker than I remember.

You may have noticed that in my ramblings about this novel, I haven't said much about the actual story-line. Well I'm almost half way through and it's really quite basic. In fact I'm surprised to see where my bookmark is because so far almost the entire story has been about the three main (original) Scooby gang hanging out at the Bronze for a Halloween party. I say story though it's more like just a detailed account of their conversations with each other and occasionally some others at the party. It's not even done in a very dramatic way, making it feel like this part of the book probably has little or nothing to do with the plot involving Halloween rain which brings scarecrows to life. That element, the whole point of the book, has been mentioned so far but only briefly.

They immediately put the facts out there about the rain and the scarecrows, come to think of it, no built up or mystery. So I'm starting to think that after the Bronze scene, they'll come across some scarecrows, fight them, win and that'll be the end of the book. Will there be any surprise twists or things being turned on their heads, like the show often does?

All this is making it sound like I hate it and that it's rubbish but I'm really enjoying reading it. Don't get me wrong, even with my limited book reading knowledge (especially in the past 15 or so years) I can tell that most would consider this novel to be complete garbage. It is a 1997 book based on a TV show, after all. Probably also aimed at young teens though I'm not saying that because I think the show is too. Well, I dunno, maybe it was at first but it's watched (or was) by people of many ages and it's not some dumb show for kids. A lot of people like Saved by the Bell and I wouldn't say it's rubbish but there's a certain dumbness to it and a certain simplicity to it. Buffy is way above Saved by the Bell, it has insanely more depth...

Look at me defending Buffy and why the hell am I comparing it to Saved by the Bell?! I had a point but Saved by the Bell probably isn't the best example.

So why am I liking the novel so far? So much so that I want the next one! Well, like I said, almost all of what I read is them in the Bronze. Because it's a book and perhaps because I'm a slow reader, it's like watching an episode except it's in real time. They chat to each other a lot more, it's like they really are there for the night. And even though on one level I'm sure the writing is simple, I'm surprised at how well written it actually is. This probably has a lot to do with how bad I am at words, writing, etc, which shows in this blog. The novel uses words and descriptive sentences which I'm not used to, especially since I basically never read fiction anymore.

However, I think in my last post on here, I said about the "hip" 90's slang like 'so' and 'way', it's even worse than I thought. I've read more now and they use it SO often, and not in the way I just used it which actually makes more sense than they do in the book. Actually do these even count as slang? The book goes use more clear 90's slang but it doesn't often repeat them. You know what I mean, even in a bad book if someone said 'that's totally radical', the writer isn't going to use it loads of times because it stands out to both them and the readers. They'd only use it more if they were being ironic or pointing out a character is stupid.

I reckon 'so' and 'way' were deeper in peoples minds in the 90's. I don't doubt the writers were still aware they were putting them in this book, but they may have been thinking that it's literally how people speak now. Like that way the youngsters are speaking is going to stick around. I dunno, maybe not. I'm struggling to explain myself. What I'm saying is it's how kids spoke back then, it was beyond slang. They're more like the word 'cool' which is slang but it's so popular that it's been around for decades and it's still used today. If someone says 'cool' in 2020, no matter their age, I doubt the ones around them are going to think "That's so old fashioned". 'Cool' just got that popular, perhaps partly because it's simpler than a lot of other slang.

'So' and 'way' didn't stick around so much but I guess it was just easy to slip it into the book back then. I guess you can't tell what's going to sound incredibly dated when you're living it, living in the now. I say it like I loath it but what's wrong with things sounding dated? Those kinds of things are just nostalgic for me now, even though 'so' and 'way' weren't used much in the UK, as far as I remember. Things like this simply ground the subject in the era or place it's set in or was written in.

I was going to go through my episodes notes, ran out of time.