A Novel Idea

Good News of the Day!

2012-01-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have been gone for longer than anticipated again, but I return with three pieces of good news!

Firstly, if you've been reading this blog for a bit, you may recall my mentioning a sci-fi novel. At one point it went by the the title Quarantined, which was then shortened to Q and then I abandoned that title altogehter when neither of those fit what the story had become. For probably about a year now, it's simply been known as The Untitled YA Sci-Fi Novel. And as of yesterday, The Untitled YA Sci-Fi Novel was completed.

Of course, I use the word completed lightly; this draft is finished. But I'm really happy about this. I've been working on this novel on and off, and then consistently this year, for over two years. I made a mess of it in November and spent the last two months cleaning it up and finishing it.

I hope to get a NaNo reviewer go over it and get some feedback, then work on it some more!

Bit of News #2 is that my friend and critique partner Stuart have started our collab blog. It is a writing blog, including book reviews, and we've gotten great reception so far. Check it out here!

And Bit of New #3 is that my final semester of undergraduate (and possibly all, but never say never) education is upon me, which means that I will be completing my senior thesis. My thesis is a new draft of my play, Straight on 'Til Morning, culminating in a staged reading of it. My playwriting professor has offered to be my mentor and I'm really excited. I'm meeting with my thesis teacher tomorrow to discuss the details and I really can't wait to meet up with my mentor on Wednesday. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

NaNo and a World Premiere

2011-12-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm still here, I promise. My life has been ridiculously busy. The world premiere of the play I'm in happened on Thursday night and I have my fifth show of the week today. This play is one of the best I've ever been in- possibly *the* best- and working on it has been the most amazing experience of my life. But I'll get to that in a second.

If you're wondering what happened with me and NaNo- I won! I nearly dropped out a few times; rehearsals and schoolwork were keeping me really busy, but I just have to win now that I have twice before. So I finished with a little over 51,000 words.
I'll just reiterate the tip I gave in the last entry: DO NOT do NaNoEdMo. It completely destroyed my novel and I think I'll have to do a complete rewrite. It just takes your mind to the complete wrong place when you're writing and editing at that speed. Next year, I'll be doing NaNo the traditional way.
When I have time, I also need to check out what's up with my word count; Scrivener says I only have 32,000 words, but that's impossible since I had 33,000 words before I even started NaNo. Thankfully, I have this novel backed up several times. I learned my lesson from the Great Word Loss of NaNo '09.

Now back to the play. As I believe I mentioned, it's a brand new play written by a very young playwright, a recent graduate. However, her credits are quite impressive, and I'll admit to being sort of star struck whenever I saw her (which wasn't often before this weekend, as she lives in New York and I'm in Philadelphia.) Even though she's only two years older than I, I always felt like a little kid around her because I was so intimidated by her credits and her writing skill. Last night, however, I got up the courage to ask her about something mentioned in her program bio: being produced at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville. I happen to be looking there to do an apprenticeship, and who better to talk to about it than someone who's already done it?
As it happens, she hasn't done it; her friend did, but the playwright's work was the one the friend produced. But with that one question, doors were opened. Besides being introduced to the friend when she comes to see the show next weekend, it also finally started up the conversation that I've been longing to have with the playwright about playwriting in general. She's such a nice person and I very much enjoyed talking to her. She asked me if I wrote too, and when I told her I did and gave her the plot of my play, she said she'd love to read it! That was a "whoa" moment for me, and now I'm nervously looking over my most recent drafts to make sure they're not embarrassing. But what an opportunity!

The process of working on this play has been nothing but inspiring to my own playwriting endeavours. When next semester starts, I expect I'll be writing a lot more, as my play is my thesis!

On My NaNo Progress

2011-11-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

What, me, procrastinate? Why would I do that? No one in their right mind would willingly write a blog entry during NaNoWriMo when they're already two days behind, which will turn into three if that person doesn't finish before rehearsal in two hours. No, you're imagining things...

Yeah.

To be honest, the situation is not as dire as it seems. Because I made the decision long before NaNo to include editing in my work count, it's much easier to make up 5000 words or so than it would have been in previous years. (By the way, by "editing," I don't mean a word here or there. I mean like really working on a scene and polishing it.)
However, as I knew would happen, I'm suffering the guilt over not doing NaNo traditionally. And besides the fact that that's stupid- people do this all the time- I also know that if I were doing NaNo traditionally, I would have dropped out by now, as the show I'm in is taking over my life in a very wonderful way. We open in two weeks exactly, so things aren't going to get any easier.

One day, I'll come to my senses, either about being crazy enough to do this every year or about accepting my own decisions without guilt.

Courage

2011-11-14T08:41:00.000-08:00

Today as I was waiting for my art class to start, a girl came over and asked me if I had time to take a survey. I said sure, and when she gave me the paper, I saw that it was about relationships and technology. A few of the questions asked what my reaction would be if I caught someone looking through my phone/Facebook/e-mail/room/computer without permission. For most of them, my answer was that I wouldn't reall care. Sure, I would be a little annoyed that they just assumed they could, but I have nothing to hide. But for one, the answer was different: my computer.

Like all my other technological items, I have nothing to hide on my computer (computer here meaning documents, pictures, etc.), nothing I'm ashamed of, even if I'd rather people didn't see my awkward adolescent years in photographs. But I have a mini panic attack at the thought of someone going through my documents, and that's because of my writing.

I've always been protective of my writing. I don't know why. I suppose that a good part of it is definitely that writing is one of my favorite forms of expressing myself, so it's me in those words, my ideas, both good and not so good. I experiement, I explore, and I take chances in my writing. And while I may not be the best writing, I do consider myself a fairly good one. So why do I want to make sure that no one sees what I write?

I know that a lot of it comes from my being a perfectionist. I want my drafts to be flawless when I show them to someone, despite that the word "draft" implies everything but perfection.

I've had this blog for a few years, and I think maybe one person I know in real life has read this blog, and he found it on his own just recently (hi, Caleb!) I haven't even shared this blog with my critique partner, whom I trust implicitely.

I wish I had the courage to share my writing more. I don't think the reactions would be bad. But I think it'll take awhile for me to get up the courage.

NaNo Prep

2011-10-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

As I have since 2008, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. But after three years of being a NaNo purist (writing- or attempting in 2008- 50,000 new words in the month of November), I'm changing it up a little this year... and I'm not completely happy about that.

I'm a little OCD- I like to do things the same way, all the time. I make bets with myself: I bet you can't keep this up for the rest of your life. I betcha. And so even deviating from an annual thing is kind of screwing with me. But I both want and need to do it, I think, and it's not an unheard of thing and so is still officially accepted.

I'm going to be doing what is usually called NaNoFiMo. I will be finishing up a novel I began to work on in September of 2009 (the sci-fi YA one.) I will probably not write 50,000 more words of it (as it's already nearly 35,000), but I will be adding possibly a good 20,000, maybe more, and I also plan to edit the book in November.

There are a few reasons for this choice:

1) I really want to finish this novel. I've worked on it sporadically for over two years now, and I really want to move on with it (though not from it.)

2) There are a few people (and by a few I mean two :p) who want to read it, and by editing it, they won't be reading complete brain vomit, which is always what my NaNo novels are by December 1st.

3) While I'm not busier than I was last year, I'm more worried about the busyness, and I want to be able to concentrate on outside things more than I usually do during NaNo.

I want to get as much as the novel done as I can before November so I can edit thoroughly (including rewrites of existing scenes and most probably adding new ones) when NaNo comes along. I'm very much looking forward to this November, however unorthodox it will be.

Starting from Scratch

2011-10-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have once again neglected this blog... oops.

Anyway, my WFC class is still lovely, although there is one part that's not so great: the grad students. WFC is a combined undergrad/grad class. Even last year, I would have found this daunting, but I don't feel that the grad students have that much more experience than I do in this class' speciality. One thing about the grad students, though, is that most of them are teachers themselves. This, apparently, makes them think that they have a free pass to talk ALL THE TIME. I don't mean give their opinions a lot or dominate conversations; I'd be fine with that. No, I mean that they whisper and giggle through every class.

It's no secret that I'm a bit of a nerd and a bit of a teacher's pet, but I don't really think I'm being either when I say that this is distracting and very rude to our professor. Sometimes there are so many of them conversing behind me (because, of course, that's where they all sit) that I really can't hear the professor, and I can tell she gets distracted by them sometimes, too. I'm not sure why they think it's acceptable behavior. I get that they're teachers, but in my mind, that means they would understand how distracting they're being. Would they allow that in their own classrooms? I highly doubt it. Sadly, I don't have the nerve to turn around and tell them to shut it.

Besides my irritating graduate classmates, I'm still loving WFC. We did an exercise about beginning a story in which we had to write three different beginnings going off of the same prompt. It was really interesting and I liked my results. I was hoping to get that back today, but we had to use the same prompt result for this past week's exercise. On this one, I didn't do too well. See, I have two problems. One is that, as I'm sure I've mentioned, I am horrible at writing on demand. I'm all about making myself write even when I don't want to, and I'm not a slave to a muse. I do find it difficult to write when I have to start from scratch for a specific assignment, though. My brain goes into panic mode and I can't think of anything.

This time around, there was the added difficulty of taking the beginning I'd already created and plotting out the novel that would result from that composition. The beginning I had written was not novel-length worthy. It was probably more short-story worthy or, to be honest, just exercise worthy. There wasn't enough conflict presented in the intro to merit an entire novel, and I couldn't fathom one that I could just make up. I started work on that assignment the day I got it. A week later (meaning last night at 11 pm), I still had next to nothing.

So what did I do?

Oh, just threw in a random road trip. Yeah... I felt pretty crappy handing that in to my professor. I guess it was better than giving her nothing.

I also was almost denied being able to use my WIP as my to-be-critiqued piece. I asked my professor today how long she wanted the required synopsis to be and she told me that she would prefer I wrote something original for the class. Thankfully, I think my telling her that it is still very much a WIP (as opposed to a novel I finished over the summer or something along those lines) made a difference, and she's letting me use it, thank God. At least for this novel, I know exactly what's going to happen for the rest of the book (well, in general...) so I can easily write an outline for this one.

Children's Lit Class

2011-10-05T17:44:00.001-07:00

Wow. Hi. I've sucked at blogging lately. I have excuses- start of school, having bronchitis for a month (still got it), three trips to New York city in three weeks, my brand-new computer crashing (and taking a good 15 pages from my novel with it) etc. But I'm not going to detail them.

I want to talk about my children's writing class. I almost didn't get to take this class because it runs at the same time as my required stage make-up class. Fortunately, my advisor is letting me work around this and take the writing class. It meets once a week for three hours and I'm totally in love with it.

We cover everything from picture books to YA novels, including writing for magazines and non-fiction books. At the moment, we just finished reading and discussing The Tale of Despereaux, which I loved (and had never read before.) We're reading so many great books and I get so excited during every class. During yesterday's class, I had a bronchitis-related fever and I still thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The thing I love about it is that it inspires me not just to write, but to write what I love, and outside of it, too. Sometimes it's hard to be a YA writer in a school full of people (and a group of friends) who don't read YA, but my teacher is so passionate and supportive of children's lit that I feel I'm given permission to do my work. Also, after reading Despereaux, I think I'd like to write a middle grade novel some day.

As with my last writing class, it's a critique class part of the time. I'm not being critiqued until November, but I need to start getting my stuff together now. One scene that I wanted to present was deleted when my computer crashed, so I need to start putting the pieces back together. I'm excited to get their feedback, though. The response from my professor on my first (ever) non-fiction magazine article was much better than I expected. I was afraid to look at her comments, but aside from a few words suggestions here and there, it was received quite well. At the end, she wrote that she could see it being published, which caused me to happy dance in my brain :)

Speaking of things that cause happy dances and inspiration- if you haven't bought Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star, DO IT NOW. I've always been a fan of MJ; she hasn't written a single bad book. This one, though, is simply amazing. She writes with a bravery I can only dream of. Plus, it takes place in London (almost exactly where I went to school, down to the street) and there are ghosts. What more could you want?

:)

2011-08-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm editing part of my critique partner's novel while he's editing mine. This has actually never happened before, and we've been having fun saying that we can't be mean to one another because we have each other's babies. There is a big difference between what we're reading, though. I have the latest (of many) drafts of the fantasy novel he's been working on for years. He has the fourth draft of my second complete novel, which is contemporary suspense. I've read almost every draft of his novel; this is his first glimpse of mine.

I've mentioned how honest my friend is about my writing. I mean, he told me straight out that the intro of this book sucked. In fact, it sucked so much that it actually made him much less eager to read the rest of the novel. He has started it since, however, and is teasing me with Facebook messages that say things like, "Just thought I should tell you, I'm reading TOSOL again. The darkness is overwhelming." When we got together last, he asked me who I was reading when I was writing the novel. I mentioned John Green, and he nodded. "You can see his influence," my friend said, totally making my day. Another thing that did so? Him saying he was pulled into my novel. I was practically dancing.

I think this all goes to show that a) one can recover from a bad beginning and b) I am growing in my writing. :)

That Awkward Moment When You Realise Your Novel Has Already Been Done

2011-08-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it's happened to most authors, but I had the terrible realisation that my story has already been written, even if it's in a different form. I was watching TV the other day when a movie trailer came on... and there was my novel.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned what my current novel is about, but it's a sci-fi YA about a fifteen year old girl who contracted a disease two years before the novel begins. Unless a cure is found, it will kill her within the year. If you watch the trailer, there are similarities.

Of course, a few days later, I've calmed down enough to see that there are more differences than similarities. Yes, the characters in the movie contract a mysterious disease that kills quickly. But it's more quickly than in mine. It also hits a lot more people- the disease in my novel is extremely rare. I also only tell the story from a patient's point of view- I never go into the minds of doctors or parents or friends. Still, it freaked me out a bit.

I guess there are no original ideas... and I wouldn't stop writing my novel either way.

Writing Together

2011-08-05T15:08:00.001-07:00

Most readers of this blog know that I've done National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) since 2008. NaNoWriMo has a sister project, Script Frezy (or Screnzy), which takes place in April. I've always wanted to do it, and when I was living in London this past semester, I had the month of April off from university. What a perfect opportunity, I thought. I had an idea that I had scribbled down while on a train from New York City in May of 2010 but hadn't developed.

One of the great offerings of NaNo and Screnzy is that they have leaders for every location involved in the projects, and these leaders organize get-togethers so that participants can meet up and write together. I'd always wanted to attend one of these, but was unable to do so until I did Screnzy this past April. Transportation was a problem in previous years, but London is so easy to get around, even (or perhaps, especially) without a car, that I was able to attend most of the writing sessions.

While at these sessions, I discovered the joy of writing with others. Writing has always been a solitary thing for me- I don't write with anyone and I show very few people my writing. But meeting up and writing with the new acquaintences in the Costa at Piccadilly Circus made me extremely productive. There's something driving about sitting with other writers who are writing. You feel you need to keep up, and there's just this inspiring atmosphere.

I loved attending these meetings, but due to traveling around Europe in the same month, I didn't get to go to all of the meetings. However, I got so much done in that environment that I was determined to bring it home.

I've talked a lot about my critique partner and friend on this blog, and this summer, I suggested to him that we write together. He assumed I meant our collaboration novel. I told him that, while that would be nice, too, I thought he should try just writing his novel while I was writing mine. I found out just this week that he wasn't too sure about that; he'd never done it and wasn't sure it would work for him. We've gotten together a few times since then and he told me he loves it. It's even better to work with him because he knows me and he knows my writing, and vice-versa. It's a really awesome experience to be able to talk through hard places; last time we wrote together, I needed to have my character transition from homesickness to determination in what she was doing. On my own, I probably would have just moved on to a different section, but with my friend there, I was able to discuss the section, read him what I had, and he gave me this great idea that helped me finish not only the section, but the chapter. For his part, he asks me things like that, too, but mostly uses me for a dictionary/thesaurus :p

If you're wondering what I was working on during these sessions, it was not TOSOL. Though my friend has given me suggestions on how to fix that awful introduction, I'm waiting to get some edits back from other readers (my friend is currently finishing up edits on his own novel to turn in to me in a few weeks.) I was instead working on the novel that used to be called Q/Quarantined. It no longer bears that title, but I haven't yet found a replacement. I did, however, discover something interesting about said novel: it's officially science fiction. I never, ever though I'd be a writer of science fiction, but I'm definitely having fun with it!

In other news, the lovely Deirdra from A Storybook World has granted me the Powerful Woman Writer Award. I'm honored to be given it, and you should go and check out her blog!

Rude Awakening

2011-07-19T18:02:00.001-07:00

I've talked a lot about my critique partner, and he and I continue to work together this summer (in fact, he just sent me a poem of his this afternoon.) Though I was very nervous about it, I sent him my novel. As I believe I've said before, I really trust his opinion, as he is not only a talented writer himself, but is willing to be honest with me.

I was in a wedding this past weekend, and while I was at the hotel, he and I were chatting over Facebook. I complained to him about how much I hated the intro of my novel- it's one of the last parts I wrote, and though I've fixed it up a lot, it's still clumsy and just bad. My friend wrote, "Do you want to know what I honestly thought of it?" "Yes," I replied. "It sucked. I'm sorry, it just sucked so much that I had to be blunt about it."

And while it seems blunt, and maybe it was... I wasn't upset. In fact, I smiled because I was glad he was willing to be so honest with me. I was fine with this all night. But the next day, the day of the wedding, I started freaking out. It was like I was going through the seven stages of grief.

Shock: A combination of "wow, that was a blunt way to put it" and "I can't believe I let people see that."

Denial: "It's not really that bad. My other reader liked it, so nyeh!"

Anger: "There's a ton of important information in there! I can't put it anywhere else! What does he expect me to do?!"

Bargaining: "I'm going to take the novel back, from both him and Chloe. Then they'll forget about it and it'll all be fine."

Depression: "I am a sucky writer. I will never be published. I've peaked with this crappy intro. It's all over."

Testing: "I'll rewrite it. It's not a big deal."

Except... instead of acceptance coming next, I just went backwards. I was in a complete tizzy. I wasn't mad at my friend at all- I'm still not. I was upset with myself.

He and I met up the other day face to face. I was so upset and embarrassed about the intro that it took everything in me not to cry as he talked it over with me. He was the true friend/critique partner that he is and helped me brainstorm ways to improve it. Then, he highlighted all four pages of the intro and hit 'delete.' I thanked him profusely and still tried not to cry.

I'm better today- still embarrassed that I let that writing see the light of day, but I'm saner :p I know I was upset because I really like the story and I want to publish one day in the probably far future. I need to accept that this might be another practice novel. That thought upsets me, but I know it shouldn't. TOSOL is only my second completed novel and I know published authors write practice novels, and most likely more than one. I'm being unrealistic.

I'm not giving up on TOSOL- I still love the book and I still want to work on it and I still want to get it published one day. Maybe it is a practice novel. Maybe I'll need to work on it for a decade or two before I can do anything with it. I don't know. I guess we'll see. But while my readers work on that, I've got a few other projects to keep me going! :)

LOOK!

2011-07-05T18:21:00.001-07:00

So I've sent my novel off to my two readers, which makes me excited and nervous. And the other day, I recieved this little gem in the mail:

It is an actual, honest-to-God copy of MY book, bound and printed like a real book. I got it from a site called CreateSpace, and winners of NaNo got them for free. As I've said before, this is not the version I'd sell to anyone, even my family, but I wanted to preserve that version of the story and I'm so glad I did it like this. I was so excited when it arrived (seven days earlier than anticipated.) All I did for awhile was hug it to my chest.

There are some things I don't like about the layout, but that's my fault, not theirs. They asked me to select options, I did incorrectly, and they followed what I said. No matter, though, because I still love it.

Finished!

2011-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

Last night at 10:20 pm, I finished the fourth draft of TOSOL. It was kind of a race to the finish line- my goal was to be finished by today, but I also knew that my friend (who is reading this draft) needed it and she seemed to be a bit stressed, so I thought I would give it to her early.

I'm not as happy with the draft as I could be. There are still two or three HUGE changes that I didn't make. One of them was something I've talked about before, that being the MC's mother being crazy. I was really stressing out about that, and I do plan to apply it, but after wailing about it to my critique partner, he finally said "Just leave it the way it is, let me read it, and we'll work it out together." This is why he's awesome- after that, I was able to step back and focus on the rest of the novel.

The revision was really hard, especially at the end. Even though I'd cleaned it up in draft three, I really cleaned it up this time. I made that timeline I posted a picture of, which was invaluable to figuring out what happened when. I cut some scenes and did a complete facelift on others, and I added a few, too.

Now that I'm "finished", I don't know what to do with myself. If I was ever bored, I'd work on my novel. Now... what? I think I may start plotting the rest of next year's NaNo, or at least time-lining out what I already have, since time is such a problem for me.

This morning, I put in the draft for my free proof copy from CreateSpace. They work with NaNoWriMo and give every winner a free proof copy of their book. I didn't do it last year because my book was nowhere near ready by June. While I know TOSOL will be undergoing major changes in the next few months, it's at a place right now that I want to preserve. I really like the MC's mother as a sane woman and I want to keep that draft somewhere before I have to dissolve her mind in the next one. Of course, just as with the films I'm in, I'll probably get the copy and hide it somewhere, but at least I'll have it!

Reworking

2011-06-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

For the past two nights, I've been doing something, writing-wise, that I've never done before, and that is tearing out scenes, rewriting them, and MAYBE sticking them in somewhere else.

Of course I've rewritten scenes before, I just recently pulled some scenes out (something I don't do a lot, unfortunately), and I've added new scenes. But last night, I knew I needed to buckle down and start finishing (start finishing? Odd and possibly incorrect pairing of words...) a few certain scenes in TOSOL.

The reason that this problem even exists is because I write out of order. While pacing-wise, the scenes were in the right places, they were almost the wrong scenes in the right places. My main character degressed from the maturity she gained halfway through the novel because I never revised the third training scene. In others, information was repeated or confusing.

This has happened before, but usually I'll just type away at them, cutting and rewriting until it seems like I've fixed the problem. But in order to fix this one, I needed to see all of the related scenes at one time so I could pick and choose what I needed from each one, as I knew a few would have to be combined with one another. I copied and pasted all of the specific scenes into one document, printed that out, and then tried to figure out what I needed. Once I knew the requirements for the first scene (which included much less from the original first scene- that'll be going in the third- and a ton from the fourth), instead of copy and pasting from the same document, I just retyped the whole thing. I'm so grateful I did this- copying and pasting allows me to be lazy, and I realized as I re-typed that if I had done the first option, I would have missed fixing a lot of tiny things.

Right now, I'm still trying to fix those scenes, but it's getting closer to the end. I'm actually kind of on a deadline right now: I really want the free proof copy of this version of the book, and one of my readers will be sans internet after the 26th of this month, so I need to get it to her before then. Rush rush rush...

My Novel is Playing Tricks on Me

2011-06-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

Just the other day, I was revising in a very happy manner. Things seemed to be falling into place, and in a lot of ways, they still are. But in addition to the joy I can feel while working on TOSOL, I've also begun to feel the inevitable hate that (and, it seems, most writers) feel for their work at some point.

Right now, I like my characters, but I don't like their choices. Well, that's not true. Individually, their choices seem brave, sometimes selfless, and often something I wish I could do. But looking at them together, I'm starting to sense a message that I'm not sure I want to send. I can't even really say what it is, because I'm not entirely sure myself, but it runs along the lines of being rather anti-feminist, and I don't want that. I didn't set out to write a "I am woman, hear me roar" novel, but most of my characters are strong females and I think it's counteractive to have the cumulative message be what it seems to be.

I could be wrong about this. After all, it's been read a few times and no one's mentioned this. I'm very Type A, so there's a good chance that this is all in my perfectionist head. I also noticed that this "crap, am I being antifeminist?" worry only began to dawn after I began reading Libba Bray's fabulously empowering Beauty Queens.

My novel's also teasing me, as all of them seem to do, with knowing things about myself that I don't even realize. As I was revising yesterday, I started to see new meaning in some of the scenes I'd written, meaning that had always been there, speaking things I believe in or am scared of, but that I never consciously wrote to represent that. It's scary the way these things happen some times.

I'M FREE... Sorta

2011-05-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

Today I took my last exam here in London, the one for which I have been studying about five hours a day, every day for the last month. In the last few days before the actual exams, I studied less and procrastinated more, mostly with my biggest procrastination tool, writing. I'm telling you, those hours during which I was supposed to be studying were hours that I made some serious progress with TOSOL. I finished writing a scene that should have been very simple; it was just a conversation, not much moving around and definitely no combat (just that should have made me breathe easier.) But as easy as it seemed, it's a scene that's given me the most trouble of late. I can't decide if it's because it really was difficult or my inner critic was in good form. Either way, it took me a good week and a half to write the 4000+ word scene, writing and deleting sentences over and over again. However, now that's it over, I'm pretty satisfied. While there isn't much action, there's a lot of information given, tension built, and questions asked... or at least I hope so.

I had hoped to get the fourth draft to my two readers by the beginning of June, but I don't think that's going to happen. I have almost five days before my family arrives in England (!!!), and of course I'll be spending my time with them until we leave on the twelfth. Besides all of those excuse-y reasons, there's still a ridiculous amount of work to be done on this draft. I've already made a ton of changes, all of which I'm happy with, but there are other changes, some huge, some tiny but still significant, that need to be made before I can even think of sending them off. Those will take serious time to accomplish in a way that won't make me cringe as I hit the 'send' button on those e-mails to my readers.

In other news, I know I haven't been doing WIP Wednesday for, well, a really long time. This is for a few reasons. The first is that I learned that posting on the internet is technically using your first publishing rights, which can hurt you if you want to get that work published in the future. Since both of my current WIPs are two that I want to publish, I've decided against posting sections from those. (If anyone knows differently about the publishing rights thing, please correct me.) The second reason is a little more vain: through my England blog, a few people I actually know have discovered this blog. *waves to people I know* *hides* I created this blog under the safety of being anonymous (though I suspect at least one person I know discovered it nearly a year ago), and in real life, I'm very shy about my writing. This has also made me a bit reluctant to post my work. (Note to said people: it's not you. It's me. I'm ridiculously shy.) It's not that I'll never do WIP Wednesday again... I just don't know when it will be back.

Until my family gets here, I am free to write as much as I want, so I think I'll visit a cafe or two over the next five days. I write so much better in a cafe environment, and hopefully I'll get a lot of work done.

Progress

2011-05-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I finished writing the combat scene. It's not great- my lack of experience (in both writing these scenes and combat in general) definitely shows, but it's okay for now. My critique partner is good at writing combat scenes, so hopefully after he reads the novel, he'll have some suggestions on how to make it better.

Since I finished that, I've been working on more additional scenes than I realised were going to be added. One thing I'm definitely not good at is cutting scenes. I'm fine with writing scenes and not putting them in- I do that all the time. But cutting things after they've been in there for awhile? Not so great. I may have to do this with TOSOL, though- my last reader pointed out two or three scenes that, while well-written, don't give any new information and therefore aren't necessary. In fact, I just now made the decision to cut a scene. See, I'm growing right in front of you :p

I'm still feeling guilty about not working on my script while here in England, so I vowed earlier today that this coming week, I will work on it at least a little bit. I've been focusing on TOSOL because two people are waiting to read it, but I really want to get some of this script done as well.

Now back to studying- I'm terrified of this English-style exam and I've been studying my butt off for the pas week and a half.

A New Obstacle

2011-05-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

Oh, this novel is killing me. In a good way (sort of), because all of these challenges are leading me to a better and more realistic novel, if it all works out and I write it well enough.

Now I have a new obstacle. In the end of the novel, right before everyone dies, they need to fight back. I didn't have them doing so and both of my readers wrote "WHY AREN'T THEY FIGHTING?!" And why don't I have them fighting?

Because I've never written a combat scene before. Not a real one. I've had characters captured and hurt, but said characters have always had zero knowledge of any combat skills and didn't have the skills or the chance to defend themselves. In TOSOL, Lyddie has limited (still some) knowledge/skill, but her aunt has more, and the villain has even more. Even though Lyddie is disarmed fairly easily by the villain, I need to know how one can fight with her prop as well as how she can be disarmed. These are all things I'm not good at, so I've taken the coward's route and avoided it... until now.

The muses are not smiling down upon me. I've been trying for days to write this scene. The pace is all wrong, and it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, despite the reading I've done on the subject.

Ugh. And I thought writing the make-out scene was hard. Any suggestions on how to write a fight?

I'm Growing (I Hope)

2011-05-02T15:23:00.001-07:00

I think I'm growing as a writer, slowly but surely. It's been happening over the years, of course, but over the past eight months or so, I've been recognizing signs that I am. I have been told that one of my downfalls as a writer- of novels, of scripts- is that I miss great opportunities in my story. I set up a great "in" for something to happen... and then I don't think to try it out. It's never on purpose- I just never recognized that there was such an opportunity. But over the past few months, I've noticed that I'm catching more of these, seeing new avenues that I've never seen before.

I decided that for next years NaNoWriMo, I'm going to finish up Q/Quarantined/whatever it's going to be called once I'm finished with it. Long-time readers may remember that I started this project back in September/October 2009. I've been working on it on and off since then, and as of now, I have around 31,000 words. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words, and while I'm not sure that Q has 81,000 words to it, I chose to finish this project partially because I know I will be challenged to try new approaches to the story to get those 50,000 words. Plus, whether or not is has 81,000 more words to it, I know it still has a lot; I have so much still to say about the story, and I'm excited about that.

Also, I've found that one of my favorite things to do as I figure out a story is to write a scene or two from a different character's perspective. This allows me to see the same scene from a different angle. For example, for TOSOL, I wrote about Lyddie's mother's capture from the mother's point of view. It didn't go into the novel and I never planned it to, but knowing what happened to her was really helpful, and I can look back on it now months later as I reassess and completey revamp her character. I also wrote a flashback scene between Lyddie and her sister that occured right after their mother had been taken. It's adorable and touching, and while it didn't make it into the novel, I know that they had that moment together and it helps me to write other scenes between them. This is something I never did when I was a younger writer.

I've spent the past couple of days since making my plot chart working on some new scenes. I have a few that I need to write, and as I work on them, I feel like I'm looking at them with a better eye for wording and the like. This is not only from writing, I think, but from editing. I know that if I'm not careful, this "eye" will turn into my usual Type-A1 fear of not being perfect, but I'll try to stay away from that, as that's what keeps me from writing, not spurs me on.

I'm excited to see these changes happening in my writing and I hope they continue. I know I've got a long way to go, but growing bit by bit all brings me closer to my ultimate goal- to be published. And I'm not going to lie- I got an e-mail from a girl who I was in a creative writing class with in the fall. She and I have a lot in common, but we've both been too shy to communicate in anyway but over the internet. I had written and asked her if she was taking any writing classes this semester, and in her answer, she wrote, "I hope you're keeping up with your writing- you're so good at it." Even little stuff like that can make my day :)

Blehhhh

2011-04-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

The title is probably as articulate as this entry is going to get.

I'm at the "talking to myself" point in editing this novel. There was one time this afternoon when I just threw up my hands and cried "WHAT IS GOING ON?!" at the computer screen (but really at myself.)

My novel needs sosososo much work. Last night, I spent hours making this:

It's a timeline of all of the events in TOSOL, because the more I read through it and the edits, the more I realise the problem is that I write out of order; times don't line up. And while it is definitely a fixable thing, it's going to be really hard and take a long time. I want to cry. The only thing that's keeping me working on it is the love for this novel, even if I do feel like I hate it right now. I can't believe I let it be seen in a state that was even worse than what I have now. Ughhhh.

I'm just having major writing frustrations right now. It's not just the novel. I didn't win ScriptFrenzy. I petered out at 69 pages, mostly because the plot didn't have enough to it; what I do have is a lot of repetition. This is okay- it's the same problem I had with my first NaNo. You just have to learn how to do it. But I feel like a little bit of a failure for not finishing, and as much as I repeat to myself that the only person I made a promise to was myself, I still feel a physical weight over not finishing.

And then there's my other play, SOTM. I feel guilty for not working on it for a month or two. March was taken up with essays and April was filled with travel, but why am I not devoting time to a play that takes place in London while I'm in London? My time here is running out (only a little over a month left- eeee!) and I want to apply the atmosphere here to it while I can still feel it around me.

Basically, all there is is frustration right now...

Writerly Despair

2011-04-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

I am going through it big time.

Here's the sitch: I exchanged novels with a fellow writer. Hers was really good and I hoped that because of this, she would give me a top-notch editing job. She did- it's nice without being sugar-coated and brutal without making me cry. She pointed out all of the things I knew were there but didn't want to see and some other stuff that I didn't even know needed to be fixed. I am extraordinarily grateful for this review.

But after reading this review, I know that I have extremely daunting changes to make. Some of them are more on the mundane side- my character has an important job, and I wasn't sure of everything that went into it, so I wrote just the important details and left a lot of it out. My reader pointed out that I really do need to include this and change the stakes a little bit (or a lot, depending on how things work out.) While this will definitely be work, it's not terrible. Same with making her boyfriend there for more than romance. And then there are the really hard changes- or, in this case, the one that's so hard, it actually makes me want to cry. That's how much I don't want to do it.

See, in the story, Lyddie's mother has been absent from her life for eleven years. Lyddie was told that her mother ran off and so Lyddie has hated her for most of her life. Toward the end of the book, Lyddie discovers that her mother has actually been locked in an underground room since her mother went missing. In the original version of the novel, I had her mother be very rational- perhaps a little emotional, but very logical and calm. Someone pointed out to me that eleven years of solitary confinement would not allow a person to act like that. A person would be driven out of their mind. I ignored this- I didn't want her to be crazy. Besides the fact that I just didn't want it for her character, there was also the issue of this happening towards the end of the novel. It's already a huge reveal that Lyddie meets her mother. Now she had to be crazy, too? No. I wouldn't do it. I kept the mother rational and sent it off to my reader.

The draft came back and my reader made the same comment the other person had- the mother was way, way too level-headed for her situation. I wrote to her, basically saying, "But it's so late in the novel *whimpercrybeg*..." She answered, "That's okay. Make her insane. I want to see some crazy."

I still don't want to do this. I am pretty much having to drag myself in this direction. Because more than one person commented on it, I know I have to make her crazy, but I still reallyreallyreally don't want to. I love this character the way she is. It's so tragic to me that Lyddie will never get to know her real mother. For more technical reasons, I'm not sure how to get the mother's story out now- no one else knows it and it's going to be difficult to have her spit it out coherantly when she's crazy. And then there's the fear of me writing crazy poorly. I've never really done it- at least not this kind. In Remembrance, I did psychotic crazy, but this is different. This is splintered mind, hallucinating, unpredictable, mental breakdown crazy.

I suppose this is what they call killing your darlings. I thought I'd done it before, but it's never made me this conflicted. I'm so sad to let go of the character I initially created and replace her with a broken version of the woman, but I know I have to to make the novel realistic.

Any words of advice?

(In other news, I'm 59 pages into my Script Frenzy script!)

Editing Can Be So Rewarding

2011-04-10T12:56:00.001-07:00

Part of the NaNo experience for me includes editing someone else's novel. I didn't do it my first year, but I also didn't win that year, so I don't think I understood. But since NaNo '09, I've edited at least one other person's novel. This year, I did three, and it's been awesome.

I just finished the third one a day ago. It was good. Really good. Like, if I pulled it off the shelves and bought it, I would be happy with it good. The author, a girl the same age as myself, asked me to return it to her within two weeks (it was pretty short.) The only reason I didn't have it back to her after two days was because I thought she would think I was a freak for reading it that quickly and/or suspect a shoddy editing job.

But no (or, well, I hope not.) I sped through that story because I couldn't not. It was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I considered e-mailing her and asking her for mine back because hers made it look amateurish.

It wasn't perfect. I definitely made some suggestions about it. But still, wow. When she e-mailed me back, she told me that I was the first person to read it. I felt honored.

Yes, I've read some crappy stuff that resulted from NaNo (and I am by no means excluding my own work from that statement.) But stuff like this makes it worth it.

Plus, editing is the best procrastination tool I have :)

Exploiting My Family For My Novelling Needs

2011-04-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you have to use what you've got! While I certainly have many entertaining stories of my family's escapades that I could turn into a book, I'm pretty sure no one would find them funny but us. No, the kind of exploitation I'm talking about is knowledge exploitation.

I've posted excerpts of the novel I call Q here, and so most of you know that it partially takes place in a hospital. When the novel begins, the main character has spent the last few years of her life living in one, and therefore I need to know some things. The nice thing is that I don't need to do any disease- specific research because I made up the disease from which Eliza is suffering, which therefore means that if I want her to suffer from some symptom (and boy, do I make her suffer), I can just do it without being afraid some med person is going to read my book and get annoyed.

But there are still many things I've kept the same or close to the same to today's medical world. The novel is slightly futuristic, but not too much so- I've set it in 2025. Therefore, though Eliza isn't anchored to an IV stand, for example, she does still need an IV, and I needed to figure out how they worked.

I had posted a question on the NaNo boards about IVs, asking if someone could pull one out of their hand. The (paraphrased) resulting conversation occured:

Me: blah blah blah, need info, help please.

Person 1: [insert helpful info about IV needles here.]

Person 2: Uh, highly implausible. Plus, what would keep someone in the hospital for years? And wouldn't she need an IV stand?

Me: Well, I made up the disease, so some of the symptoms require her to stay at the hospital round the clock. The novel also takes place in the future, so I've "invented" a device that allows her to have an IV but not the stand.

Person 2: Wouldn't she need a port of some sort? And you didn't invent it, we have something like this. (Links to picture that doesn't actually relate to what I'm talking about, so I'm not sure why they bothered.)

Me: Person 2, perhaps she might need something like that today, but like I said, I've set it a little bit into the future, and in this future, we're more medically advanced.

It went on, and in the end, I got some helpful information from other people and I've figured out that part of my story. But after the frustration of Person 2's "yeah, but"s, I decided to ask a person who knew and could answer me in real time- my sister!

My sister's a freshman in college, studying to be a veterinary technician. I was telling her about my earlier conversation and she gave me some helpful advice. Then I started talking to her about TOSOL, partcularly the end where Lyddie is killed with an injection. I told her how the villain went about doing it and she gave me some tips to make the process a little more medically sound.

A conversation I had with my mother (who is a respiratory therapist) about the very same scene in November:

Me: Hey, Mom, what's the thing called on a syringe that you push down?

Mom: What, you mean a plunger?

Me: Ugh, is that what it's called? That's a really ugly word. Are there any different ones, because that just won't work at all...

In the end I had to use "plunger," even though I hate it. Of course, I don't need to be incredibly medically correct- this is a novel, not a medical textbook. But I couldn't very well write "he depressed the pushy-downy part of the syringe." However, there are parts of med procedure, like the preparation of a syringe, that I'm leaving out, simply because a) it will slow down the scene and b) the character doesn't know or care to know that he took off that piece because it was a protective covering. She's about to die, she has other concerns.

Either way, though, I'm grateful to have some medical knowledge in my family to exploit when I need it ;)

WIP Wednesday

2011-04-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

I know I've kinda been sucking at these lately, but I have a WIP excerpt today! This is a bit of a novel that I wrote this evening, partly on the tube and partly sitting on a bench outside the tube. It hasn't been edited at all, so keep that in mind. Also, some background: Eliza is fifteen and has been living in the hospital since she was twelve, being treated for a disease that kills the infected within three years, as there is no cure.

"How have you been feeling lately?" Dr. Trescott asked.

Eliza thought back over the last week, the sudden, constant nausea that had been lurking since the Saturday before. "Not as well as usual. Kind of sick," she reported.

The doctor nodded as he jotted a note in her file. "Yes, we expected as much."

"What do you mean?"

"Last week, we took you off the C23, which is one of your usual medications. Its absence most likely the cause of any nausea you're feeling."

"Why did you take me off of it?" Eliza inquired.

"We wanted to see how your body would react."

"Why?"

"Because at this point, it's... well, we just need to experiment at this point in the game."

Eliza felt the burn of annoyance flar inside her. "Experiment? What does that mean?" Eliza had never spoken so sharply to Dr. Trescott, and he looked surprised.

"It means that- that we don't have-" he faltered, and Eliza didn't want to acknowledge the fear that threatened to overtake her.

"You don't know, do you? You don't know how to cure me. None of you- you don't have a clue." She got up from her chair and strode to the other side of the room, away from the window. She couldn't look at the doctor because his eyes would confirm it. Eliza hadn't realised until this moment that she had always had a little bit of hope, a bright thought that people went into a hospital to be cured. Somehow, she'd always managed to ignore the other reality, that the were people who went into these places and stayed there for a long time, people who never got well and who died there. People like her.

She was pacing now, pacing in tight circles as far as she could get from the window and the doctor and the reality of the situation.

"Eliza?" Dr. Trescott said softly through the intercom. Eliza stopped pacing, but she didn't answer him. "Eliza, please look at me."

"No." She was shaking, though with anger or fear, she didn't know. "What has all of this been for, then?" she demanded. "If none of this works, if it was never going to work, why couldn't you let me live my life outside of here?"

"You know why," Dr. Trescott said with irritating patience. "You're highly contagious. We can't take the risk."

"But even in my own house!" Eliza cried. "A place that's not a hospital. A place that's not so... blank. There's no life here!"

"Your parents would have had to live with you wearing protective suits." Dr.Trescott's voice was still calm. "They may have had to quit their jobs. Is that what you would have wanted?"

"I don't know!" Eliza shouted. "I don't know what I would have wanted then or what would have happened by now, but I- I want to get out of here. If I'm going to die, what's the point? What's the point of this?" She gestured with the arm bearing the IV bracelet.

"We're using it to help you-"

"But you're not! It's not helping me. It's worthless!" She tugged at it in frustration, and to her surprise, the IV came out, slid right out of her arm and dangled there by the tubes that wrapped up her forearm and bicep. The sight of this made Eliza cry harder, though she hadn't realised she'd been crying in the first place.

"Eliza, listen to me." Dr. Trescott's voice was kind. "We're trying as hard as we can. You've known from the beginning that a cure was a goal, not a guarantee. Giving you medication is the best we can do today, but we don't know what miracle might present itself tomorrow. Don't give up on us yet, because we haven't given up on you."

Coincidence?

2011-04-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

As I was finishing up The Other Side of Light in November, I noticed that part of the premise of the book was vaguely like a part of Rome's history, the Vestal Virgins. There's a lot to these women, and I had heard of them briefly in the book 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Basically, six women were chosen to keep the sacred fire of the goddess Vesta alight. In order to do this, the Vestal took a thirty-year vow of chastity and if she broke that vow, she would be punished by being buried alive. My book focuses on a line of women who have to keep a lantern alight and in order to do so, much remain unmarried and childless. That's where the similarities ended... or so I thought.

Tonight, I had some free time and thought, I'd really like to know more about the Vestal Virgins. Wouldn't it be cool to take some inspiration from their true story and insert it into my novel? So I began to Google. What I found actually had me going, "Oh, my God" aloud more than a few times.

Before I point out the similarities, remember that all I knew of the Vestals story was what I posted above. I'd never done any further research on them.

The similarities: Vestals: The sacred fire of Vesta, which is fundamental to the security of Rome, can never, ever go out. TOSOL: The dual lanterns, which keep the world in balance, can never, ever go out.

Vestals: Women chosen as Vestals are free of the "social obligation" of marrying and having children in order to devote themselves to the study and duty of the fire. TOSOL: The keepers of the lanterns are not permitted to wed or have children, as they may prove a distraction from training and duties of keeping.

Vestals: The College of Vestals was disbanded and the fire extinguished by a leader named Theodosius I. TOSOL: The lanterns are extinguished by the leader of the society that watches over my MC's family line, who also disbands the keepers. (Sadly, his name is Christopher and not Theodosius or any variant on the name.)

Vestals: The women selected begin their training before puberty, around ages six to ten. It is now that they are sworn to celibacy. TOSOL: Training begins anywhere from ages eight to ten. The trainee understands that she will never get married.

Vestals: The women serve ten years as a student, ten as a Vestal, and ten as a teacher. TOSOL: The girls first train under the current keeper, then take over the duties themselves, and then train the next keeper.

Vestals: To be allowed to serve, they must be in good mental and physical shape, without any deformities. TOSOL: Lyddie is given a mental test to record her intellect as well as her deep-seated fears. If she fails the test, she will be pronounced unfit to do the job and her family will be shamed.

Vestals: If a Vestal broke her vow of chastity, which would lead to the fire going out (because she was neglecting he duties), she was put into an underground room with a few day's worth of food and water and then the steps were pulled up and the entry sealed over with dirt. She was buried alive, but giving her limited provisions allowed the government to say that she went willingly to her death. TOSOL: Lyddie's mother is accused of neglecting her duties due to going against the rules by marrying and having children. As punishment, she is kept in an underground room with very limited food and water for eleven years.

Vestals: Killing a Vestal (even if it was because she broke her vows) by spilling her blood was forbidden. TOSOL: Four women in the story break their vow in some way. All are killed in a bloodless manner.

I was so freaked out by all of these similarities... has this ever happened to anyone else?

Being a Critique Partner

2011-03-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

I've written previously about how great it is to have a critique partner, but I've never talked about how wonderful it is to BE a critique partner.

I think the most rewarding thing about it is the fact that someone is trusting you with their writing. I am very protective of mine and it takes me awhile to share it with someone I know. In fact, I still only show a few people and even fewer on a regular basis. The fact that someone is willing to hand over their baby to me and let me hack at it with a pen is pretty awesome.

I love editing other people's work- it's one of my favorite things to do. Even if the work is terrible (which my critique partner's never has been), it's still fun to go through and make suggestions. I feel like I'm really doing something. It's even better when it's good and I just have to make small changes.

Recently, my critique partner was getting some writing ready to submit for publication at his college. He e-mailed me and told me that he was submitted one of my favorite pieces of his. This was exciting enough, but then he wrote that he had attached it so that I could edit it one last time- he trusted my judgement. That was incredible.

If you don't have a critique partner- a steady one- I think you should get one. It's rewarding on both ends :)

In other news, my two essays are done, which means that I'm almost done work for the entire school term! I have lines to memorize for a performance, but writing-wise, I am FREEEE! April is full of European exploration starting on the first, and I can't wait!

WIP Wednesday

2011-03-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I mentioned it, but my critique partner/friend and I are working on a collab novel together. At the moment it's at a bit of a standstill, as he's always buried in schoolwork and I am too (one more week of school- and these heinous essays- and I'll be freeeee!) Anyway, this is a bit of our novel that I wrote, and a few of his edits have been applied to it, though I'm not sure how many.

To get you up to speed on what's going on before this moment, let me give you some background. The novel takes place over one day. The MC, Lexi, is a successful interior designer in Philadelphia, and when she goes to work, she finds out that her friend and competitor Carrie has died. This has special weight because all through the scenes before this, Lexi has been pining for an assignment that she really wanted, but was given to Carrie, and she thinks that perhaps if Carrie can't do it for some reason, Lexi might get the job. Then the news is broken, and this is afterwards. (Oh, one more thing- Lexi doesn't use clocks. Ever. She doesn't even allow them in her designs.):

Lexi stepped outside of the conference room, but didn’t go further than that. She couldn’t seem to remember where she needed to go. People squeezed past her, standing in the threshold, and finally she moved forward. Which way should she go? She chose left just to get out of people’s way and to be doing something. It was the correct way, she realized as she caught sight of her desk in the next room. Her desk- if she could just make it to that familiar world, she would be fine.

“Three… four…five…” a quiet voice was counting as she walked, and Lexi realized it was her own. She was counting her steps as she made her way to her desk. It made her look crazy, she was sure, but she didn’t stop.

“Thirty-four,” she announced quietly to no one as she reached the desk’s corner. She looked down at its surface, the row of Post-its, the pencils in their cup, the paperclip dispenser with its neat multi-colored circle arranged in the order of the color wheel, and her laptop open to her designs, all in the exact same place she had left them, and suddenly she couldn’t stand to see it anymore. How could anything possibly be the same as before? Surely something had to change with the absence of Carrie. The world had to stop, at least for one minute, and take in the absence of its former resident.

Desperately, Lexi pulled her gaze from her desktop and it roved around the room, searching for something, anything to anchor her and help her think clearly again. Her eyes did find something- the clock on Taylor’s desk across the aisle, creamy numbers framed by blocks of black, telling her the thing she wanted to know less than ever. The time was 8:03.

She jerked her gaze away as suddenly as it had landed. God! When was the last time she’d actually looked at a clock? Her eyes were caught by the circular analog that sat watching over the rows of cubicles like a task master. Agonizingly, the red second hand crept over the stolid numbers scorched into the whiteness of its face. Somewhere, as if in another world in another office where Carrie Pritcher was still alive and time had no ordinance, a telephone rang. Entranced by the foreignness of the passage of time, Lexi was barely able to move her lips as she whispered, “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone…” But she trailed off.
Seeing this moment in her life— never to be a moment in Carrie’s— reported to her so blatantly shook her. She dropped down into her desk chair, looking for anything except that mark of time.

People in the office were starting to busy themselves at their own desks, their faces set determinedly. Lexi tried to do the same. She glanced back down at her desk and was overwhelmed. Suddenly, there was so much to do. But that knowledge of time, how constricting! When she hadn’t know what time it was, she had felt a whole day stretching before her. Now a mere eight hours ebbed and flowed—a tide washing away her stability, her stamina, her strength.. So what to do first? Those finishing touches on her designs before meeting with Sandy in half an hour. So many more plans to see to, though! To spend precious minutes on something that was already presentable—what waste, what a crime when time is so valuable. And now her half hour trickled away into an ocean of worry. The weight of that ocean crashed its waves against the shores of her consciousness, and her face fell into her outstretched hands. Maybe she should just ask to go home. Twenty four hours away from this would be enough… she hoped. Yes, she’d ask to go home, promise to show up early tomorrow, ready to go.

Rejection Numero Dos

2011-03-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

I wrote about how my PP play was not chosen for this year's school season, and that same play just got its second rejection. This time, though, I think I know why.

My mom sent me an e-mail almost two months ago with a scanned attachment. It was an article from my local paper at home announcing that a theatre in my home county was taking submissions of pieces by poets, playwrights, and the like for a festival. This was already enough to get me interested, but the article went on to say that this festival's focus was on work that was inspired by other writers' work; the submissions didn't have to fall into this category, but those that did would be given more consideration.

I got very excited. I am a playwright, if a budding one, and my play was a piece directly influenced by J.M. Barrie's novel and play. Perfect!

I sent off the current draft to my critique partner, asking him to get it back to me a few days before I would have to send it off to the committee for perusal. This way, I figured, I'd have time to adjust at least a few things. He complied a few weeks later, I edited, and then off went the e-mail to the theatre.

A response came back almost immediately- I hadn't filled out a form. This was because they hadn't mentioned a form in the advert, but I filled it out and sent it off. Another response came, this time asking if my submission was a full length play. They weren't sure how they'd do with that- they had been looking for shorter pieces, like monologues and poems. What did I expect if my piece were to be chosen?
This irritated me a bit. They hadn't specified what kind of pieces they wanted. If they had only wanted short pieces, no way would I have submitted my ninety-three page script. But I did not show this irritation. Instead, wrote back and said that even a staged reading would be wonderful.

The decisions were made earlier than was expected and I got my "thanks, but no thanks" e-mail on Wednesday. It wasn't unexpected- I knew from the second e-mail, the one that mentioned the length, that my piece wasn't right for the festival. There are also a few other reasons why there would have been small problems. For example, they wanted the playwright/writer to come to dress rehearsals and things like that, which I would normally love to do, but would have been unable, as I'm still in England then. So while it may have been the writing that drove them away, I'm hoping it was one of those issues.

I think my mom was more disappointed than I was that it hadn't been accepted. When I told her the news this afternoon, she started listing other theatres that I should send the play to. I love that she's so supportive, but I know that the play still needs some work. Just as with the school submission of this play, I didn't have enough editing time and had to just send off the copy I had at that moment. To submit it to other theatres, I'm going to need to work on it much more, and I'm happy to do so. I love the play and one day, when it's truly finished, I hope to see it onstage.

WIP Wednesday

2011-03-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's Wednesday again... it's true that time flies when you're having fun- I love it here in England. Unfortunately, this month won't be too fun- I have so many essays due the last week of term, and for one of my theatre classes, we have just one more week before we have to be ready to tech our own original piece of theatre using a ton of different elements. Eek!

But anyway, here are some more random snippets from TOSOL:

Page 63, line 26: I’m joking, but Dr. Philips says, “Yes, a bit like that.” He presses a button on the side of the goggles and puts them into my hands.

Page 135, line 24: I don't nod, just take a steadying breath, but he seems to take this as affirmation.

Page 35, line 5: I have no idea how she knows about Aaron, but I don’t ask her; before I know it, I’ll be in the middle of a game of Never Have I Ever.

Page 26, line 23: I have every intention of following her to the door and eavesdrop, but a board under my feet creaks and when Julie sees me, she gives me a “don’t even think about it” look.

Page 156, line 2: But my mother immediately draws closer to my father, and Aunt Kelly and Julie sit stock still, their faces pale.

Page 153, line 17: "All I can guess is that perhaps because you are not yet the official keeper, the fact that they burned down on your watch has no lasting effect."

Page 13, line 15: Next to him stands a boy of about twelve, who I assume is his brother and who is wearing one of those ridiculous hats that kids seem to think are socially acceptable. 

I'm getting very excited for Script Frenzy, but I've had to stop my planning to get these ridiculous essays done. I'm a bit worried that my idea is juvenile, but what better way to find out than writing it in a month? Plus, I really want to write it, so whatever it turns out to be, it'll be worth it, even if I do nothing with it :)

Extra Excerpts

2011-03-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

The goings-on in Japan are incredibly sad (it's terrible in general, but I've got a childhood friend living there right now. She lives far enough away that I believe she's fine- she blogged about it recently, but I'm still worried.) So to get my mind off of it, I'm going to do the part of WIP Wednesday that I left out this week- line excerpts of TOSOL!

Page 127, line 27: “Good- looking, that one,” Mr. Rampart continues. “And smart, I hear. He would have been a perfect match for you."

Page 6, line 2: In my opinion, she should be less worried about the fact that Julie’s my mother’s daughter and more concerned that Julie is Julie,

Page 73, line 14: Aunt Kelly gives me a look before continuing. “There’s a reason we have to guard the lanterns at all times.” 

Page 83, line 29: “Yeah. Important and interesting.” 

Page 162, line 9: In the split second before I stop thinking, it occurs to me that this might be the solution I’ve been looking for my entire life.

Page 40, line 30: Synonym… can’t think of any. Now who’s the loser? “I thought, um…” 

Page 78, line 1: "You just remind me so much of her," he says, and my internal alarm system immediately goes off.

WIP Wednesday

2011-03-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

So as I may have mentioned, I sent off my second draft of TOSOL to about five readers through the NaNoWriMo website. Two of them also gave me their novels. I have been waiting very impatiently for my manuscripts back, and finally yesterday, I got one!

I will admit to prompting my readers a bit. I sent them my novel on Christmas day, which seems like forever ago to me. I didn't write them an e-mail saying, "Uh... what's taking so long? Gimme my book!" because I realise that people have lives and amateur novels with an embarrassing amount of formatting mistakes (*blush*) are not always at the top of people's lists. But sometimes I forget that people aren't, well... me.

See, writing is my relaxation activity. While it sometimes kills me during NaNoWriMo, writing is what I do for fun. It's also my main procrastination tool. My friend and critique partner have been exchanging a lot of writing lately, and he always asks me how on earth I get his stuff back to him in two days when it takes him two months. It's not because I'm more dedicated. It's because I am a slacker. The reason I get edits back so quickly is because I'm avoiding other work and having fun editing people's writing.
So sometimes it's hard for me to remember that, while I got someone's novel back to them in two months, some people actually do what they're supposed to and leave pleasure reading for last.

Another reason I sent out feelers- last year, I sent my novel off to two people. One of them, a friend, took four or five months to get it back to me, but it was worth the wait- her in-depth edits kept me working for four or five more months. The other girl, after making sure that I got her novel back to her, promptly ignored my following attempts to contact her. I wasn't rude or annoying- I sent her two short messages over the space of about four months politely wondering if she had made any progress. She never responded. It's been over and year and I still haven't heard a thing. This bugs me because it's just rude. If you don't like my novel and can't bear to finish it- okay. Tell me that and I'll know that I need to do some serious overhauling. If you don't have time to devote to it, I completely understand. But don't ignore me. It's inconsiderate.

But anyway- I DID get one of my readers' feedback last night! She didn't give me a ton- she only edited my document grammatically/structurally, and even then marked only fourteen things. I definitely appreciated her answers to the questions I asked, things along the lines of, "Are the characters and their interactions realistic?" "s it appropriate for YA readers?" "Does the plot work as a whole?"
I was happy to hear that she really liked the book, and she definitely brought up a good question about the end, something I'd never considered. I'll have to figure that one out... it could possibly lead me to write a new ending *whimpers*
However, she asked another question about the end that, while it will involve work, made me happy- she asked why Lyddie didn't think about Aaron, her boyfriend (for awhile anyway), right before she died. This pleased me because that meant I did my job in making Aaron important to her, and not in a "I just really always need a boyfriend" way, but in a true, caring for him way. I had actually made sure Lyddie didn't mention him at the end because I was afraid she'd seem too focused on him and not her family, but I like that he was thought of by the reader, and I may change this bit, knowing that it won't garner an eye roll from the reader.

I do wish I had gotten a bit more feedback. Grammatical/formatting corrections are great, but I'd corrected about 95% of the ones she marked on my own, and her other comments were a cumulative few sentences. But it IS feedback, and more than I had earlier on Sunday, so I should probably shut up :p

Now I'm off to Derby, England, which is many, many hours away by bus.

Today I Decided...

2011-03-08T06:03:00.001-08:00

That I am going to do Script Frenzy this April. I've wanted to do it for awhile- after all, I've written scripts my whole life, why not do it with other people?

But I always made excuses. Last year, I really don't think I could have done it; my classes were eating me alive and I had to focus on writing just a few excerpts of a script for my Children's Theatre class. I'm glad I decided against it last year.

But this year- no excuses! I mean, really, I can't think of a single reason why not. I don't have school for the entire month of April. Yes, I'll be traveling to different places, sometimes different countries, in the last two weeks of the month, but that's what my writing journal is for. Also, it's only 3.33 pages a day. From NaNo, I know that what looks like a meager number in the beginning seems huge when you're in the throes of the event, but I do think I can do it.

Plus, I have a script I want to finish. Last May, I was on the train coming home from an audition in New York when I suddenly got an idea. I had one piece of paper on me- the print out of the audition information- and in about an hour's time, it was completely full. I started typing the rest of my ideas into my cell phone memo section. I'm still pretty excited about the idea, and Screnzy, just like NaNo, is a great way to be pushed into writing something and getting all of your ideas out.

I can't wait to get started!

Catch Me If You Can Blogfest!

2011-03-07T08:41:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed participating in the last blogfest so much that I decided to do another one!

This is KayKay's Catch Me If You Can blogfest, where a writer posts 550 words of their WIP (to see more in-depth requirements, go to KayKay's blog here.)

Here's the first 592 (I know, I'm cheating a bit) words of my NaNo '10. Though the novel itself is contemporary, I decided to open it with a history twist.

A very long time ago, a time before most people can fathom, there stood two lanterns. They were hand- wrought out of iron and burned only kerosene. They stood in the window of a large colonial- style house, burning brightly for all to see. Though no one in the small New England town knew what the lanterns were for, or even who occupied the house, all the townspeople soon grew to like the two points burning warmly at the front of the house. 

“Have you ever noticed,” an old woman remarked to her companion as they strolled past the house in those early days. “That the lanterns never go out?” 

“That can’t be true,” the other woman disagreed. “Just think how costly kerosene is. They must turn them down sometimes.” 

“I don’t know,” the first woman countered. “There’s never been a time, day or night, that I’ve passed this house that they weren’t burning away.” At her friend’s long- suffering look, the first woman turned her gaze to the twin lights. “In any case, I find them comforting. Something constant in these changing times.”
 
“Just you wait,” the second woman wagered. “As soon as those new-fangled electrical lights become available, those lamps will be gone.”
 
But this did not happen. Electricity did arrive and soon all the other windows on the street sparkled with a power-driven glow. But number 42 continued to emit flickering lamplight. The other townspeople, who were frightfully proud of their new electric lamps, things that could be turned on with just the press of a switch, and so much safer, too, couldn’t imagine why those at 42 did not embrace the invention as they had. 

“Perhaps the old lady who lives there wants to live life as she’s always know it,” a young gentleman commented as his carriage lurched past. He did not, in fact, know who lived there, let alone if they were old, but at this point in time, the town had begun to rather romanticize the old house and those within it.

 
But in truth, there was nothing romantic about the lanterns or the people that tended to them- or rather, person. For just one woman resided at number 42. She was, as the man in the carriage had conjectured, old, but she had not always been. It had been her job and her job alone to watch over the lanterns for the past sixty years. All day, every day, the old woman tended to the lanterns, refilling their kerosene, trimming their wicks, adjusting their flames lower or higher. When not tending to the lamps themselves, she would braid new wicks, tidy the house, and read. They were days spend in tedium, but better that, she knew, than what might happen if she neglected her duties. 

She had been told as a girl, when her aunt had assumed care of the lights, that should even one lamp burn down, the world would experience instant devastation. Eventually, the old woman knew her time was running out. She contacted her brother and requested the company of his oldest daughter. The girl would make for fine live- in assistance, as she was single, had just turned twenty- five, and therefore had no marriage prospects. The woman wrote that the girl would assist with housework and the woman’s affairs, but she never revealed to her brother her true plans- to train her niece in lantern keeping so the girl could take her aunt’s place when she died. 

Speaking of TOSOL, I got my first edits back, and I'll be talking about those on WIP Wednesday this week, so come visit me then, too!

Knowledge, Or the Lack Thereof

2011-03-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

I have lately been experiencing the above conundrum in two of my current works, and it's difficult to work my way out of these states.

First, Knowledge.

I like to research. I am that nerdy girl at school who practically clapped when a research paper was announced. I do super in-depth dramaturgical work when I'm in a play... sometimes for every character or situation presented. Sometimes, my research goes horribly awry, like when I was collecting facts for my 2009 NaNo novel, Remembrance. I sent it away to be edited by a friend, and when it came back, she had noted that most of my research was incorrect. All of my hard work was for nothing, and now I had a very mistaken point of view of English history. Other times, I simply know too much-I research to the point where what I know about the subject can't possibly be worked into the manuscript, especially in a natural, non-info barf-y way. This is an issue I came across recently, when I decided to write my analytical essay for class on my favorite play and its film adaptation, which I also love. I re-read the play, watched the film, collected sources, and wrote ten pages of notes. The essay was only allowed to be 2,500 words wrong and by about 2,000, I had only talked about three of my points and hadn't needed to use a single source because I had so much to say on the subject in the first place.

This latter problem is what is going on for one piece, in a way. When I began writing my Peter Pan play, I waffled about whether to send my main character, Mary, to an insane asylum. As I started doing more research in about February of last year, I came to learn that in Victorian England, seeing things and talking too much about things that people don't want to hear merits you a one-way ticket to a nice padded cell.
I worried that this might be too dramatic and waffled for about six months as to whether to put it in or not. In the end, I decided that she would be sent to the asylum but skipped over the actual asylum part. leaving off when she found out she was being sent away and picking up when he returns. When I presented my semi-finished script to my playwrighting class around November of last year, my teacher specifically requested that I write a scene in the mental institution.
All through this, I had been thinking of doing so, if only for myself, and had been doing research. I learned a lot. A lot, a lot. My entire perception of the medical world in the Victorian era was changed because of the methods they used to cure women of the disease my character was thought to be suffering from (hysteria, the catch-all diagnosis for all inconvenient behavior in the 19th century.) I wrote the scene. I turned it in. I was happy with it.
Then I came to England and started a class called Madness and Medicine in Modern Britain. The class specialised in the examination of asylums in the Victorian era, with a unit devoted to hysteria. I read a dozen articles on it, covering them in highlighter. I took detailed notes during class. I gave my own presentation on hysteria. Then I went back to my script, armed with my new knowledge. Then I realised something.

I knew too much. There was no possible way I could go deep enough into the subject in two or three scenes without making it unnatural and/or confusing a potential audience. I needed to, not dumb it down, but keep it simple, on the surface. Let the audience know what the disease was and the milder ways it was treated (some of the more serious treatments not only shocked me and would be hard for me to write about, but there's no way my fourteen year old character would have been subjected to that... I hope.) However, it's been difficult for me to pull back and see just how much is too much to be dumping on the audience.

Then there's the problem at the other end of the spectrum: too little knowledge. This problem came in when I was working on my NaNo '10 novel, which I've been editing since December.
See, in the novel, my character has a boyfriend. The first time they get together in a romantic way, they kiss pretty seriously to the point where my main character gets uncomfortable and leaves. However, she does let herself get carried away before realising what she's doing.
Yeah... like I know what that's like. Besides not being great at writing kissing scenes- I've only ever written one, and it was more of a very chaste kissing moment- I have little personal experience with the act myself. I've never gotten to the point that Lyddie does in that scene.
I wrote it early in the process and when I shared it nearly a year later, people seemed to think it was realistic. But reading it over this week, I realised that it wasn't serious enough. While the reader knew that she was getting uncomfortable... there were really no details and so they just had to take my word for it, and I don't think that would satisfy many people. That's the problem with this being a novel and not a screenplay. I've written screenplay/play kisses and it looks like this:

(They kiss.)

I can do that (unless I'm the actor carrying out the direction, which I have been. Then I'm just as inept.)
In a novel, especially one being told in first person present like mine... you need more than "he kisses me" (well, at least for this scene. I do in fact have a few more, no-details-given kisses in the book.)
I wanted to add more but what? I didn't know what would go on in a situation like that. So I spent some time on the romance boards of NaNoWriMo.org, consulted my favorite book series, and added a bit to the scene.
I'm happy with how it stands right now, but I honestly don't know if it's realistic, and unless I find a lovely English boy who will love and care about me, I don't anticipate getting any real-life experience in the near future that would help me confirm it.

*sigh*

The Return of WIP Wednesday!

2011-03-02T03:25:00.000-08:00

So while I haven't been posting anything for WIP Wednesday for I'm-afraid-to-check-and-see-how-long, I have been writing. A lot. I've been editing The Other Side of Light as well as doing some major revisions on my play.

I've also come across the information that if you post your novel online, it can take away your first publication rights and therefore make you less attractive to publishers. While this isn't a risk for me at the moment- The Other Side of Light is my first piece of writing that I've considered getting published and I haven't posted enough of it here to make it a risk- I've decided not to post excerpts from it here. However, for this week, I decided to do something that my favorite author, Libba Bray, did with her last book in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy: opened the book, pointed to a line, and posted that as a teaser. While I don't have an actual book, I do have a word document and access to a random numbers generator, so here are the results of that:

Pg. 127, line 24: “He would have been a perfect match for you. But where is he now?”

Pg. 118, line 26: She walks the few steps to her desk, pulls out a drawer, and removes her wallet, holding it out it my direction. “Here.”

Pg. 72, line 14: This is the first I’ve heard of anyone besides my family being involved in this business. “Who are ‘the ones we’re working against’?”

Pg. 149, line 19: “Oh,” Aunt Kelly says. “Yes.” She guides me inside, never taking her eyes off of my mother.

Pg. 93, line 4: Finally, when I’m outside the school a few days later, digging in my bag for my cell phone and I hear, “Hey.” Oh, no. It’s Aaron. I knew he would find me eventually, and I’ve been trying to rehearse the conversation I need to have with him.

Pg. 13, line 13: The doorbell rings as I’m halfway through my first book. I have no idea who it could be. I mark my place and I open the door. Once I see who’s on the other side, I freeze. Because standing there is Aaron Tves, the guy I’ve had a crush on for the past five months. He is beautiful and smart and well spoken and he is standing on my porch.

:)

Reintroduction

2011-03-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

So I've been feeling a bit disconnected from this blog- I'm running three blogs at the moment and it's overwhelming me a bit. But I promise to keep this at the top of my to-do list and start doing WIP Wednesdays and the like again, starting tomorrow!

To reconnect myself with the blogging world, here's a meme I picked up from Hannah, who was my first follower!

How would people describe your personality (if they could only use ONE word)? Are they right?
My friend Megan just said “determined” and I would definitely agree with that. I am a very focused and sometime tenacious person when it comes to achieving goals.

What celebrity/celebrities would create a “Star Struck” feeling if you saw them in real life?
I am easily star-struck (I used to get star struck around leads of community theatre plays I’d be in), so the easy answer is “anyone with a higher coolness factor than I.” But to narrow it down a bit, I would (and have) gotten star struck around my favorite author, Libba Bray, and would around another favorite, Maureen Johnson. I was pretty bad around Keira Knightley when I met her a few weeks ago. Uh… Laura Linney. Emma Thompson. Kate Winslet.

Who is your favorite blogger? Why?
I love reading Hannah and Rachel’s blogs- they always remind me to look on the bright side and see the beauty in life. Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson. And The Struggling Actress, too!

What is your comfort food/drink?
I’m pretty addicted to Diet Coke, and chocolate is definitely my comfort food.

Be brave- tell us something very random and weird about yourself.
I have extremely dilated pupils all the time, so much that people have teased me about it.

Do you have a strong desire to do something you’ve never done? What is it?
I would love to go rock climbing on a real cliffside. I love rock climbing (though I haven’t been in years) and I think that would be so cool. Something that doesn’t jibe with my love of rock climbing, though? I’m afraid of heights.

Movies: Action, Drama, Romantic Comedy, Documentary, Comedy? What are your favorite genres?
I would say that I just like smart movies. If I had to choose from the above, I’d say drama, but really, if a movie is intelligent, I’ll probably like it.

Books: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Romance, Biographies, True Stories, Self-Help, Devotional/Study? What are your favorite types of reading material?
On a broad scale, I love young adult literature. Within that genre and branching into others, historical fiction is my favorite.

Music: Funk, Rock, Country, Jazz, Classical, Film Score, Blues, Classic Rock, Crooner, Alternative, Heavy Metal, Techno? What are your favorite types?
My musical taste is very eclectic. If I hear a song that I like, I’ll put it on my MP3 player, no matter what it’s classified as. My favorite it Broadway music- I love that it has a story and emotion to it. I also love music from the 1940’s and the only band I can say I love right now is ALL CAPS.

If you inherited a million dollars, what is the first thing you would do with your money?
Well, I’d love to go on a shopping spree- I’m a bit of a clothes horse. But I’d also give a large chunk of change to my university theatre department and my arts high school. Oh, and try to pay back my parents for this London trip- even though it’s part of my schooling, I know it’s expensive.

Name one weakness of yours.
I am the jealous type. I never, ever take it out on the person of whom I am jealous, but I get very jealous very easily, and I wish I didn’t. I’m also a workaholic when it comes to my acting, sometimes blindingly so. I gave up seeing my family over most of my Thanksgiving break this year so I could do a play two hours away from my home, and I felt bad about that.

If you could live anywhere at all (and take your loved ones with you), where would you go?
After living in London for two months now, with four more to go, I have to say, right here. I love London, and England, so, so much. Second to that, New York City.

Strange talent? Can you juggle basketballs, put your legs behind your head or perform some other strange feat?
Hm… I don’t think I have any, to be honest. Oh! I can be verbally fed long strings of numbers and letters and then recite them back from memory from smallest to biggest number and then in alphabetical order perfectly. I found this out when I was getting IQ tests done a few years ago. I think it comes from memorizing scripts and book passages from a pretty young age.

What’s something your consider yourself to be good at? (Don’t worry, it’s not bragging. It’s acknowledging a God-given gift.)
Well, I guess I consider myself to be good at acting and writing, though I know I have definite room for improvement in both. I think I take all right pictures, too... I hate questions like this.

What is one of your favorite things to catch a whiff of?
Freshly mown grass- the country girl in me coming out! Also, books. I love the smell of bookstores, new or used.

When you leave a social gathering, do you wish you would have talked more or talked less?
Always the former. I don’t talk much in social gatherings unless I know everyone really well. I’m very shy around anyone new.

If money wasn’t a factor, what stores would you shop in?
Anthropologie- their dresses are adorable, but their prices make me cringe. However, I’d still most likely spend most of my money in Target!

What is your greatest fear?
I guess… not achieving my dreams. I was going to say failure, but if I fail along the way to achieving my dream, that’s fine. But I really don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t do what I want with my life.

What is your greatest accomplishment?
My workaholic-ness coming out, but I’m really proud of my acting resume. I’ve worked really hard for the past eight years to get the credits I have, and it’s gotten me into some very exclusive auditions that people my age don’t usually have access to.

What are your favorite animals?
Otters!

Are you a hopeless romantic?
Absolutely. Although I don’t believe in love at first sight- does that take away that title?

What movie or book character can you most relate to?
Gemma Doyle from the Gemma Doyle Trilogy. So, so much.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be back with a vengence!

World Premieres!

2011-02-28T02:40:00.000-08:00

This weekend was The Weekend- the weekend that two of my short plays premiered in the QMUL Theatre Company's New Writers' Festival!

It was definitely an experience. I had hoped to attend a rehearsal or two of each to see how things were going, but I didn't end up doing so, for various reasons, which means that I was surprised on Friday night and tonight!

First up was Funeral Circus (I'm sorry that I'm making you follow a link to see the videos- Blogger won't let me display videos. I promise it's just YouTube.) This is a piece inspired by a dinner I went to with my friend Kara, her mother, and her grandmother. It was a lot of fun and when I went to a day-long playwrighting workshop and we were given forty-five minutes to write a scene, that dinner popped into my head and I wrote this scene. It's hardly been edited at all since its first draft, and I was really happy with how it was received and how it was presented. The director added a ton of stuff, all of which I loved. In the original script, the waiter is only in the scene for about three seconds to give the women their desserts, but I thought it was pretty cool to have three waiters onstage the entire time making comments on the action onstage.

Tonight's piece was Funeral Sketch. I promise, I don't only write about funerals. I almost didn't get to see this one- though I had e-mailed them days ago, they forgot to put my name on the reserve list and so told me I would only get a seat if people didn't show up. I looked around crowded lobby and knew I wasn't going to get in- I wasn't even the first on the reserve list! I tried to think of a backup plan and finally decided to ask a girl from my RT class to film for me- I HAD to film it so I could get the reactions of the audience and edit the piece accordingly. Thankfully, fourteen people (which is kind of a lot) didn't show up, so they were filled by people like me, desperately waiting for a ticket.
This piece, though also comedy, is very different- no family dynamics here. It also took me months to write, which is why the audience reaction was a little disappointing... or lack therefore. I'm not sure whether they didn't like the piece or if they were just a quieter audience, as it was a different crowd of people than Friday night. Either way, I saw a lot of places where I needed to do some tweaking. The actors' delivery of lines were sometimes much different than I expected, and there were a few lines that were changed. I loved the projected pictures on the back wall, and even though it took me a few minutes to get that, though the actors are seated far away from each other, they're actually sitting together, I really liked that in the end. And I thought the actors were especially great during the eulogy part of the scene- they made me laugh and I've been living with this script for about a year. I also loved how the director used the audience as the other people at the funeral- I'd never thought of that!

Overall, it was a good experience. It's pretty awesome to have people laugh during a scene and know that you wrote it. And I'm not going to lie- I was extremely nervous before each piece, the same kind of nerves I get when I'm about to open a show. I was shaking and I couldn't sit still, wondering how things were going to go. It was also a very different theatrical experience than I've ever had before. It's the first time I've done something in theatre where not a single person links me with the piece. I was completely anonymous- yes, my name was on the poster and in the program (which thrilled me to bits), but no one here really know who I am. This is something I've never experienced; acting is a pretty public thing, so for better or worse, people know it's you up there and you get feedback of all sorts, Also, while I sat there all nervous... I sat there alone instead of being surrounded by my fellow, just-as-nervous actors. This is is why it was a bit weird to walk out of the theatre... and just leave. And while I'm going to sound like a horrible person, I wasn't a huge fan of the anonymity. I like getting credit for my work. Maybe I'm just immature, and since I do want to be a playwright, I suppose I'll have to get used to this. But it is something very different.

Anyway, I feel extremely honored to have been included in this festival- most of the material in it was truly great. Both of the other pieces tonight really blew me away with both their writing and their presentation. I'm glad to have been a part of it and that my work was seen by real, responsive audiences. There is at least one great thing about the fact that people didn't know who I was- when I overheard that someone liked what they saw, I knew they meant it :)

Failure? Maybe, Maybe Not

2011-02-12T18:26:00.001-08:00

So I did something in December that, until right now, only six people knew about, including me. I've mentioned my PP play on this blog numerous times, obsessed over it, finished it, and handed it in. I was very proud of it. I am very proud of it. However, when my professor suggested that I submit it for my school's theatre season, I was a little hesitant. I don't show a lot of people my writing. Besides doing WIP Wednesdays on this blog, there are really only two people to whom I regularly show my writing, and I've talked about them in an old blog post about writing buddies. I find it hard to part with my babies, though I'm getting much better due to writing classes and workshops.
I also didn't know if I wanted to submit it because when I spoke about it with my advisor (who has a great hand in choosing the season, if not the whole hand), he told me that I needed to get it in very fast, as they usually announce the next season in the first week of January. The completed script was due for class on December seventeenth. I had a copy to my advisor by the fifteenth. And while I did hand him a completed script... it was a first draft. Not all of the scenes- some of them were nearly a year old. But others had been completed just hours before. I knew it wasn't ready, but because I had been encouraged to do so, I had enough nerve to turn it in.

I wasn't ashamed of my advisor reading it- I think it's an okay play. But it's not great, not yet. Besides the fact that some of the plot can be fleshed out much further, it would also be a challenge for my school's theatre space in regards to stage size, cast size (we hardly have any boys at my school, and my play would need all of them), and stunt ability (there's not a lot, but it is Peter Pan and since the Spiderman debacle, people are pretty leery about the whole flying thing, no matter how brief.) I didn't know what to expect in ways of reaction. They've set precedent in working with student playwrights after they choose the student's show, and I wasn't sure if that might happen to me. When I would have exchanges about the next season with my advisor, he would be cryptic. I got an e-mail response from him this week telling me that he thought I would be very happy with the next season.

It was announced last night. My play is not on it.

Am I sad? No. Not at all. The part of me that really wanted to have a play I love produced this soon is a little disappointed. But I don't feel cheated or gyped or disrespected or overlooked. I'm not relieved, but it does take a good deal of pressure off of the rewrites I'm doing now, which I would have embarked on either way. I do want to publish this play one day, but it needs a lot of work.

So I don't consider this a failure. I won't lie- there was a moment or two when I thought, "If he hates the play, does that make me an awful writer? What does this mean?" But the fact is, I don't know if he hated the play. He might- we have different tastes in plays and I wrote a play I would want to see. But he might not hate it. There is a myriad of reasons why my play wasn't chosen; dislike could be one reason, but even if it is, there's probably something else too (like the casting of non-existent boys.) Also... the season is freaking awesome. I felt nothing but excitement when I read it.

So no failure here. Not success either, really, but it doesn't lessen my passion for the play and it hasn't slowed my rewrites. I just sent a fresh draft, complete with two brand-new scenes, off to one of my trusty writing partners last night. Hopefully with his edits, I can make it even better and hope to one day see it mounted on a stage.

Shame

2011-02-07T02:53:00.000-08:00

Even though I promised myself that I would wait until my readers' edits came back to look at The Other Side of Light again, I keep opening the document and looking it over. Partially it's because I'm still very invested in the story, which is good, but partially it's because I'm avoiding editing my play, which is bad.

In any case, as I edit, I am ashamed at the amount of formatting and tiny plot mistakes there are. I can't believe I sent it off like this! It's not completely my fault- I compiled all of the different sections in Scrivener and either it's a fault in the beta or a fault in my brain, but the formatting wasn't perfect. Some lines will be combined with others, a bigger-than-normal space the only indication that I might have meant something different than appears there.

But worse are the moments where I discover the tiny little pieces of an old plot point lurking in a new place in the novel. For example, Lyddie, the main character, goes to a dance at one point because I needed to get her out of the house for other reasons. Until mid-November, Lyddie and her sister had fought before Lyddie left. But once I realised that Lyddie needed another relationship to raise the stakes, the dance served the purpose of not getting her out of the house, but dangling her crush in front of her and yanking him away (she does get together with him later.) I moved the fight scene to much, much later (more than 31, 500 words later) and had her sister willingly offer to do Lyddie's job while Lyddie went to the dance.

It all worked out, plot-wise, but I've been discovering tiny little things that I overlooked. For example, even though Lyddie left the house in good terms with her sister, when her phone rings and it's her sister, Lyddie thinks of how annoyed she still is with her. Oops... And while it might not seem like a huge deal (perhaps it's not), the poor people who are reading this novel are going to be confused. I can just see the comments now: "Where did this plot point come from? Why would she be angry at her sister?" *sigh* It's not the end of the world, but it does disturb my perfectionist's mind. I get embarrassed when I make a mistake in a Facebook status. To make so many in a novel is, to me, tragic.

But then, I'm a bit of a drama queen.

Auditions... For MY Writing!

2011-02-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday and today were the auditions for my English university's New Writer's Festival... which means that people- actual, willing participants who most likely can act- were auditioning for my pieces.

I was actually there as an actor, but as a writer, it was pretty exciting too. Since I'm new to the school, no one attached the writer name to me, and I got to hear people explain and discuss my pieces while remaining essentially invisible. And everyone who read them seemed to like them :) As I said before, they asked me a few times if I wanted to direct and I said no. Now I see why they asked me so many times- almost everyone else is directing their own pieces, so they must have thought I was really weird. But even in hindsight, I think I made the right choice.

I auditioned for my pieces as well as the six others that were chosen. The shorter one, the one based off the dinner I had with my friend, her mother, and her grandmother, is being directed by a guy who has some pretty cool ideas about it, which he explained to me when he found out that I was the playwright. I'm pretty excited to see it played out- it's going to be even funnier than I wrote it!
When you went into these auditions, you wrote your name down or, more likely, they asked you and wrote it down themselves, probably to put a name with a face. So when I went into my second one, they said, "Name?" I could see mine glaring out of the byline that the girl had right in front of her, so I said, "Rachel." "Rachel what?" I practically whispered my last name, and she went, "Oh... oh, you're the writer. Okay... well, now I'm nervous." I told her not to be, that the reason I had submitted them was so they could be played with and to help me improve them. She seems pretty excited about it, and she's pretty much just keeping it how I wrote it- no fancy sets or crowds of people. I think both of these directors are going to be great.

The most interesting thing about watching my pieces be auditioned for was seeing how the humor carried over into an English setting. I didn't realise how many little Americanisms there were in my pieces until they were being performed in English accents. Besides one character saying "Mom" a few times, I also make reference to Stephen Sondheim and Ginger Rogers in one of them. No one had any idea who either of those two were... which was a little surprising considering that Stephen Sondheim is pretty famous worldwide. In the other scene, I have one character call another a jerk, and I'm not sure if they use that word here, but hearing it with the accent was pretty funny. Thankfully, most of the humor seemed to carry over well.

I'm hoping to be cast in something, but even if I am, I'm not sure if I can accept it (they announced last night that there will only be marathon rehearsals for the week before the show... and I already have a friend from France coming to stay with me for the majority of that week), but either way, I've got my pieces in the festival!

In Which I Recognize That I Am a Baby

2011-02-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a few blog posts back that I got some great, helpful feedback from my playwrighting professor on my adaptation. I am excited to apply them... but I am also being a complete baby about it. I enjoy editing, and I feel very accomplished when I've completed a lot of little changes. For example, in my fiction, I have the tendency to just use "says" and "asks" rather than more vivid verbs. This was one of my frend's biggest comments on Remembrance. So I went through The Other Side of Light and highlighted every single one, then took a few days to go back and "vivify" them. It took a long time, but I know my novel's better for it.

But the changes that need to be made on Straight on 'Til Morning are not small. It's almost like an overall rewrite is due- my scenes and dialogue are fine, but it's so all-talk, no-action that I pretty much need to rework every scene in some little way, as well as add one or two more that are more swashbuckling.

When I bring up my document and face the title page, however, my brain just throws a tantrum. I'm not quite sure how to make a lot of these changes, as all-talk, no-action is my weakness in all writing... and possibly my life :p I want to make them because this play will not sit in my desk drawer for the rest of my life... but it's definitely going to be hard.

This weekend's a writing weekend, though- I have to finish up three shorter papers and then I'll turn my attention to the scritpt. We'll see how this goes.

In non-whiny, cool news, the First Novels Club is holding an awesome contest! Check it out!

Activating

2011-01-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

When I got my (great and very helpful) play evaluation back on my Peter Pan play, one of the biggest notations was that a lot of the scenes were all talk, no action. They were full of smart dialogue... but no one ever did anything. And as I was writing scenes for a different play I'm working on, I noticed the same thing. I really liked what was being discussed, but they just sat on the couch and talked.

So I wrote to my teacher and asked him if he had any suggestions to liven up the action. He gave me a few suggestions and I'm going to try them as soon as I get these darned reviews written for my Reading Theatre class.

This is when I wish I had my arsenal of plays with me. Sadly, I only brought three (Proof, Time Stands Still, and Leaves.) The good thing is that they're all talky plays, so I'm going to scour them for ideas as to how to get my characters up and moving.

Any suggestions from my fellow writers?

Waiting...

2011-01-28T04:46:00.000-08:00

...is sometimes the hardest part of this process, I think. It's been a little over a month since I sent out my NaNo'10 to a few people, and darn it, I want them back! However, from doing my own editing of other people's novels, I know it can take way over a month, so I have held myself back from pestering them with e-mails reading, "Areya done yet? Areya, areya?" I know the waiting will be worth it in the end.

In other news, my friend and I have been working on our collab novel. I sent him the almost nine hundred words I wrote the other night and he thinks our styles will mesh well, which is good, because I wasn't sure how it was going to work. I've discovered lately that, though I really enjoy both reading and writing drama, I'm mostly a comedic writer. Even in this most dramatic parts of my writing, I throw in som humor. My friend suggests this is because I am uncomfortable with the subject, which is possible. A very interesting thing to discover...

EXCITING NEWS!!!

2011-01-21T14:47:00.001-08:00

I'm at school in England right now, and since I'm a new student, I've been finding out a lot of things at the last minute. This past Wednesday, I went to a meeting for new theatre students and some representatives from the student-run theatre group were there. They told us about some auditions (one of which was happening ten minutes from then. I went, but didn't get a callback) as well as this thing called the New Writer's Festival and encouraged us to do both if we had any interest at all. Of course I was interested, so I took down their information and when I got back that night after celebrating my 21st birthday, I sent in my submissions (don't worry, there was no drinking, so it was professional.)

I got a reply the next day telling me that there were a few pieces missing- the reps hadn't told me that I had to fill out some forms with info about each scene I was submitting. I quickly entered in all of the information and sent it back- thank goodness for e-mail, is all I can say! They thanked me and said decisions would be made today.

When I got back from the opera tonight (no, seriously), I checked my e-mail and there were two e-mails from the theatre company. The first was an e-mail that began with saying how it was such a hard decision and everything was so well-written... basically all the stuff that comes with a rejection letter. I scrolled down to the list of the chosen pieces...

And both of mine were chosen!

I think I actually squealed. I AM SOSOSOSOSOSO EXCITED! While I have had a few things produced on a small, small scale (the film company I work with and a few acting schools), this will be the first time it's worked on seriously-and for a festival! People are going to AUDITION for my scenes!

I was asked if I want to direct them... I don't, really, for a few reasons. A) Even though I got great feedback from my directing teacher last year, I don't think I'm that good at it and I kind of hate doing it, and B) I think letting someone else direct it would be a good exercise in me being less precious about how I want things done. They did ask me if I wanted to have creative input, and I think I might like that- to sit in on some rehearsals and workshop along with the director and actors. That way, if they feel changes need to be made to the script, I can do it right then and there. I think it would be good for me.

I'M JUST SO EXCITED! I just wish these scenes were being performed later in the semester so my family could see them when they come to visit.

:)

WIP Wednesday

2011-01-19T17:17:00.001-08:00

A very late post (for me here in England anyway... it's technically not Wednesday anymore), but I was occupied all day today celebrating my twenty-first birthday! But here's some Light for you, a scene I just wrote on Monday. Just before this, Lyddie has agreed to go out with Aaron, a boy she's had a crush on for awhile, but doesn't get to tell anyone her good news, because when she gets home, she finds that her sister's engagement has been broken off for seemingly no reason.

That night, Dad returns to work and we can’t coax Julie from her room, so it’s just Aunt Kelly and me for dinner. She whips up some chicken and pasta and we settle down at the table together. There’s no automatic conversation like there usually would be- the events of the day have made us uncomfortable. It feels like we should talk about Julie’s predicament or nothing at all. After a long silence, Aunt Kelly elects the former.

“Do you know how she’s doing?” she asks, keeping her voice low, as though Julie could hear her upstairs.

I shake my head. “No; she hasn’t come out of her room at all.”

Aunt Kelly spears a piece of pasta with her fork. “Well, I guess we just need to give her time. She and Jake may not have been together for very long, but I really do think they loved each other.”

“Then why did he break it off?” I exclaim, surprised at the anger I feel on my sister’s behalf.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain matters of the heart.” My aunt sees me roll my eyes and adds, “No, truly. Sometimes love makes people do crazy things, even to the point of calling off a relationship. You may not understand that now, but you will one day.”

I wonder if I should tell her about Aaron- in the commotion over Julie, I didn’t have the chance to tell anyone. Perhaps, since we’re on the subject of relationships, I could ask Aunt Kelly if it’s even worth it to go on with him. But no, I decide. Now is not the time.

Aunt Kelly’s staring off into space, looking deep in thought, and something in her gaze makes me ask, “Did you ever think you would get married?”

My aunt’s eyes instantly come back into focus and she blinks at me in surprise. “Wh-what makes you ask that?” she questions.

I shrug. “Just wondering. I mean, even though we’re not allowed to get married and everything, that doesn’t stop us from wanting to…” I trail off, hoping she’ll finish the thought for me.

“Well…” Aunt Kelly begins haltingly. “I guess… yes. I did think I would at one point.”

I’m intrigued. While I never doubted that someone would want to marry my aunt- she’s smart and certainly pretty enough for someone to go after her- I’ve never before considered that she may have had a relationship before becoming Keeper. “So what happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened?”

“Well, you’re like me- you weren’t always supposed to be the Keeper. You were, what, twenty-eight when you got the job, right? You can’t tell me that you did even date anyone, at least.”

Aunt Kelly lets out a long, loaded sigh and takes a moment before responding. “Yes,” she answers finally. “I was actually in a rather serious relationship in the months before I took over for your mother.”

“Yes?” I prompt.

She twists her mouth to the side, as if considering just how much she wants to tell me. “Well, around the same time that your mother started keeping, I met a guy and we started seeing each other. It was… it was great. I’d never been so happy while dating someone. He was a wonderful man and we loved each other and best of all, he understood about the lanterns.”

“But how?” I inquire. “Outsiders can't know about them, especially a man!”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Aunt Kelly says. “He had obligations of his own, so he didn’t think it was weird that I had a sister who stayed in all the time.”

“So did he understand when you said you had to take over for her?” A bubble of hope forms inside me; maybe, if I get Aunt Kelly’s permission, I can tell Aaron about the lanterns. He’d understand just like her boyfriend did.

Aunt Kelly stabs a piece of chicken. “Not exactly. Before I took over, we had been seeing each other for nearly a year and a half, and he had proposed once already. At this point, your mother was having some trouble doing everything and I told him not yet. I promised him that I did want to marry him, but I had to take care of things at home first. He seemed to understand and told me to take my time. But when it happened that I had to take over completely, I had to tell him that I couldn’t marry him, no matter how much I wanted to. And I desperately wanted to,” she says with sudden passion. But then she catches herself and, giving me a quick glance, continues with, “But there were other things that had to be done, and I had to take care of them. He was upset, but what could I do?”

I push my food around on my plate, feeling a little guilty about being one of the things that had to be done. “So…” I say hesitantly. “Is it even worth it to start something like that? To get involved with someone?”

I expect Aunt Kelly to tell me no, to say that when there is a job to be done, one should focus solely on the task at hand. But instead, she puts down her fork and looks me square in the eye. “It’s always worth it, Lyddie. Even if it doesn’t work out in the end, it’s always worth giving it a try. It teaches you about yourself, if nothing else, and there is nothing more vital to success in this job.”

I appreciate her words, but I can’t help but think that even with the affection that comes with a relationship, if I know it will have to end with a break-up, is there really a point? The last thing I want to do is lead Aaron on, or wore, hurt him because we take it too far. All these considerations make my head start to hurt again, so I finish dinner quickly and head back upstairs, where Julie’s door is still closed tightly, not even a strip of light showing at the bottom.

WIP Wednesday

2011-01-12T12:38:00.000-08:00

Finally! Wow, I haven't done one of these in awhile. Here ya go, from The Other Side of Light.

The next day is Saturday, and I plan to spend all of it not thinking about the application. Julie’s at work, as is Dad, and Aunt Kelly’s lantern – ing, so I’ve basically got the house all to myself. Party? I think no. Pleasure reading – yes. I settle myself in the family room with a few of my favorites, ready for a day of my kind of fun. Yes, I’m a nerd. Don’t judge.  

The doorbell rings as I’m halfway through my first book. I have no idea who it could be. I mark my place and and I open the door. Once I see who’s on the other side, I freeze. Because standing there is Aaron Tves, the guy I’ve had a crush on for the past five months. He is beautiful and smart and well spoken and he is standing on my porch. It takes me a second to realise that he’s not alone. Next to him stands a boy of about twelve, who I assume is his brother. 

“Hi, Lyddie,” Aaron says, and I get a little thrill because, even though we’ve never talked one on one, he knows who I am!  

“Hi,” I answer. Why do I sound so ridiculously breathy?  

We all stand there is silence for longer than is comfortable until the boy nudges Aaron. “Oh! Right,” Aaron jumps in.

“My brother’s selling popcorn for Boy Scouts and I – he – we were wondering if you wanted any.” 

I notice that, by the boy’s feet, is a tall metal canister with some kind of design on it. “Is that it?” 

Aaron follows my gaze. “Yes, that’s it. I mean, that’s the one we’re showing to everyone, just to kind of let them know how big it is and everything. You don’t actually get this one – we’d give you a new one, of course. But you can try it if you want. You want to try it?”  Normally, I would say no. I actually don’t enjoy the weird taste of pre – packaged popcorn. But I’m not going to say that and break his little brother’s heart. So instead, I say, “Sure!” 

Aaron reaches down and scoops up the canister, popping off the lid so I can see the sticky mess of multicolored popcorn balls inside. I really don’t want to eat this, but love means sacrifice, right? Even if the love is of the I – don’t – know – if – he – feels – the – same – way – or – if – he- even – knows – my – last – name kind. 

So I say, “Wow, that looks… delicious,” reach in, and take a clump. As I’m pulling my arm out, my sleeve catches on the lip and the container tips, sending the gluey colored marbles everywhere. Some of them simply thud to the floor and stay there, but far too many roll across my shoes, all over the porch, and into the bushes. 

“Shoot!” Aaron says. His brother is already trying to salvage what he can of the so – called treat and Aaron, after a quick glance at me, drops to his knees to help him. I don’t want to awkwardly stand over them, so I join them on the floor, collecting as many of the globules as I can.

We throw all we find back into the canister - I sincerely hope that they don’t intend on offering anyone else a sample – and stand as one. More awkward silence. 

“So,” Aaron’s little brother finally breaks in. “Do you wanna buy some?” 

“Definitely!” I exclaim with more enthusiasm than should ever be exerted over popcorn. “I’ll take one now that I see how they travel.” 

What? What does that even mean? And if I don’t know, why am I laughing at this not – even – a – joke? I wish for the roof to fall in. It doesn’t. 

“Great,” Aaron says, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a pen and order sheet. As he hands them to me, our fingers brush and another thrill travels up my arm. I try to hide this by concentrating fully on filling out the form. Just as well – I wouldn’t be surprised if I spelled my name wrong. When I’m done, I hand the pen and sheet to him with extreme care.  “Thanks!” his brother says happily. 

“Yeah, thanks, Lyddie,” Aaron adds with an adorable smile. 

“No problem! I was happy to do it!” Again with the ridiculous enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to get it!” Oh, my God. Stop talking now. Aaron will never like you in that way if he thinks you like popcorn more than him. I give them a stupid wave as they turn to leave, but I feel slightly better about my own behavior as I close the door and hear Aaron’s brother say, “Why were you acting so weird?” 

I shut the door and lean against it. I feel as accomplished now as I ever have – I had an encounter with Aaron and I didn’t sound like a total moron. For the most part. Not anymore than he did, anyway. But he’s adorable and he can get away with it. Me, I need to watch myself. Deep breaths.

Realizing

2011-01-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

So my friend finished reading Remembrance last week. He promised he would have it to me before I left for England and it appeared in my mailbox at ten a.m. on the day I left. I am very grateful to him for doing this. Or maybe I'm just grateful for him for doing it and not judging me. Because I was worried. Really worried. I gave this book to him in July and I didin't stop fretting until... wait, have I stopped?

Besides the dark scenes that scared me when I wrote them, I also read through the book while he was still revising and realised that I don't write like that anymore. That's technically a good thing, since it means I've grown as a writer, but I was afraid of what my friend would think of me. I wanted to snatch my novel back and give him something newer, something more up-to-date with my current style.

I didn't though, and I'm glad I let him finish. Well, sort of- I still feel ashamed of some parts that I wrote. But his editing job was good- he noted not only what he liked but what he thought was terrible... and he used those words, too. Nothing like getting it told straight out :p I think the edits will definitely help me being Remembrance up to the next level, whatever that level may be (though I know that this is not a novel I will seek to publish.)

In other Remembrance news, three things happened to me today involving it. First of all, one of my friend's comments during the darkest scene of the book was, "Getting a little like V for Vendetta are we?" Though I love that movie, I haven't watched it in about two years, so I wasn't really sure how close I was to the film. Extremely, as it turns out- I just finished watching it. It's nothing that needs to be changed, thankfully, but it's funny how some things stay with you.
I was walking through Kensington, London today and made my friends stop for a second while I took a picture of a street because one of my characters, Gloria, lived there (or at least, she would have before it was bombed in the Blitz.)
And then about an hour ago, in a fit of writery-actory-ness, I decided I needed to better figure out why my main character and her two best friends are so uncomfortable in one another's presence at the end of the book. I mean, of course there's already a reason, but I wanted to know each girl's specific feelings on it. I took a bit to write down these reasons, and then I started crying. Because what I realised is that the three girls represent three different sides of me. I know people always say that you always write a version of yourself into each character in some way, but it was still a shock to me. I always considered myself most like my main character... but I still considered her to be very different from me, and I knew I wasn't anything like her friends- until today. And yes, this discovery made me weep.

Anyway, getting off that dramatic subject and onto an unrelated one, if you're not already, you should check out/follow my London blog, where I write about all the adventures I'm having in jolly old England!

2010 Wrap-Up

2011-01-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

2010 was a pretty good- and busy- year!

January: With the film company I’m with, Enscribe Studios, filmed a short called Never, which is one of our best films to date. Nearly got arrested while filming it for accidental trespassing. Had a terrible audition at a big theatre; I’m still too embarrassed to go back. Dyed my hair (accidentally) black. Saw Spring Awakening for the first time with my friend Megan. Went to my first theatre festival, which was quite an experience. Started the spring semester of my sophomore year of college, including a lot of first time classes in things like Shakespeare, Children’s Theatre, and Directing. Turned twenty. Got asked to sing in my friend’s summer wedding, something I’ve always wanted to do. Started piano lessons. Read and saw Peter Pan for the first time. Went on a ton of auditions.

February: Found out that my acting type is an ingénue, which was news to me. Out of love for my friend, agreed to be in a scene that I hated because I had already done it and didn’t like the play. Started writing a play based on/around Peter Pan. Auditioned a lot. Half of my classes were snowed out for about two weeks. Auditioned for Peter Pan at a huge, you-will-never-be-cast-here scale theatre. Was inundated with schoolwork. Became obsessed with A Chorus Line, helped by the awesome documentary Every Little Step. Saw a casting session from the other side of the table. Was given the duet Sixteen Going on Seventeen in my school musical theatre club, a milestone for me there. Read some awesome plays.

March: Started to go crazy(er) over not having a show. Put on a fun version of The Princess and the Frog with my Children’s Theatre class for a class of sixth graders (and I got to play the princess!) Became a cheerleader. Obama came to my school (I didn’t see him.) Auditioned a lot. Dealt with the mold and mouse problems in my dorm room. Was cast in my first student film playing a murderous teenager; we shot for three days of awesomeness. Filmed an Enscribe teaser for a new miniseries that I was asked to write- action, something brand new to me.

April: Discovered ALL CAPS, which is now my favorite band. Got new headshots taken. My friends Stuart and Courtney visited me at school. My beloved dog Missy died at age fifteen. Auditioned a lot. Did my second student film at my own university. Did my third at a different school. Got accepted into a giant, hard-to-get-into audition. Performed in my first piano recital. Got my first non-acting job.

May: Finished my sophomore year of college. Auditioned for the national tour of Next to Normal. More auditions. Visited Stuart and Courtney at their college. Started my tour guide job. Started to become obsessed with Dr. Who. More filming with Enscribe, which resulted in the usual adventure/us getting in trouble. Got cast as Portia in The Merchant of Venice- my first Shakespearean role ever.

June: My sister graduated high school. Started Merchant rehearsals. Went to the Met. Participated in the ginormous audition. A well-known playwright (one that I love) sought me out on the internet and wrote me a letter. Got a new agent. Was forced to watch all three extended versions of Lord of the Rings in one day. Tried to begin the study abroad application process.

July: Got cast in a play of one-acts at the very first theatre I ever performed in. Rehearsal, rehearsal, work, rehearsal. Had a full-out Shakespeare rehearsal in my backyard. Opened Merchant.

August: Closed Merchant. Blogged Every Day in August (BEDA.) Upgraded cameras. Opened and closed the one-acts. Started and finished Mockingjay, a book that, no matter how I felt about it, hit me harder than a lot have. Moved into school for my junior year.

September: Started out my first full day of my junior year crying in my professor’s office. Declared a creative writing minor. Started a cheerleading club. Auditions. Was cast as Alice in Alice in Wonderland. The school finally let me start applying to English colleges. Saw Time Stands Still on Broadway.

October: Got accepted to Queen Mary University of London, my top choice. Injured my left foot to the point that it still hurts me three months later. My mom got a cat. I bought my plane ticker to London. Got cast in a duet from one of my favorite musicals, Chess. Saw ALL CAPS, among other artists, in concert, which was incredible. Opened Alice in Wonderland. Got a position as a teaching artist with Philadelphia Young Playwrights. Saw The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway. Was cast as Jane Moore in Life With Mother Superior. Dropped out of cheerleading. Dressed as Hermione Granger for Halloween.

November: Closed Alice in Wonderland. Participated in National Novel Writing Month for the third year and won for the second; in the end, the novel was 63,023 words long. Mother Superior nearly fell apart but magically pulled itself together and had a great opening weekend.

December: Closed Mother Superior. Finished the first complete draft of my Peter Pan play, Straight on ‘Til Morning. Saw Time Stands Still again, this time from the third row orchestra. Finished my junior fall semester. Went back to my alma mater for the first time since senior year. Began packing for England. Went to Washington DC with Enscribe. Rang in the New Year with Stuart and his family.

Rewriting! And... GO!

2010-12-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

Since I am now free from school (though only technically for a little over a week- then I leave for England and my university orientation there), I have been doing a lot of writing. Last night, I was reading over Q, which I haven't worked on in earnest for awhile, and tweaking a few things. This afternoon, I finished editing another NaNoer's novel (all 248 pages of it... oy) and began a second tonight. And on Christmas day (if I can), I will start looking at my own NaNo novel, The Other Side of Light. I'm really excited to get back to it.

This morning, I went online to check my grades (four A's and one B, the latter in a class I hated and thought I was going to fail, so yay!) Besides the happy fact that two of the A's are in my writing classes and my P&F teacher said he doesn't usually give out A's, I was pleased to find my revision letter from my playwrighting teacher in my inbox.

The letter itself is three pages long, single-spaced, which is lovely. Because while it is full of hard truths and suggestions for improvement, I didn't turn this script in thinking it was perfect and I want suggestions because I want to do something with this play. Additionally, the fact that he wrote so much means that he was willing to consider it for that long, so I'm thrilled.

A lot of the suggestions are going to be really hard to work- they're going to require a lot of thinking about the play from new angles and rewriting scenes I love the way they are currently. But while a part of me cries at the thought of doing this, another part is happy that I'm already at the stage where difficult questions can be asked and that the letter didn't simply read, "Learn how to spell and then we'll talk," (as I suspect some of my classmates' may have.) And what better place to start my revisions than England, the setting of the play? These rewrites are going to be very difficult, but I am determined to be triumphant!

Friends in Writing

2010-12-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone! I'm back, having survived my finals (I hope, anyway.) I turned in my last paper at 5:30 Monday evening, and since then, I've been writing, editing, and typing up some monologues to take with me on my England adventure, as well as visiting my alma maters (I have two- my regular high school and my theatre high school), decorating the house, and hanging out with my friends.

One of my friends, who I also went to visit school with, had a wonderful writing chat with me today. After visiting EAHS, neither of us were really ready to go home yet, so we went to a local cafe. He's a writer as well, and embarking on some pretty exciting territory as one very soon. We also began a joint novel a few weekends ago when he came to visit me at my college. We're both really excited about the project, as it means a lot of new things for both of us. First of all, we'll be writing together. While we've been working together since middle school, really, on films and reading each other's writing, we've never written together. This in itself will be very interesting, as we have very different styles.

The project also includes some new elements for both of us, like writing adult characters, not teenagers or adults who are percieved as teenagers (a challenge for both of us, as neither of us is one of these yet), having the entire novel take place over one or two days, and he writing in a completely female perspective (though he already writes girls very well.) It's going to be difficult, but a good kind of difficult, I think. At least we live in the age of e-mail; can you imagine the two of us sending pages back and forth through snail mail across an entire ocean? I'm just excited to have a new writing project!

In addition to discussing this project, we talked about basing characters off of real people (I don't do this purposely, though it tends to happen; he does, and asked my permission to make a character very like me. It's possible he's going to use the hardest parts of my life, for which he was present, but the way I see it, his writing about it might help me sort it out a little better), characters making decisions for themselves, writng emotional truths, killing off characters, inspirations, poetry (which I hate and declared "one big secret"), and our futures in writing.

I just love having writer friends :)

Oops...

2010-12-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates... and there will be no WIP Wednesday today, either, as finals are killing me. I've never had so many papers due (it's about five or six of varying length... ugh.) The only reason why this is even being written is because I'm stuck in the basement of my school library while I scan the many, many pages of my playwrighting and writing journals for my teacher. It is tedious work.

But in good news, I finished the first draft of my Peter Pan play... and now it even has a name, thanks to my friend Caleb. I'm calling it Straight on 'Til Morning. It runs at eighty-five pages, currently. I had to do an incredible amount of research for a scene that I never even planned on writing. At first, I was just doing the research for myself for background information. But then after my class suggested I write at least one scene in the asylum (a.k.a "sanatorium"), I needed to go even more in-depth. And now not only can I not stop because it's so interesting, but new stuff is popping up every day- or maybe I'm just noticing it now. But suddenly, people are blogging about this topic, plays are being produced about it, and there are new websites every day. Very interesting- and very helpful!

Now that my scans are done, I suppose I should go back to my room and actually write these three last papers *cries*

What I Did

2010-12-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

So I've been in novel-centered mourning for about four days now, and I think I can begin to talk about the reason.

First of all, I might be seeming dramatic, but I was seriously affected by what went on in my final hour of NaNoWriMo (which was actually about 6 pm, but I had a class and then rehearsal, and so wouldn't return until almost midnight- not enough time to finish AND win.)

I was typing away like a madwoman, sometimes turning to Write or Die to kick my butt. Usually WoD is the thing that forces unexpected (and usually unwanted) twists into my books, but it wasn't the culprit this time- it was all me.

I had no idea how to end the book. No clue. I actually had a couple of ideas in mind, one that involved a sequel. And, in fact, I had already written the cliffhanger ending the night before. But as I looked back over it, I realised that it was really incomplete and kind of pathetic. I decided to see where it would go if I took it further because, as much as I like the characters and the story, I didn't have enough ammo for a sequel. So I just started writing.

And then Lyddie died.

Yeah. SHE DIED. Worse, she was KILLED. About a minute after her aunt was killed. And another minute before the next member of her family would be killed.

This was COMPLETELY unplanned. Even though I had no idea what the end was going to be, Lyddie was always alive at the end of it. At that point, I felt like I was just watching my fingers type these horrible words. I wanted to undo it all... especially the way it happened. I just wrote that method of killing, not knowing how it actually affected someone's body and mind and then, and then after I had won, I was doing some research on the method and found out that I was pretty much right. How did I know that? I don't look up killing methods in my spare time.

But anyway. The thing I'm realising is that it fits. It really fits. It's sudden and shocking and tragic, but it works. It's not overdramatic. And I think the best part is that, because I didn't know what was going to happen, I didn't write in that direction. I think that if I had planned it, I would have written some scenes with the attitude that she was going to die. I would have tried to put some extra superfluous meaning into things. But because I didn't, it's even more tragic.

So while I've almost cried a couple of times because she's gone, I also don't think I'm changing it.

WIP er... Friday

2010-12-02T23:29:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the lateness. And this'll be the last look at The Other Side of Light for about a month, as I have shut it away tonight to get some distance.

“Jake and I have an announcement,” my sister all but squeals. “A very exciting announcement!” She looks at Aunt Kelly, Dad, and me, but none of us says anything, so she goes on. “As you know, Jake and I have been dating for awhile -” Oh, God. “- and we’ve grown really close since we first met -” Oh, please, God, no. “- and we think we’re ready to take our relationship to the next level -” Please don’t say it… “We’re getting married!” OH PLEASE GOD NO! 

“What is wrong with you, Lyddie?” Julie demands, glaring at me. I look around at my family (and Jake), who are all staring at me, and realise that I said that last one out loud. 

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know where that came from. I’m, uh…congrats.”   Lie. A total lie. I think this whole thing is ridiculous. I’m all for love and marriage and stuff, but my sister is twenty years old. She may not be in school, but that’s no reason to run off and get married.  

“Well,” Julie presses, “Anyone else going to say something?”
 
Another silence stretches for eternity until Dad chokes out, “Congratulations. We’re all really happy for you.” He looks over at Aunt Kelly and me. “Aren’t we?” 

Aunt Kelly is staring at Julie with a strange look on her face. “Julie, could I see you in the kitchen for a moment?” 

Julie’s smile doesn’t falter. “Come on, Aunt Kelly, let’s celebrate! This is exciting! Don’t you think it’s exciting?” 

“Julia,” my aunt repeats. “Kitchen. Now.” 

Sighing, Julie unwraps herself from Jake’s arms and follows Aunt Kelly to the kitchen door, throwing Jake a “my family is so silly sometimes” shake of the head before disappearing behind the door. 

Dad and I are left alone with Jake, who neither of us have ever really talked to. We sit uncomfortably on the couch while Jake looks around the room with feigned interest. I have to know what Aunt Kelly and Julie are saying, so I get up and move toward the kitchen door. 

“Lyddie, don’t,” my father warns, but I act like I haven’t heard him and ease the door open a tiny crack. I can only see Julie at this angle, standing with her arms folded and no longer smiling. I move a little closer to catch what’s being said. 

“-know your duties and what’s expected of you. You’ve know them since you were seven years old.” 

“I haven’t forgotten them,” Julie retorts.  

“And yet you accepted the proposal of someone that you know you can’t marry?” 

“I am going to marry him,” Julie say acidly. 

“You can’t,” Aunt Kelly answers emphatically. “All the rules prohibit it.” 

“The same rules that were bent for my mom?” 

“And you know what happened with that.” 

Julie raises her eyebrows and moves into her battle stance, shifting all her weight onto one hip, and I know that she’s ready to argue to the death. “No, actually, I don’t know what happened. Why don’t you tell me? My mother takes off when I’m nine and no one tells me why. So go ahead.” 

“You know why.”
 
“No, I don’t.” 

“It was too much for her.” 

“That’s all you and Dad ever say. ‘It was too much for her’? What does that even mean?” 

“I will not allow you to throw away all of your training for a boy you just met.” 

“I’m not throwing it away! I never said I wouldn’t still do the job!” 

“Julie, you know full well that the rules-” 

“Screw the rules! They were invented by a bunch of scared old ladies in the dinosaur age. Times have changed and the rules need to, too.”
 
“The times may have changed, Julie, but the lanterns haven’t. It’s just as difficult to look after them today as it was two hundred years ago, maybe more so.” 

“Then why shouldn’t I try to get as much help as possible? Jake would help me, I know he would.” 

“You haven’t told him anything, have you?” Aunt Kelly’s voice has an edge of nervousness tinging the anger. 

Julie rolls her eyes. “No, Aunt Kelly,” she chants like a schoolgirl reciting her multiplication tables. “I didn’t tell Jake about our deep, dark family secret.” 

“Nothing?” 

“Nothing. I swear.” 

There’s a silence, and behind me, I can hear my dad telling me to come away from the door, but I wave away his order. I need to know how this ends. I shift so I can see Aunt Kelly, who is pacing in the small space between the island and the counter. 

“It’s not too late to break off the engagement. It’s never too late these days-” 

“Stop!” Julie cuts in. “I’m not breaking off the engagement. I love Jake and I’m going to marry him. I don’t care about the stupid lanterns.” 

Aunt Kelly turns angry, wounded eyes to my sister. “You’re going to leave your family behind, just like that?” 

“I’m not leaving my family behind. I told you, I’m perfectly happy to watch over the lanterns, after my honeymoon. I don’t want to let my family down. I just want to start my own.” 

“Julie, you ca-” 

“Stop telling me I can’t. I can and I will.” 

“It’s dangerous.” 

“So is becoming a crazy cat lady, which is the only other choice I have. I am not my mother, Aunt Kelly. I have more training than she ever had, as a result of what she did.” 

“Julie-” 

“I can do this. I won’t choose between Jake and the job. Either I marry him and keep the job, or I’m out. It’s up to you.” 

Aunt Kelly stands quietly, bracing herself between the island and the counter. Finally, she says in a low voice, eyes on the floor, “I’ll consider what you’ve said. But I want you to consider, too, what the danger is if you go ahead with this marriage.” 

“I will.” 

Julie’s footsteps approach the door and I throw myself back into my seat just as she reenters. I can tell by the look she gives me that she knows I heard every word, but whether the anger I see is at me or just Aunt Kelly, it’s hard to tell. Either way, it’s gone the second she makes eye contact with Jake.
 
“So. Did you get to know my dad and my sister while I was away?” 

“Sure,” Jake says. “We were talking about the lanterns. They look pretty old.” 

“Oh, they’re getting there,” Julie says, shooting a scathing glance in Aunt Kelly’s direction.  

“Julie,” Aunt Kelly warns. “How about you and Jake get some dinner? I think you have a few things to discuss.” She leans on the last word, but Julie pretends not to know what she’s talking about. 

“Sounds great,” she exclaims, and I know she’s being overly happy to annoy our aunt. “Come on, Jake, let’s go.” 

“Oh, uh… okay,” Jake says. He looks awkwardly at the rest of us, probably trying to figure out if he’s obliged to hug us or something, now that we’re his future family. To my relief, he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at my father and goes, “Uh, well… thank you,” before backing out of the room. 

As soon as I hear the front door click shut, I let out a snort of laughter. “Did he seriously thank you?” I say to Dad. “Like, for Julie? He didn’t even technically ask your permission. Do people even do that anymore?” 

I may find this situation funny, but Aunt Kelly doesn’t. Her arms are folded tightly across her chest and she looks deep in thought. “If this is to be,” she says pensively. “It’s going to take a lot of finagling. I don’t know if the rules will be allowed to be broken twice.” She ends the sentence there, but Dad and I know how it actually concludes: “After what happened last time.” We’re coming dangerously close to the subject of my mother now, something that never goes over well. Best to duck out now. 

TOSOL Wordle

2010-12-02T22:19:00.000-08:00

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alt="Wordle: TOSOL"
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Reactions... Good or Bad?

2010-12-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to stop thinking about the ending of my novel. Remember how much I said I hated it? Well, I read it over again this morning and while it seems to fit the novel better... I still am in denial that this is the ending.

In acting, my thought is always that, if it gets a response, that's good. But what does it mean that, even as I thought about the ending a few seconds ago, it gave me disturbed butterflies in my stomach... and not happy ones?

I am a very confused writer at the moment...

The good thing is that I got two review offers on my novel. Tomorrow, I will shut my novel away so I can be away from it before I edit it for minor things like grammar and stuff before I send it off. I doubt I'll make a big enough overhaul in those days to rewrite another ending. I suppose I could see what they think of it...

I'll post a WIP Wednesday entry tomorrow (or, well, later today.) :)

The End, For Now

2010-11-30T20:42:00.000-08:00

Word Count for November: 50,023

Cumulative Novel Word Count: 66,023

It's over.

NaNoWriMo is over.

And, for right now, so is my novel. I drew it to some kind of conclusion. And that conclusion has left me shell-shocked. As of this afternoon, I had no idea how my novel was going to end and it was plaguing me. There was no law that required me to actually finish the novel itself today, but I didn't know if I could write 5,000 more words of something else; I had filled in many of the other holes.

So I started using Write or Die to make the wordcount, which usually demolishes my novel, and as I was doing that, I got an idea. It was a horrible, terrible, macabre idea, but I didn't know what else to do, so I followed it. If it doesn't work, you can just write it over. Plus, the "ending" I had already written felt sudden and incomplete.

As I was almost finished writing it, my roommate came in and asked, "What's wrong?" Because my face was drawn and solemn and I wanted to cry.

I don't even know if I can talk about it at the moment. I was so dazed and in my head after that that I could hardly walk straight. The ending's not violent or gross, but it's... surprising and sad and so unlike the rest of the novel with its sarcastic tone. I can't get over it.

I really don't like the ending. I want to change it. I know you should always go where the novel takes you, and I did, but I don't like it. It's not what I want for the story. I'm too close to the novel right now to decide if it fits it or not; Lyddie goes through a lot of changes in the book, so maybe it does work. But I don't like it.

I need to think...

Dear Self

2010-11-28T23:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Self,

Here's the deal. You have two days to write over 10,500 words. Now, don't get daunted. Because here's the other deal: you just made a list of all of the things left to write about and it's over 10,000 words, no problem. But those words won't write themselves, so get on it. No excuses. Yes, you do have three back-to-back classes (including your least favorite) before 10 pm rehearsal, but your first class doesn't start until 1:30 pm. So set that alarm clock and write before class, ya lazy sack o' potatoes. Who cares about your sore throat? It doesn't affect your fingers, does it? No. It doesn't. You are SO CLOSE. Don't give up now! You actually still love this story, so act like it. And you are actually an actor, so I expect you to do it well.

Love,

Me

(P.S... My school has decided that it is August and not almost December. The air conditioner is on so high that we can hear it. *shiver*)

WIP Wednesday

2010-11-24T07:16:00.000-08:00

Word Count: 34,648 / 50,000

The lamp’s globe almost slips from my grip for the fourth time this afternoon. Aunt Kelly draws in her breath sharply as I catch it with the ends of my fingers.

“Lyddie, please, focus.”

“I am,” I say, frustrated. That’s the worst part – I’m trying so hard to get this right and am getting nowhere.

“Well, just… try a little harder, okay?” I can hear my aunt’s aggravation, which doesn’t help my state of mind, or the headache throbbing at my temples. “You need to remove the globes carefully and clean every bit of soot off of them. We can’t have any traces of black.”

I am in no mood to do this chore. This isn’t a job, it’s housework. Besides, jobs pay. What do I get for this? Nothing! In fact, less than what I started with. I hate this stupid job with its stupid requirements; Aunt Kelly first had me scour the lamps’ bases to make sure they were perfectly clean, resulting in the beginnings of my headache. Now I can’t even clean a freaking globe right, I can’t even go to college so I might as well just drop out of high school-

I place the globe a little too hard on the table. “I need a break.”

“We’ve only been working for forty – five minutes.”

“Well, I still need a break, okay?

“Don’t give me attitude, Lyddie.”

“I just need five minutes to take some aspirin, okay? Being thrown into this when I had a million other things to do is kind of stressing me out.”

Aunt Kelly retrieves the globe I abandoned, concentrating a little too hard on wiping it clean. “You really need to focus on this, Lyddie. It’s the most important thing right now. You’re having to catch up on years’ worth of training, and it’s going to take all of your concentration.”

“I know that,” I reply, irritated. “But I do have homework and piano and life and stuff.”

“Lyddie, right now, none of that other stuff matters. At least not until you’ve finished your training.”

“And then I start the job, so all of that will be gone for good.”

“That’s not necessarily true. I’m still talking to Dr. Philips about when a good time for me to step down. You may have a few years.”

“So then I can go to school.”

“Don’t start.”

“But I could do both! Things are different now. Insane multi-tasking is part of the high school curriculum these days.”

“I haven’t been lantern keeper for that long.”

“Yes, but even twenty years ago, you could get by without a college degree. Now… you can’t do anything without one.”

“Lyddie-”

“You can’t! Not for what I want to do. It can’t happen.”

Aunt Kelly looks pained. “Lyddie, I can’t believe – I don’t know how to explain it more clearly. You don’t need to go to college now that you’re lantern keeper because… you have no use for it. You’ll never – you can’t… be a publisher. It would be too much. I know you, Lyddie, and I know that you can do anything you put your mind to, but you can’t do this.” She sees the look on my face and hurries to clarify. “It’s not that you can’t. No one can. It’s not advisable. I know what you want, Lyddie, but you’re going to have to switch gears now. Your future has been decided for you.”

“That’s not fair! You don’t understand what a disaster this is for me-”

Aunt Kelly’s mouth falls open. “I don’t understand?!” Her voice has lost all its sympathy. “Do you think this is what I planned for myself? My entire life I watched your mother be prepped for service and I was so grateful it wasn’t me. Then, just after I had gotten a good, steady job, I heard that Leah was gone. Do you think I wanted to leave my job to take over something I never wanted in the first place? No. But your father needed me and you girls needed me. You are in the exact same position as I was, Lyddie, except you have the benefit of being warned before you could start an outside life. You should be grateful.”

I’m feeling a lot of things right now, but I can’t safely say that grateful is not one of them.

"How Did I Get Here?"

2010-11-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

Tonight I had that writing workshop that I signed up for, dropped out of, and then signed up for again. It was most definitely a learning process.

First of all, we were all given all of the pieces to read over beforehand. Not all of us got all of the pieces- I only got seven out of the ten. But I noticed a certain trend in the pieces I did recieve: they were all either short stories or prose poetry and they were all thoughtful and deep and dramatic. Lord knows what everyone thought when they opened up my dialogue-driven, snarky YA piece.

I'm not saying this in a self-deprecating way. I was confident in what I had submitted. But it was so radically different from anyone else's that it stuck out glaringly, and I still don't know if that was a good or bad thing; no one seemed to know how to react. Throughout the workshop, I was listening to other pieces being read and thinking, "How did I get here?"

The workshop itself was pretty awesome. We were put in this conference room in the castle (which used to be the owner's smoking room back in the late 1800s) and the thick wooden doors blocked out every sound. We could whisper and hear each other. It was a very cool and relaxing environment.

The host of the workshop is an academic librarian here at my school and is also a published writer (of short stories, I believe.) I've seen her around, but we've never really met, and I expected her to be either really mean or too shy to even really speak. But instead she was this quietly lively, fun person who gave everyone great feedback.

I had expected to see some people I knew, but there was only one person I had met there; most of the participants were graduate students, which was a little intimidating. But they all turned out to be very nice, too.

I was the last to go- I think she went in the order in which she had recieved our pieces, and due to the rehearsal debacle, I submitted mine six days late. Again, it was very weird because, after all of the flowy, deep prose poetry, my excerpt was like having a bucket of cold water dumped over you. It was more marked than one night in Play & Screenwriting when we present our monologues; the girl before me had jut finished weeping as a dying soldier and then I jumped in with a piece of fast-paced, ridiculous excuses.

Overall, though, the piece was well-recieved. People were pretty complimentary of it and they also gave me some fantastic suggestions- some of which I've already taken. I'm really glad I participated; it was awesome to be sitting in a room of people who are just as dedicated to this as I am. I hope I can do something like that again :)

(Also, I'm now officially a creative writing minor at school!)

WIP Wednesday

2010-11-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

I don't like to put my WIP posts with my "this is what's going on" posts, so here's this week's WIP excerpt. What you need to know is that Lyddie, to take on her job, had to basically have a routine psych exam. Though it's just a formality, one of the tests sent Lyddie into a nervous breakdown and she's terrified of the diagnostic letter that will arrive, sure it will contain notes on her failure. Read on:

“Lyddie!” I hear Julie call from downstairs. “Come get your mail!”

I go down to the foyer to find Julie holding a stack of mail, one smaller than the other. She hands me the former and I leaf through it. Ten thousand college postcards from places I would never go, even before I got the job. My half – term report is in there, so I tear it open. Straight As. Congrats, Lyddie. You’re smart and it doesn’t matter anymore. I place the report on the side table for Dad.

The last letter in the pile has a logo in the upper left hand corner that I don’t recognize immediately, but after another second, I realise that it’s from Dr. Philips’ office. The diagnostic letter.

It takes every ounce of self discipline not to take the envelope and its offending contents and feed it into the flames of the very lanterns that got me into this mess in the first place. But even if I did destroy it, Dr. Philips talks to Aunt Kelly on a semi – regular basis, so he’s sure to ask her about it. There’s no getting out of this.

I’m just about to stuff the letter in my pocket and go back up to my room when the door opens and who else but Aunt Kelly walks in.

“Hey girls.”

“Hi, Aunt Kelly,” Julie mutters, immersed in the pages of some magazine.

Aunt Kelly’s gaze lands on me. “Lyddie? Are you okay?”

“Mm-hm. Totally okay.” I try to inch the hand with the letter behind my back, but of course she notices. “What’s that?”

“Uh… report card.” Technically I’m not lying. It is a report card of sorts and I’m pretty sure it’s the kind I’ve never gotten in my entire life- just one big F written in red across the page. Or, no, probably a C, for Crazy.

“Can I see it?”

It takes me a second to move, but I have to give it to her, so finally, I do. I watch my fate literally pass out of my hands. She’s going to be so mad…

She doesn’t open it right away, though. “How about we get a snack before we discuss this? I’m famished and I’m sure there’s some important and interesting stuff to talk about in here.”

“Yeah. Important and interesting.”

I follow her into the kitchen where she removes some grapes from the refrigerator and sits down with the death letter. Popping a grape into her mouth, she tears it open and unfolds it. Before she looks at it, she catches sight of me still standing. “Sit down, Lyddie, so we can talk about this.”

“I’m okay.”

“What?”

“There’s something about being right by the door that’s really working for me.”

She nudges a chair out with her foot. “Don’t be silly. Sit down.”

Trepidaciously, I do, and watch Aunt Kelly’s face carefully as she scans the contents of the letter. Her expression doesn’t give me a single clue, bad or good. Finally, she sets it down.

“Well.” That’s all she says.

I cringe, looking anywhere but at her. “I know. I’m sorry. I tried.”

“Obviously not hard enough.”

“I’m sorry, really.” I chance another glance at her. She doesn’t look mad, more… disappointed. So she’s going to take the scary calm route. This is going to suck. “I just… I freaked out and I don’t want to ruin anything for Julie and I’m really really sorry.”

“’Freaking out’ is not an excuse for rudeness.”

I look at her now, confused. “What?”

“Dr. Philips reports that through almost the entire session, you were hostile and uncooperative.”

“That’s… all?”

“All? Lyddie, he is very important to our cause. We can’t lose his support.”

“But that’s all he wrote? That I was rude? Nothing about… anything else going on? The results of the test?”

“Well, he can’t report on each test individually – it’s against the privacy code. He did write a general summary of your results, and they seem to be fairly good. But Lyddie, that’s no excuse for your behavior. You’re not a child anymore.”
I’m too busy breathing several thousand sighs of relief to be properly chastised. He didn’t write anything about my breakdown. Thank God. But why? Surely someone who demonstrated such signs of instability can’t be good for the job.

“Lyddie? Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I won’t do it again, Aunt Kelly. I was just stressed. I’m fine now.”

My curiosity gets the better of me. “What else did he write? Anything good?”

She consults the letter. “That you’re obviously very intelligent. Despite the uncooperativeness, you scored very high on the majority of the tests. But that doesn’t excuse -”

“I know, I know. I have to be nice from now on. I will, I promise.” Now that I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up anymore, I steal a grape. “Can I go now?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

I escape back up to my room, where I practically melt into a puddle of relief. I never thought I’d say it, but thank God for Dr. Philips. I don’t know why he let me off the hook, but I’m grateful he did. Now I just have to pretend that that episode never happened and get on with my life… such as it is now that I’ve been cleared.

Pushing Through

2010-11-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

*tries to slip in unnoticed*

Oh, hey... is this where my blog is located? I guess I kinda... haven't posted for awhile, huh?

BUT, guys, I have an EXCUSE. And it is a good one.

I've been writing. And yes, it's November and this is a writing blog, so of course, if I'm posting, I've been writing. But I mean I have been composing like a mad woman. Thank goodness for computers, because I have done so much writing today that I wouldn't be able to move my hand if I'd had to do it long hand.

See, my schedule blew up recently. What with classes, rehearsals, and you know, LIVING, I fell way, way behind on my wordcount. And what's more, when I did have time to write, I'd basically sit there and stare at the screen and maybe get a hundred words out of it.

I know there are sometimes slow periods, especially in NaNo, but this was bad. Because to be honest, I could keep pushing it off until tomorrow, thinking I'd have more time, but every tomorrow brings another 1667 words to be written and it also brings with it my crazy schedule. I mean, seriously... this time next week, I'll be opening a show. So even though I'd sequestered myself for a good four hours yesterday, I got nothing out of it, and I was determined that today would not be another one of those days. I took advantage of my second class being cancelled and went to the school cafe and wrote.

Slowly, very slowly, I began to chip away at the wall I'd been smacking my head against for the past few days. I found my plot again, cleaned up some Write or Die scenes, and in general got my act together. Then I changed my location and did three thirty-minute, thousand-word Write or Die sessions. And finally, after about seven hours, my word count stands thus:

Word Count: 28,421 / 50,000

I am seriously proud of myself. Not only did I write 6,982 words today, I also found a brand new, awesome plot point and had a few new things go wrong for my character. Yesterday, I was desparing that I could write another 35,000 words of this novel, but now I think I might be able to swing 21,579 more.

So my lesson for today, everyone- DETERMINATION. I was about to give up on NaNo this year because I was feeling really overloaded. But in the end, I really want to do it, so I pushed through and it was hard but so, so worth it.

In other news, I had the reading of my first twenty pages of my Peter Pan script in my playwrighting class. It went well. I wasn't too happy with how it was actually read... if only the class were full of actors. But, as my friend in the class said (who I cast as Peter), you can get it from the writing, too. I got some great feedback, both complimentary and constructive, and I'll be returning to that once this entry is finished.

I watched my teacher as he read along with it and I thought he didn't like it. But while he had some questions, in the end, he gave me a compliment so awesome that I am afraid to repeat it to anyone. I'm not going to write it here because a) I don't want to jinx it and b) it's very specific to my school, so you guys might not understand WHY it was such a compliment. But it really was, and it gave me hope, especially since he wasn't so into the idea in the first place.

So now I'm off to work on that! Push through, NaNoers, push through. It'll be well worth the effort.

Last Google search: Write or Die

Last Thesaurus.com search: hurry

Falling Behind

2010-11-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

Word Count: 20,835 / 50,000

I am so, so far behind on my word count. Have cloistered self in library to rectify this. However, play that's due for credit is also begging for attention. And I have two more rehearsals today.

*cries*

It's Week 3, everyone.

Last Google search: TV listings for [my school.] I haven't watched TV in forever. Not that today was the day to do it.

Last Thesaurus.com search: trepidaciously (to see if it was actually a word and not something I just made up. It's a word.)

Dodging a Bullet by Taking Another

2010-11-11T12:38:00.001-08:00

I wrote yesterday about how my plot needed a complete revamp after the introduction of a semi-serious romantic relationship for my main character. While I was plowing through those changes (which I'm still doing right now... so many little details have to be tweaked), I was seeing statuses/reading blogs/hearing that people were suffering from the Week Two Blues. These are common, and I'm sure I suffered from them myself last year, but right now, I'm feeling pretty good. I really like the changes that this relationship has made to the novel. It's made some decisions more serious, given Lyddie a distraction, which is both good and bad for her, and made me look at some scenes I haven't looked at in awhile and that needed a redo anyway.

So I sort of feel like I've dodged the Week Two bullet. Of course, rewriting all of this stuff, as well as adding in a ton, is proving to be hard and meticulous, but I think it's my own little Week Two challenge. What I'm most afraid of is the 30k panic- I KNOW I suffered from that last year. You hit 30k and then suddenly, it all goes to pot.

And you guys get to come along for the ride :p

Now I've got to go read through my Peter Pan play- I'm having 20 pages of it read in Play & Screenwriting on Tuesday night. I'm either going to be very happy or have my bubble burst by 10 pm that day.

WIP Wednesday (and a complete reworking)

2010-11-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

Word Count: 15,013 / 50,000

Yesterday I decided that my character's semi-love interest (more like a crush that is allowed to have a moment), who screwed up in said moment, was going to turn into a good guy and come back and apologise. I did this for a few reasons: one, I kind of liked him too (I never fail to fall in love with my MC's love interests) and I wanted to redeem himself, and two, if I didn't give him at least one more scene, his presence in the novel would be sort of unnecessary. As much as I liked the scene I had written between my MC (Lyddie) and him, there was no reason for it.

So I'm happily typing away at this new scene and I'm really liking it. It's working out, both characters end up in a good, believeable place at the end... but then my bubble was burst. Because the whole reason Lyddie was even at the dance with him was to get her out of her house so something bad could happen there... towards the end of the book. After that, it was all action-packed drama and then the conclusion of the novel. My heart broke- there was no way I could get this new scene in there, not with the pace of the scene after the dance.

But the more I looked at the new scene (and the next scene I wrote between Lyddie and her guy... because I couldn't stop) the more I saw its value. A huge theme in the book is whether relationships are valueable enough to preserve over a family duty that must be performed, and Lyddie didn't have enough exposure to anything beyonf family relationships and friendships. Both of these are very valid, but the reason certain things happen in Lyddie's life is because of her mother's choices about other relationships. Lyddie couldn't begin to understand, for better or worse, why someone would make that kind of sacrifice because she had no life experiences to have that understanding. I need this in my novel, and while I'm 80% sure that I'm going to include this newly formed relationship, there are three catches to this:

a) It's going to include a complete reworking of scenes, which I'm perfectly willing to do, but I also have to get my word count up each day as well as reorganization.

b) Lyddie is seventeen and a crush that forms into an only semi-serious relationship (there will be no purple prose in my book, for many reasons). While I would never claim that someone couldn't find true love at seventeen, it might not be true love here. It's just a strong "like."

And c) Lyddie, at this point, has more experience with a boy than I do. I've actually gone beyond my own understanding of a romantic relationship already, and it' going to be hard for me to take it further as far as even emotions go, simply because... I don't know. This is embarrassing for a twenty year old to admit. Let't get off the subject and look at today's WIP.

So what you need to know is that Lyddie's mother has been out of her life since she was six. Lyddie has deduced from the behavior of her father and aunt that her mother ran off for her own personal desires. Whether this is true or not is revealed at the end of the novel, but Lyddie is pretty bitter about what she believes to be true.

“Before we go onto our next test, Lyddie, I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

For the first time, Dr. Philips seems unsure. “About… your mother.”

I blink. Aunt Kelly must have given him a heads up. Otherwise, how could he have known that this was a sore point with me? I can tell from his expression that he expects me to be ruffled by this and I won’t give him the satisfaction. I sit up straighter and clear my throat. “Okay. What about her?”

Dr. Philips consults a manila folder lying flat on his desk. I want to know what’s written in it, but I can’t see from where I’m sitting. “Well, I know that your mother left you, your father, and your sister when you were six.” He looks up for confirmation.

“Yes…” I mutter grudgingly, hoping he’s not going to check in for my reaction after each fact.

“And then a few months later, your aunt Kelly moved in to help take care of you.” He says it like a statement, but doesn’t move on until I give another perfunctory confirmation. “How did you react to suddenly having another mother figure in your life?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t remember how you felt about another woman stepping into your mother’s place?”

I let out a sigh. “I didn’t see her as stepping into my mother’s place. I was six; for awhile, I didn’t really understand that my mom had even left me. My dad never actually told me what happened, so, for awhile, I just assumed she was on a really long trip.”

Dr. Philips picks up a pen, poised to record my life story. “So how did you find out?”

I raise an eyebrow. “I asked.”

“Asked who?”

I shrug. “Everyone. Dad. Aunt Kelly. Julie. My teachers. People at the grocery store. Everyone I thought might have seen her.

“And what were you told by your dad and aunt?”

“Well,” I begin. “Every time I asked my dad, he looked like he was about to cry. Sometimes he did, though he always made excuses about dust and allergies. The only thing he would be able to get out was that it wasn’t my fault and I should never blame myself. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t like making him sad, so eventually, I stopped asking him altogether. So I asked my aunt, and she told me that my mom wasn’t able to do her job anymore. I didn’t know what that meant.” I pause, then admit, “I still don’t know what that means.”

Dr. Philips is scribbling in the folder and suddenly I get an idea. “Do you know?” I ask, so suddenly that his pen jerks across the page.

“What?”

“Well, you’re one of the only outside people that knows about my family and the lanterns – do you know why she left?”

The doctor hesitates for a moment. “Lyddie, I have nothing to tell you about your mother that you don’t already know. As I’ve said, the rules are put in place for a reason. From the outside, the job seems easy, even trivial. But once you’re doing it yourself, you’ll find out that it’s not. Neither is raising a family or even having a serious relationship. Put those together and you have a recipe for disaster.”
“I don’t get it. Why couldn’t I just tell my hypothetical family about the lanterns and get help from them? It would make the job a thousand times easier.”

“So it seems. But something you may not know is that, with each outside person that is told, the security of the lamps diminishes. They took a great risk telling me enough that would allow me to evaluate candidates accurately. So your mother telling your father about them was -”

“Really, really bad.”

“Precisely. And even if she hadn’t, the strain that the lights put on any relationship your mother had would have been difficult. A romantic connection often thrives on experiences, and those are limited when half of the couple is required to work twenty four hours a day. Similarly, any job suffers when there are distractions, and, as you can imagine, a romance or a family is the ultimate distraction.”

“So instead of choosing one over the other, she just bailed. Responsible,” I remark wryly.

Dr. Philips clicks his pen and sighs. “It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“And that’s it?” I probe. I don’t want to accept that what I’ve been told for the past eleven years is the truth. I guess I wanted to learn that my mom went off to have an adventure. That she was a spy and was called off on a secret mission. Even that she was harboring a secret so grave that she had to run away from everything she knew and start a new life. Anything that rescinds the fact that she abandoned her husband and two young daughters because they were a hassle.

“Lyddie?” Dr. Philips’ voice breaks into my thoughts. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that this sucks,” I answer. “My mom abandoned me for no better reason than she was stressed out. How is that supposed to make me feel? She didn’t just hurt me; she broke my dad’s heart. He never seems truly happy. And you should see the look on my aunt’s face whenever the subject comes up. She hates her own sister. Did my mom even consider how her running off was going to affect the rest of her family? The family she wanted so badly that she broke all the rules? She just decided to go start a life of ease and left the rest of us to suffer.”

“Well, while I think your mother made some poor decisions, I don’t think you should be so quick to judge. Her situation might not be as pleasant as you imagine.”

I practically tip my chair over as I lean toward him. “Do you know where she is?” I demand.

Dr. Philips looks taken aback by my question, but says calmly, “No, I don’t.”

“Could you find out?”

“Why would you want me to do that? Do you want to contact her?”

“I -” I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what I’d do if I had an address or a phone number for my runaway mother; I don’t want to speak to her. But having a concrete locality, proof that she’s somewhere besides where she’s supposed to be, gives me some sense of stability, as strange as that sounds. It’s a fact, and I can deal with facts. I know what to do with them.

“No,” I say in answer to Dr. Philips’ question. “But I’d still like to know.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. In fact, I don’t know if anyone can – as far as I know, her whereabouts are unknown.”

Suddenly, I’m tired of talking about this. Every attempt to get anyone to discuss my mother has just led to a wall, and I’m sick of trying to force my way through. What difference will it make anyway? “Never mind,” I sigh, slumping back in the chair. “Are there more tests?”

Physical Reactions and Things Working Out

2010-11-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day since I was fourteen years old that I shared a poem I had written with my class. The last time I did it, I was in an extremely challenging advanced communication arts class. Well, it was challenging for me, anyway. I had worked my butt off on the entrance test two years in a row and only got accepted the second time around... and everyone else was smarter than me. (Or so it seemed. Talking to my then-classmates now, I've heard that everyone felt the pressure.) Because the class was so hard and my attitude toward poetry so bad, though I was nervous about sharing it, I somehow knew I would be inferior, so I wasn't too concerned about it. It was just another unit.

Fast forward to this year, me ignoring the fact that a class entitled Writing in Poetry & Fiction might include some poetry as well as fiction. I ignored it up until a couple of weeks ago when I bit the bullet and started to compose a poem for class. It was sort of based on a dream I had, and I hated it when I was finished. I got butterflies just thinking about my classmates reading it. I had established myself- along with pretty much everyone else in the class- as a fairly good fiction writer who turns in pieces filled with snarky characters. What would they think of this dramatic, semi-period, fever-delirious piece?

I almost skipped class, I was so nervous. I had to go second and by that point, I was shaking and my palms were practically dripping sweat. I wanted to cry. "Why are you hiding?" my professor asked, since generally I don't shut up in that class and had said very few words in today's class. I asked him if we might just get it over with. I forgot that part of the poetry presentation was that it had to be read out loud. Cue me cringing. Thank goodness it was short(ish).

The class ended up liking it, for the most part. There was some confusion (that I hadn't purposely built in) that is easily solved if I ever am brave enough to open up that document again. So I guess it went over well.

Though I knew I was going to be nervous about this presentation, I can't believe my physical reaction. I am kind of a nervous person in general, but it takes a lot for me to get so worked up that my palms sweat. The last time that happened, I was getting my flu shot all by myself (I have a deathly fear of needles and have never gone without my mommy there :p)

Anyway, it's over and it wasn't a terrible experience. And some good news arrived in my inbox while I was panic attacking it up. I had had to drop out of the writing workshop I signed up for because I was told I had rehearsal on that day. Then I found out I didn't. I instantly e-mailed the organizer of the workshop... and for three days, he didn't e-mail me back. I figured it was hopeless, but re-emailed him this morning... and it turns out he was saving a place for me all along! He said he needed my piece and there was the problem- I didn't know what I was going to send in. I didn't have anything short/long enough. Finally, after an hour of cutting, pasting, and rewording, I was able to send him an edited scene of Q, excerpts of which I've shared on this blog before.

Phew... what a day. And it's only 3:15. Can't wait to see what tonight's writing class brings!

2010-11-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

Word count: 13,161 / 50,000

A responsible person would have realised that her schedule was way too full to try to do NaNoWriMo this year.

A responsible person would realise eight days in that even though one show was over, that doesn't mean more time, as serious rehearsals for the next one kick in, uh, NOW.

A responsible person would take a look at her linguistics grade and realise that she should DROP. OUT. NOW.

But I can't. I have to do it and I want to do it. I love writing and I actually think it's what's keeping me sane right now, besides rehearsals. School is overwhelming me in ways I don't know that I've ever experienced. I was that good student that passed classes with pretty much no effort, but this year I've hit some walls that I didn't anticipate- like just how bad I'd be at Acting in Film & TV and just how much I want to please my Play & Screenwriting teacher. Not to mention the fact that tomorrow, my first poem for Poetry & Fiction will be analysed and I'm practically giving myself a heart attack worrying over it. The show-offy, teacher's pet seven year old in me is stomping her feet and whining.

*ahem*

Excuse me while I complain. I'm going to chill now and realise that just because today sucked doensn't necessarily mean I do. I'm only a day behind on my word count and I have many, many free hours that I can fill with writing now that I'm completely off-book for my next show.

Last Google search: Anglo-Norman French (sadly not for my novel, but for a linguistics essay that, if it earns a bad grade, I will cry.)
Last Thesaurus.com search: predecessor (I can never remember the antonym)

Playlist

2010-11-06T05:33:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have much time to write at all today, let alone a blog entry (I'm dashing this off before a day that includes seven hours of rehearsal and a performance), I'll give you what I have a of a playlist for this year's NaNo.

All That's Known- Spring Awakening
21 Guns- American Idiot
Trainers in Love- ALL CAPS
There's a World- Next to Normal
Hey 1- Next to Normal
California Dorks (Parody of California Gurls)- Skyway Flyer
Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind- Spring Awakening
Totally F*****- Spring Awakening
Clark Gable- Postal Service
Everything Else- Next to Normal
Who's Crazy/My Psychopharmacologist and I- Next to Normal
Maybe (Next to Normal)- Next to Normal

It's surprisig to me that all of these songs have lyrics; I generally find any non-instrumental music very distracting when I'm writing. But all of this music fits at least one part of my novel so well that I had to use it.

(Oh, and if you haven't heard any of these songs, you should check them out, but especially ALL CAPS! They're my favorite band :) )

Now off to rehearsal!

Cover Art!

2010-11-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty hopeless with computer stuff; the last time I felt tech savvy at all was when I was trying to help my grandfather figure out instant messaging. Even when my mom needed help setting up her Facebook this summer, most of our conversations went like this:

MOM: And what is that over there?
ME: ...I don't know. I've never seen that before. What does that do?

Which is why I am extremely proud of the "cover art" I did for my NaNo novel. I know it's simple and a little rough, but I actually wanted it simple and as for the rough part... I think it looks pretty good!

(I did have my last name on it, too, but "painted" it out for internet purposes.)

I also had a meeting this afternoon about the playwrighting job. It's all working out really well. I got a little worried when the head of the project said that many of the programs don't get started in earnest until the spring semester and some of the programs aren't jump-started yet. Thankfully, the level I'm working at (third and fourth graders) has been involved for twenty years and they get most of their work done in the fall. Phew! I can't wait to get started!

Now I have to go submit myself to Write or Die... otherwise I'll never make my wordcount for the day. Second-to-last performance of Alice tonight :(

Rachel 101

2010-11-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

Word Count: 6,667 / 50,000

The thing I love about NaNoWriMo (well, one of the things) is that it teaches me so much about myself. And not even about my work habits or top procrastination tools (though it covers those, too.) This novel, especially, is really showing me what I'm like as a person. The main character, Lyddie, is not at all based on myself- or at least, I never set out to make her so. But she and I share so many of the same fears- big and small, personal, relationship-centered, school issues- that I don't even realise I have or still have until I write a sentence or paragraph that makes me go, "Oh..." Normally, I would detail my findings, but honestly, most of them have surprised me so much that I'm not sure I'll ever reveal them to people who might actually read this book. And since I post excerpts here, you count!

Another thing that writing my novels has been teaching me, sort of a branch off of the last topic, is what about a situation scares me. I've rediscoverd a few fears while writing this book, but I also effectively creeped myself out today (writing one of the climactic scenes) enough to realise that complete calm from someone threatening is way scarier to me than anyone yelling anything. And the nice thing about actually feeling scared when I wrote the scene is that I just took what I was feeling sitting here in the library, typing, magnified it by ten, and wrote it in.

And now, after falling behind last night, I'm all caught up on my word count AND I'm pretty happy with what I wrote, which is rare when I cram in writing like this. So, smiles all around (except for my main character... she's not smiling right now.)

Last Google search: Naked Chocolate (the cafe where the write-in today is being held. Sadyl, I cannot go.)
Last Thesaurus.com search: glare

WIP Wednesday

2010-11-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

Hooray, a WIP Wednesday where I'm not scrambling (or, er... skipping...) Here's a brand-new, just written yesterday exceprt from The Other Side of Light (NaNo2010):

I’m almost out the door when I notice an unattended table at the end of a row. There are a few brochures stacked on a corner and a few loose sheets of paper, but nothing else. Curious, I pick up one of the leaflets and unfold it. Inside are listed individual study opportunities. “Save the cost!” reads the first page inside. “Study with the College of Autarchical Studies and learn what you want on your own time, resulting in a degree you can take pride in- because you created it!”

I raise my eyebrows when I read this sentence. This sounds like those types of for – profit colleges that you hear about on t.v. and I’m kind of surprised that the school even let them into the building, let alone set up a table. I guess it’s an option, but not for me. I’ve just put the brochure back on top of the pile when I hear someone come up behind me.

“Interested in our school?” the man says. He’s so tall that I have to tilt my head back to see his face clearly. He makes it easier by coming around the table and sitting behind it so that we’re eye to eye.

“Um… just looking,” I respond, not wanting to be rude.

“Well, we’re taking applications now and the benefits of our school are great, especially if you don’t have the funds or time to go to a full – time university.”

“Oh,” I say, wondering how I can sneak away without too much more conversation. “Sounds… convenient.”

The man is still trying to hand me the paper, smiling widely behind his brown moustache. “Oh, it is. Take a look at our website when you get home, you’ll see what I mean.”

“Okay,” I nod, scanning the people around me for someone I know so I can pretend to need to talk to them. Sadly, I see no one.

“And maybe,” the man says, still grinning widely and holding out the pamphlet, “Someone from the college could pay a visit to you and your family? Explain to them a little about our mission and what you can glean from the program. Does that sound good?”

Now I’m getting weirded out. “Uh… I don’t know, we’re all pretty busy.”

“I’m sure we can work something out. Does your mom work?”

“My mom isn’t… around,” I answer and immediately regret responding at all. “I really don’t know if a meeting can be arranged.”

The papers are still being waved in my face. “Well, at least take the brochure. I’m sure you’ll see the benefits if you take the time to look into the program.”
Finally, I give in and take the booklet. “Sure. I will,” I say and scurry away as quickly as possible. The bell rings and I shove the brochure into my bag and take the steps two at a time.

At lunch, I set my tray on the table and plop down next to my best friend, Michelle. If you look at us quickly, we seem like an odd match. While we’re both thin, she’s about four foot nine and the tininess suits her, whereas I walk around next to her feeling like a giraffe. Where I’m awkward, she’s graceful. While I sit there in jeans and a t – shirt, she’s dressed in adorable little skirts and cute blouses.

“So where have you been?” Michelle inquires, putting aside the bread from her chicken sandwich. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“Yeah, sorry. This morning I had to talk to Mrs. Taylor about going to McKinley in a couple of weeks to take the SAT-2s again. I want to get my writing score by at least a hundred. And then physics got out early for the college fair. Speaking of -” I open my iced tea. “Did you see that one table, the College of Autarchial Studies or whatever?”

“No,” Michelle says. “What is it? Sounds weird.”

“It was, and not just because of the ridiculous name. First of all, I can’t believe Principal Foeller would let them in – they didn’t look or sound very reputable. And then the guy running the table was just a creeper. He wasn’t there when I got to it, and then he came up behind me and started asking me all of these weird questions. I didn’t want to be rude and be like, ‘There is no freaking way I am going to your school, so bug off,’ but he wouldn’t let me go.”

“Awkward,” Michelle remarks, drinking her water with a straw.

“So you didn’t see him?”

“I didn’t even go.”

“Michelle!” I exclaim.

Though you might not be able to tell, Michelle’s crazy smart. She and I have been best friends since second grade and when we were kids, she was just as outwardly nerdy as I was- the books, the glasses, the constant raising of the hand. These days, she hides her intellect behind contacts and slightly too-short skirts, but in reality, she’s reading on her Blackberry, not texting, and she could whoop your butt at calculus while carrying on a conversation about the latest issue of People magazine. But as intelligent as she is, I sometimes suspect that she has no common sense.

“You need to get on this stuff,” I chide. “The process has to happen eventually; why not get a jump start? College is just around the corner.”

Michelle examines her perfect manicure. “Lyddie, calm down. It’s March of our junior year. I’ve got plenty of time. We all don’t need to be you, okay?”

A little stung, I take a sip of my tea and don’t say anything. Sometimes I forget that people aren’t as manically committed to things like perfect SAT scores and early decision as I am. Admittedly, I can get jealous of these people – they somehow find the time to relax and go to concerts or whatever. I wish I could be more like these people, like my best friend – she knows she’s smart and that’s all she needs; she doesn’t feel compelled to constantly prove it to others and to herself like I do. All of those tests she gets As on barely get a passing glance, while I pore over my A minus wondering how I can talk it into an A plus. What is it like to be calm about these things? I guess I’ve never considered that maybe Michelle isn’t hiding her smarts; maybe she’s just gained those I haven’t. I do have the contacts, though. Maybe that’s a step in the right direction.

Missed Opportunities

2010-11-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Word Count: 3,475/50,000

Well, I'm still in I-love-my-novel mode. It will fade, I know, but right now, it's still (mostly) puppies and rainbows, and, even better, tomorrow I have some class time to write, since not only am I watching for nearly two hours in one class, but I'm sort of supervising a headshot photoshoot tomorrow. This will basically require me to make sure so-and-so is there and that's all, so... writing time! Though I'm a tiny bit ahead of where I need to be today, I wanted to write more than I did, so hopefully tomorrow, I can rectify that.

My two writing classes have showed me that, though I can often turn out good material, I also miss a lot of oppotunities. Thankfully, since it has been caught this entire semester, I've begun to spot it myself. I wrote a scene earlier today and pronounced it done (for now), but as I was writing the moments directly after it, I realised that the encounter had to be much, much creepier than it was. I made it so when I got back to my computer, and it's so much better for the story this way.

The nice thing about all this new writing is that I won't have to scramble for WIP Wednesday stuff for awhile!

Last Google search: how to become a publisher
Last Thesaurus.com seach: autarcical

And... GO!

2010-11-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Word Count: 1,913/50,000

NaNoWriMo 2010 has begun as of this morning, and I started typing at 12:00 am! I'm very happy to be ahead on my word count, since I will no doubt be falling far, far behind later this month. Besides having my usual schedule of classes, club rehearsals, and previously scheduled rehearsals, the director of my next show panicked this morning and schedule rehearsals for almost every single day/night... including nights that I absolutely cannot make due to classes. Still trying to work that out, but I'm digressing. What I'm trying to say is, I am going to be victorious despite everything!

Who else is doing NaNo?

And now I'm going to copy Kristina Horner's long-standing idea of a blog outro that will give you a fun look into my writing process:

Last Google search: history of security alarms

Last Thesaurus.com search: predecessor antonym

Spoke Too Soon?

2010-10-28T16:14:00.001-07:00

Whoops... sorry about not doing a WIP Wednesday yesterday. Though I did have an invited dress of Alice, I also had a cancelled class, so I don't really have an excuse.

I do have unfortunate news. I was talking to the head of the theatre department yesterday about submitting my piece. As I was filling out the form earlier that day, there was a part that asked that, if you were chosen, would you be at the festival? "Do you have to be there to submit?" I asked him. "Yes," he said. "They work really closely with the playwrights and the whole workshop process is part of the package. Not being able to go will really lower your chances of being chosen."

CRAP. As excited as I am to go to England, it's stuff like this that makes me sad I won't be in America. And the worst part is, I'm only missing this festiva by about two weeks. But I just keep reminding myself of all the great opportunities over there.

Anyway, the point is, since I can't go to th festival, it would be smarter to hold onto my script until next year. That way, not only will I not be teasing them with it, should they want to choose it, but if I DO get chosen next year, I won't have to endure the heartbreak of turning it down. I already almost cried when I heard I had to attend the festival in order to be considered.

But what I need to remember is a) there is a festival next year, and the year after that, and so on, b) I'm not a senior this year, c) I can submit peices up to two years after I've graduated, and d) not being able to submit this year should not detract from the exitement of just being asked to do so; I'm thrilled that my teacher thought enough of my writing to ask me to submit it to a huge competition like this.

That said, he hasn't answered my e-mail about this topic. I could call him- I have his number. But I don't want to break it to him or hear him disappointed or hear whatever I'm going to hear. I'm going to work on the piece until he says stop, just in case there's some way for me to enter.

In other news, I'm testing out the new Scrivener for Windows Beta. I've wanted Scrivener for years, and though it took me awhile to figure it out, I'm loving it so far.

!!!!

2010-10-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

More excitement!

I was super early to Play & Screenwriting today because I'm a nerd, and when I got there, my teacher handed me my six-week evaluation. First, there were surprises- like that he liked my first terrible piece more than I thought he had (I was literally in tears over it), and that he didn't quite understand the last piece I submitted (which wasn't exactly a blow... I was never too enthusiastic about it myself.)
And then there was the awesome- when he wrote about my first ten-minute piece, he said he wanted to send it to this great theatre fesitval that my school took part in last year, and will be again this year. AHHHH!!!!!! I am so excited, because he'd already offered it to another girl in my class and I had wished that I could do that- and now I am!

Now the challenges begin- all submissions are due THIS week, and I need to get it down to ten pages (it's fifteen at the moment, though in the original draft, it was ten.) It's going to be hard, mostly because Alice shows begin tomorrow (invited dress... eek.) However, since we don't officially open 'til Friday, I have a whole night free on Thursday, so though I had thought I might go see a show, I think I'll stay in and work on this script. I'm so excited!

(And a little fact about this scene that I think is cool- I began writing it at last year's theatre festival, sitting in the middle of an auditorium surrounded by my fellow artists.)

Awesome Day!

2010-10-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

This morning, I rose at six to get ready for my day. By eight fifteen, my group and I were on the road. The road to where, you ask? The road to a workshop for my new job!

If you don't remember my news, I got a position as a teaching theatre artist assisting a teacher in helping kids K-12 write and produce their own plays! Unfortunately, I'll only be there half as long as a lot of other people, since England is pulling me away. But I'm excited to do what I can.

So today's retreat was a ten-hour workshop where we did ice breakers, practiced the teaching methods we have the options of using, brainstormed, improvised, wrote, presented, read, and lots and lots of other stuff. It was so much fun! Though it was tne hours, it certainly didn't feel like it (well... there was one point right before lunch where I found myself not paying attention, but that's just my childhood habit of getting grumpy when I'm hungry. And I had an awful headache. But once they fed me, I was good.)

There's a lot to write about the workshop, but here were some of my favorite parts:

-Using imaginary binoculars to spy on imaginary people and relaying their thoughts to the rest of the group.

-Yelling during an improv exercise: "BUT GOD WANTS ME TO GO ON THE SKI TRIP!'

-Brainstorming a list of important events/occasions that included the return of the dinosaurs, the apocalypse, Wear a Wig to Work Day, parent/teacher conferences, and birth.

-The amazing pizza at lunch.

-Getting 45 minutes after lunch to write a complete scene.

-Presenting said scenes to a group of teachers, teaching artists, and a professional playwright, all of whom gave me great feedback.

-Having one of my group members say that her love for my scene was so great, she wanted to use it for her acting class. I'm revising the scene for her now.

-Being pleasantly surprised at the quality of 98% of the scenes. I don't know what I expecting, but WOW could the people in this workshop write!

-Meeting amazing and talented people that I want to get to know better.

It was, in a word, awesome.

I've also been utilising my new writing journal. I've always written in notebooks, but never in ONE notebook just for writing. Usually I just write it on a page, rip it out, then hope I don't lose it. But now I've got a beautiful black writing journal and most of my pages look like this:

Last night, I traveled into the city to see a show for school. Usually on the train, I listen to music, but my Zune is currently being repaired. Instead, I wrote. I wrote 2,410 words while on the train! Maybe my Zune being broken is a blessing in disguise!

Plotting and Planning

2010-10-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

So not only is NaNoWriMo fast approaching (11 days and counting), during which time I will be asked to produce at least 1,667 words every day or risk falling behind on the ever-important word count, but I'm working on two shows AND I have all of my writing classes that will be going strong in November as well.

I know you know this; it's the purpose of this blog. But I thought I would just reiterate just how much writing I'm doing this semester, and especially in November. It's crazy. It's great. And it's going to be really hard to keep up.

I'm having kind of a moral crisis about NaNoWriMo. It centers around the fact that I've already begun the novel I'm going to be working on. I feel like I'm in one of those angel-and-devil-on-the-shoulders type of situation.

DEVIL: If you fall behind on your word count, it's TOTALLY acceptable to count the 14,679 words you've already written in for the day. You're busy, it's understandable. Besides, it's not like you're writing this in a blog or whatever- NO ONE WILL KNOW!

ANGEL: Are you doing National Novel Writing Month or National I Wrote Most of This in a Month But I Cheated Because I Was Lazy Month? Do you think you'll really feel fulfilled if you take teh easy route? You know if you don't compose 50,000 BRAND NEW words this month, you won't let yourself count it.

DEVIL: She can't do math anyway, so why not make it that much easier?

ANGEL: Yes, but starting her wordcount from scratch will push her to explore her characters and situations more deeply, especially if she's short on words for the month.

DEVIL: What do you think she's been doing for the past several months? Exploring characters and situations!

ANGEL: (sing-song) Cheating, cheating, cheating...

DEVIL: It's not like she didn't put work on what she's written for the past few months-

ANGEL: (putting her fingers in her ears) La, la, la, I can't hear you!

DEVIL: Aren't you supposed to be the good one?

Yeah...

Anyway, in addition to continue to work on the plot of my NaNo novel, I spent this afternoon sorting out the plot of my Peter Pan play. I'm so, so excited that this is going to be my final project because it's going to push me to finish it. I also found out, as I was filling out the breakdown table I made in Word that technically, I have the most of the first part of the assignment done. If I wanted, I could call the first act (of, I think, three) done. Wow... It's still going to take a lot of work for me to finish this play in a way that my Type-A personality will accept as "good."

Speaking of well-written plays, I just bought my ticket to see Time Stands Still (by Donald Margulies) for a second time. The writing in it is just incredible, so great that I was willing to pay through the nose to sit in the orchestra section (I was in the very very last row last time- they actually had to give my friends and I booster seats to see.) Also, Laura Linney, one of my favorite actors, is in it, along with Brian d'Arcy James, who I also love. They're electric onstage. I'm so excited!

WIP Wednesday

2010-10-20T13:00:00.001-07:00

I wrote this monologue for Play & Screenwriting. I had planned on composing something completely different- a not-so-great experience from my life that caused me to make a few choices I still hold fast to today. However, as I was writing it, I realised that, though it had actually happened to me, it sounded convoluted and over-dramatic. Plus, I thought I would be okay with people reading it, but in the end, it was too personal.

So in the end, I wrote this. It's kind of surprising to me that I did because, as an actor, I LOATHE monologues like this- where the delivering character is listening to someone who's not there. There are other parts that I like though, so I'm all right with that.

HANNAH: I was actually on time for class, Mrs. Collins, but honestly, I’m lucky to have made it here at all. See, this day has just been terrible. I mean, awful. It’s like that- that thing you were talking about a couple of classes ago, the whatsit… some guy’s law about things going wrong. (Beat) Yeah, Murphy’s Law, exactly. Well, it’s been like that.

I got up this morning and things immediately went downhill as soon as I looked in the mirror. I don’t really consider myself a vain person, Mrs. Collins, but seriously, this morning, my hair decided to stage a mutiny. I won’t bore you with the sordid details, but suffice it to say that scissors and an excessive amount of gel were used. It wasn’t pretty.

I knew I was running late so I literally ran to my car because there is nothing more important to me than your English class, as shown by the hours I spent finishing up that essay last night. (Beat) Well, I don’t actually have it on me… that Murphy thing again, it’ll kill you, right? (Laughs, but gets no response) Anyway, I ran to my car, turn the key and what do you know, the battery was dead. Unbelievable, right? I thought so, too. Luckily, after a good twenty minutes- that believe me, Mrs. Collins, were spent in tears on my part, I was so distressed- my dad found some jumper cables and brought good old Sammy the Saturn back to life. (Beat)

Well, yes, you would think that that would have been it, but as I was racing here, I realized that I hadn’t had any breakfast. You may not understand this, Mrs. Collins, due to your slender frame and will of iron, but when my stomach asks for something, I have to oblige. Otherwise, things get ugly. Plus, you know by my outstanding academic record that I am nothing if not a rule-follower, and I would not want to cross the United States Department of Agriculture if they found out I had skipped the most important meal of the day.

But did I stop at my favorite café for a delicious croissant and fragrant cup of coffee? No I did not. Because making it to your class is worth the health risk of fast food. Unfortunately, today McDonald’s seemed to be operating under a… oh, that thing you talked about when we were reading A Tale of Two Cities… a paradox! Am I using that right? Well, anyway, what I’m trying to say is that today, it was slow food. I mean, how long does it take to make a freaking breakfast sandwich?

Eventually they finally coughed up my food- not literally of course, that would be gross, and then I would have had to wait for another sandwich. So then I jumped back into my car, pulled back onto the road, thinking I was going to sneak in right on time… but I hit every single traffic light. Like, all fifteen. (Beat) Well, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but I’m not lying when I say I hit all of them. (Beat) Okay, I hit both of them. Then I pull into the parking lot, stumble out of my car, race into the building and I’m practically to your classroom when Principal Harris demands to see me in his office. Can you believe him? Denying me the pleasure of attending your class to have an impromptu talk with me? And the subject of the discussion was completely ridiculous- he claims that my file includes several more tardy arrivals. I told him I resented the slander to my reputation, but he just kept talking.

He finally let me leave, but when I got out of the office, I saw that the janitor had just washed the floor, and I don’t believe in disrespecting our maintenance staff by traipsing across the spotless floor and undoing all of their hard work. So I had to go down the language wing and then up the mathematics wing, and that was slow going because numbers make me dizzy and I was concerned that I might faint and then not make it to class at all.

So Mrs. Collins, I just wanted to return this detention slip to you because not only do I believe it’s unnecessary due to the unforeseen circumstances that prevented me from arriving to your class in a timely manner, but the thought of a tree dying for a mistaken gives me a pain in my heart… although that may be the breakfast sandwich. So here you go. I’ll turn in my essay tomorrow.

There are a few changes to be made- my class gave me some awesome suggestions.

In related news, I got permission to write the complete adaptation of my Peter Pan prequel. My teacher's a little skeptical about whether my main character (Mrs. Darling as a child) is interesting enough, but nevertheless, I'm jazzed that he's allowing me to explore that- in a full script. I've got what accumulates to about half of it (40 pages), but I think he wants me to write the first act first... eep! I'm not a linear writer at all! Thankfully, I have the advantage of knowing my project pretty well already.

Hm... I think someone's smoking under my window... gross.

What to Workshop?

2010-10-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

During Thursday's class, my Poetry & Fiction teacher informed us that there was a writing workshop happening on campus in November and if we wanted a spot, we had to submit our material immediately. I looked on jealously while my classmates with computers fired off e-mails to the organizer.

Thankfully, I sent him an e-mail right after class and got a spot in the workshop. Hooray! But now I have no idea what to submit. I need to give them up to six pages of double-spaced prose (or some poetry, but, er... I don't have any), and I have NO idea what I'm going to turn in. I have six pages of fiction that I really like, but it's six pages single-spaced and once I work on the suggestions given to me by my classmates, it'll be longer. What am I going to submit?!

In other news, I completed my rewrite of my second scene for Play & Screenwriting and I'm really happy with it. It went from ten pages to sixteen pages and I had to add two more very minor characters, but I'm still pleased.
I have a two-page monologue due for that class tomorrow... though I've been thinking about it a lot, I haven't started. But I think that may be for the best- then I won't over-think it.

Writer on Campus!

2010-10-15T18:10:00.001-07:00

Tonight, I went to an awesome talk through the Writers Return to Campus program at my university. The YA author Frankie Mallis spoke tonight about the publishing business, the process of getting an agent, networking, and a few other things. I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and took pages of notes! It was inspirational to see someone from my own school doing so well! Frankie, if you're reading this, thanks for coming!

In other news, I'm sorry about being so lax with posting lately. I've been super busy with the start of rehearsals for my next play and continuing rehearsals for Alice. But still, I don't want to be slacking, considering that I'll be doing both shows during NaNoWriMo- which is only two weeks away! Ahhh!

Reexamining

2010-10-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

Wow... so remember back in August when I was talking about how my free, easy schedule would make NaNoWriMo super easy because I'd have all of this free time?

Yeah, that was before I was cast in two shows that overlap each other. Alice in Wonderland runs from the end of this month until the first weekend in November, and then yesterday I was cast in another show that starts rehearsals tomorrow and runs from the end of November to the beginning of December. And since we're getting started so late, pretty much every day from Wednesday to Sunday is a rehearsal day.

As an actor, I'm not complaining- I'm jazzed that in the next four days, I have seven rehearsals. But it IS going to my NaNo really difficult because not only do we have rehearsals, but I am playing one of the leads with A LOT of lines and I have to have them all memorized by the last day of Alice performances.

But I shall pulol through. In the end, I may have to compensate for lost words with the 9,000 or so I already have written, but I hope I won't have to. I just have to reexamine my plan of attack.

Exciting News!

2010-10-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

I got some amazing news this afternoon when I went down to the theatre office. The "office" is a triple-wide trailer where they stick all of us theatre types, and when I arrived there to sign up for tomorrow's feild trip to NYC, my teacher told me something exciting- I'd gotten the job I applied for on Friday!

The job entails working with kids of various ages (from elementary up to high school) to create their own plays which will then be performed by professional actors, or so I've heard. Thirteen of us applied and they were meant to only take seven, but in the end, they liked all of us so much that they hired all thirteen!

I'm really excited. Though I have no actual aspirations to be a teacher, I do like working with kids and I love playwrighting, so this will be great! As I was working like a crazy woman on my writing resume two weekends ago, I couldn't figure out why I cared so much. Only then did I realise just how much I wanted the position.

So now that I am embarking on this new adventure, expecting to read my chronicles of being a playwrighting TA!

Planning Phase

2010-10-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've started into the novel planning again. I'm very excited about this novel, and I've been discovering a lot about my characters these past few planning days. It's exciting.

In working on a scene that will come at the end of the novel, Lyddie is discussing an issue with her mother, a similar hardship they both faced at almost the same times in their respective lives. When I first thought about her mother, I saw her as a much different person than Lyddie. She is, in some ways- she's not as abrasive, a little less ambitious. But they're also incredibly alike- overconfidence is their weakness, as is taking on too much. It was so cool to find this out as I was writing a semi-monologue for Leah (Lyddie's mother.)

Sorry for the random post... I'm just excited :p

WIP Wednesday

2010-10-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I wrote very quickly for an English assignment last week. It's semi-autobiographical up to the point after her agent calls. To the actors who might read this, I apologise if the film stuff is incorrect. It's shamefully been years since I've been on a real film set. Enjoy!

When people think of actors, they think of movie stars- Tom Hanks, Kate Winslet, Steve Martin. Or sometimes they think of Broadway performers- Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Hunter Foster. Who they don’t think of are people like me- those at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak. Today, however, is my first step toward changing all of that. I plan to knock today’s audition out of the park, nail the role, and get my name in lights… or at least in the credits.

I locate the office of the Gilmore Group, a brand-new casting agency here in town. It’s very small, but the interior is like most casting offices I’ve been to: sparse and stylish with posters of past projects on the wall, usually signed by the leading actors. The posters here are for movies I don’t recognize, probably small indie projects filmed somewhere in Colorado. But hey, I’m not knocking it. I would give my left arm to be doing one of those. In order to do that, however, I need to focus on today’s audition.

What everyday people (as we term them, “non-actors”, or sometimes just “normal people”) don’t understand about films is that every single little part is laboriously auditioned for by people like me. In a huge movie, when the main character enters an office building and asks for the office of Mr. Smith, the woman behind the desk who says only, “Just go down the hall and to the left,” had to come to a casting agency just like this and sweat over how to make those nine words interesting enough for the directors to choose her. It’s not easy. The amount of time I’ve spent pacing around my tiny apartment saying single lines like, “I’d recommend the salad special,” and “She came by a few minutes ago,” over and over, trying to get just the right inflection, is embarrassing. But it’s also necessary for the reason that I see when I walk into the lobby of the Gilmore Group.

There, sitting on the various couches and chairs, are twenty girls who look exactly like me. I tried to mix it up this time- the character description said that the role I’m trying out for (Girl Walking Dog) could be either funky or conservative, and I went with the former, thinking that the cool red blouse I got would be perfect. Apparently, however, every other 5’5” not-as-slender-as-we-should-be dishwater blonde in the city also had the same idea, and we’re all sitting in the same room. I should have gone conservative…

I try not to let it bother me as I go over to the sign-in table. I find my name on the list, write in my arrival time and the title of my agency, and hand over a copy of what is my only identity in this world: my headshot and resume. In the picture, I actually do look pretty. The hair and make-up lady easily tamed my hair in a way I never seem to manage and my blue shirt brings out my eyes. I should have worn blue today! That would have made all the difference! Well, no going back now. I see the assistant on the other side of the table reading over my resume. Hm, a raised eyebrow. Is that her being impressed by my long list of theatre credits, or is she silently scoffing at the fact that my “big” TV appearance was as “Mennonite Girl” in a Lifetime movie?

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. My resume is my resume and I’ve worked hard to get it in the shape it is now. I take one of the few remaining seats among my doppelgangers and fish around my bag for my script. It takes a second as my hand selects, then rejects, the emergency make-up, the extra headshots and the cell phone, finally locating my lines. I pull them out and skim over the words highlighted in yellow. I have to get this right. This is the kind of audition I’ve been waiting for since I started acting ten years ago. Because this isn’t a try-out for a one-liner. No. No, this time, I have five lines. Five! That’s enough to pass as a “featured” role! It might seem paltry, but this is the stuff of dreams for people on my level. I can’t screw this up.

While some of the girls around me are sitting quietly- some reading over the same lines, others listening to music- most are doing that actory thing that I detest: “chatting” with their competition while slipping in the titles of companies and people that they’ve (supposedly) worked with. Personally, I don’t think any of us has much bragging to do, because if we did, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now, waiting to prove just how naturally we can speak. I try to block out the inane one-upping game and turn my attention back to my lines.

“Taryn Kinsley?” We all fall silent as a casting director’s assistant opens the door to the audition room. “Is there a Taryn Kinsley here?” No one responds as we all look around for the absent actress. Who on earth would miss this opportunity? Finally, a girl across the room, who has been listening to music, starts and pulls out her ear buds. “Did you say Taryn? That’s me, that’s me, I’m coming!” She drops her iPod in her bag, takes her script from a side table, and hurries over to the assistant. “Emily Davis, you’re on deck!” the assistant calls just before the door shuts behind Taryn.

Upon hearing my name, I sit up a little straighter on the couch and make sure that my hair is not frizzing out. Taryn will spend approximately three minutes in that room and I need to be ready for my respective three as soon as they summon me.

It passes both too slowly and too quickly. When the assistant opens the door to dismiss Taryn, I stand, the script shaking in my hands. I should have memorized it, then my nerves wouldn’t be so apparent. Oh, well, they know I’m nervous anyway. We all are. And not just today; the fact that we’ve basically chosen a life of unemployment makes us all perpetually anxious.

I step past the assistant and into the small room. Squeezed into it is a big TV monitor, a camera, a table and three chairs, at which the casting directors are sitting, a cameraman, and also a potted plant, which I guess is supposed to make us feel more comfortable but only makes the space even more cramped.

The assistant reminds the agents of my name and one of them reaches her hand across the table. “Hello, Emily. Thanks for coming in today.” I shake her hand, hoping she can’t feel it shaking. “If you could just take your mark, we’ll get started.”

My gaze automatically drops to the floor as I seek out the tape that will show me where to stand. There are a variety of markings, each meaning something different, and finally I locate today’s: a blue ‘T.’ I step over to it and place my feet on either side of the T’s base. That film acting class might have cost a fortune, but I’d have looked like a moron just then if I hadn’t learned stuff like this.

“Okay, Emily, you’ll be reading with Frank today, so whenever you’re ready.”

I look down at the script and for a second, the words look foreign to me. But then I take a deep breath and remember the time I put into this. I practiced these lines. I gave my character a name. I even gave her a backstory, for God’s sake! I probably know more about Girl Walking Dog than the people in front of me. Now I just have to prove that to them.

Frank and I read through the short scene in less than two minutes. It’s not exactly plot-furthering material, but I get a laugh on the third line about the pigeons from the guy sitting to the right. That’s something, at least.

“Good.” It’s the woman talking again. “That was great, Emily.” There’s a pause, something that usually indicates that a “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” is forthcoming. But just as I start to utter the requisite “thank you” that comes before an exit, the man on the left- who didn’t change expression during my entire read- sits forward.

“Can I see that again… Emily?” he says, his eyes straying to my resume to check my name. “But can you do it with a French accent? And maybe make her a little more dead-pan?”

I say “Sure!” as I give myself a second to internally celebrate. Getting direction is like gold. Direction is like getting a “maybe,” and a chance to turn that “maybe” into a “yes.” But my inner party dies down when I recall what he just said. “You wanted a French accent?”

“Yes,” the man says. “We were thinking it might be funnier if she weren’t American, and I see that you have ‘French accent’ on your resume.”

Crap. I knew I should have taken that off. I used to be able to do a great French accent, but the last time I used it was years ago. I don’t even want to know how rusty it’s going to be if I haul it out now. But there’s no saying no at an audition. Fake it ‘til you make it, as some say.

I clear my throat and hold the script up a little higher. ‘Think Marion Cotillard. Think La Vie En Rose!’ Why didn’t I watch that movie more closely? Well, can’t fix that now. Frank says the first line and I respond with mine. And to my surprise, my accent isn’t too bad. I slip into something that sounds like British/Spanish at one point, but overall… not cringe-worthy. At the last minute, I remember that the casting director wanted it more dead-pan and rather than giving my pigeon line the usual comic nudge, I just say it without inflection. The guy on the right chuckles more heartily than last time and as the reading comes to a close, I’m delighted. I did it! And they liked me! Sally Field, I understand your speech now!

“Nice job, Emily,” the woman says as the cameraman. “We’ll let you know.” And then I’m escorted from the room. This is a little disappointing; I had been hoping to be offered the part then and there, but again, I’m not Kate Winslet. But as I pick up my bag and head for the door, I feel great. I did what I came here to do. I give the girl behind the desk a cheery wave as I breeze through the door.

* * * * * *

I didn’t get it. The audition was two weeks ago and my agent hasn’t called. This is so disappointing. No, cut the professionalism- this just sucks. I worked so hard. I thought they liked me. But I guess one of my identical competitors was what they wanted.

I’ve been on a few auditions since then, but none of them went as well. Maybe I’m just not cut out for film and television. I’ve always considered theatre my strong point anyway, although I haven’t been getting any of those parts either. I used to get parts all the time! I used to be in three shows at once! What happened? Did I peak in my teens? Oh, God, that’s depressing.

I return to the spreadsheet I’ve been making for my boss. He always tells me how good I am at my job, so I guess I could just keep doing this for the rest of my life… But I don’t want to! I’m trained to be an actor! I want to do that- I have to do that, I don’t have any other skills (making spreadsheets doesn’t count.)

On the floor, my bag starts to vibrate and my heart can ‘t help but jump. Could it be-? No, it’s ridiculous to hope that it’s my agent about the audition after two weeks have gone by, but try and tell that to my heart. It pounds as I frantically dig for my phone. I finally pull it out and look at the screen. It is my agent! I press the ‘answer’ button too many times in my hurry and worry that I’ve hung up on him.

“Hello? Hello?!”

“Emily!” My agent, Bill, sounds cheery as always. I feel like he uses that voice to counter the cutthroat business we’re in.

“Hi, Bill,” I say nervously. “Do you have an audition for me?” That can be the only other reason he’s calling.

“Actually,” Bill begins and my heart tries to pound out my chest. “I’ve got some good news for you. The Gilmore Group just called and they want you to be their Girl With Dog.”

“Really?!” I squeal, abandoning all pretense. “Oh, my God, that’s great!”

“It sure is,” Bill says. I can hear his smile under his bushy moustache. “You’re filming tomorrow. Be at the Paramount lot by five a.m, and make sure to bring that accent. They loved it! I’m having a messenger bring over your pages and parking permit tonight. Great job, kid, and have fun tomorrow.” He hangs up.

My hands are shaking. I did it! I’m Girl With Dog! Me! I immediately run to my boss’ office and ask for the next day off. If you wonder why actors are always working boring paper-pushing day jobs, this is why- we won’t be missed should be actually get to live the dream for a day or two.

The next morning at 4:45 a.m., I pull into the Paramount lot. I feel like a star as I flash the guard my permit and pull into a parking space. I feel even cooler as I sit in the hair and make-up trailer with a cup of coffee, trying to wake up as they powder my face and style my hair.

Before I know it, I’m standing in the middle of a backlot park, surrounded by trees and benches. I’m wearing a stylish jogging suit, my hair swept up in a simple yet somehow flattering ponytail. When we start to film, the animal trainer will hand over “my” dog, an adorable huge, friendly Golden Retriever named Boris.

“Hey.”

I turn and my mouth immediately goes dry. Because standing right in front of me is Brian Greene, a new but wildly famous actor and the star of this movie. Though I read with Frank at the audition, today I’ll be exchanging lines with the real thing.

“H-hi,” I finally stammer.

Brian smiles perfectly. “Have you done much film work before?” he asks as a make-up artist swoops in to take the shine off of his forehead.

“Uh… a little.” No need to bring up what the roles were.

“It’s great isn’t it? Nothing like it.” He smiles again, but before I can answer, the director shouts, “Quiet, please. Actors to places!” Brian and I situate ourselves over our respective tape marks. “Okay, we’re going for a take!” The animal trainer hands me Boris’ leash as another man snaps a slate in front of the nearest camera. “Scene thirty-four, take one.”

“Background action! Sound!”

“Rolling.”

“And… action!”

Brian leisurely speaks his first words and I respond, accent and all, while patting Boris head like he’s my own dog. Since I only have a few lines, the scene is over in just a few seconds. The director pronounces it fine, but we do another one for safety. This is thrilling- my dreams are coming true!

But every thrill must come to an end, and this one does much too quickly. Before I know it, Boris is being led away by the handler and Brian is giving me one last smile before he goes off to get ready for his next scene. I’m quickly escorted to wardrobe to change into my own clothes and then it’s time for me to go. I’m told that the movie is expected to be released in seven months and to watch out for it.

Ten months later, I’m watching TV and suddenly, there’s the trailer for the movie. I sit bolt upright and immediately call my best friend and make a plan to go see it on opening day. Maybe it’s narcissistic, but I want to see myself on the big screen!

At the cinema, we settle into our seats, soda and popcorn at the ready. I have only a vague idea of when my scene might be, as I never saw the full script. But as soon as I see Brian jogging in a familiar-looking park, dressed in the same suit he was wearing when we filmed together, I nudge Chloe. “This is it! This is it!”

Brian jogs around a corner and I know that any minute, he’s going to approach onscreen me. But then he makes his way over to a police officer, exchanges a few words with him, and jogs off. The next shot is of him unlocking his car and climbing in.

“Where were you?” Chloe whispers. “Did I miss it? Is it coming later?”

I’m so confused. “I don’t get it… we filmed in that park. He was wearing that same outfit…” I trail off, realising that my scene has met the dreaded cutting room floor. I shake my head at Chloe and sigh. I had always known that the scene could suffer that fate, but I’d hoped that my incredible and Oscar-worthy performance (I’m kidding, of course) would make it worth keeping.

“Well,” Chloe says. “At least you got to film with Brian Greene. And hey, maybe it’ll be on the extras!”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, taking a handful of popcorn. I’m pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to see myself onscreen, but Chloe’s right. I got to exchange real and fictional words with a major movie star- who proved to be a nice guy. The $1500 check didn’t hurt either. I make a plan to buy the DVD as soon as it comes out. If anything, I can put the scene on my reel. I smile, sit back in my seat, and watch the rest of the movie. One day- one day for sure- I’d see myself up there.

A Wonderful Problem

2010-10-02T20:36:00.001-07:00

Today I got tired of working on all the school-specific things I had to do (study abroad applications, resume for a job interview, etc. etc.), so I decided to return to my Peter Pan script. I've been working on it off and on this school year, but my two writing classes have been demanding all of my writing attention, and so poor Peter and Mary have been neglected for too long.

I touched up a few scenes here and there, put all the completed scenes I had written into a document (24 pages so far), and jotted down some plot ideas. I really want to use this script as my final project for Play & Screenwriting, though I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to- the teacher doesn't seem too pleased with my writing, so who knows if I'll get the special permission necessary to compose the 90-page script for credit.

As part of my work, I decided to look over some feedback from the class that had seen and performed in the first drafts of my scenes. One of the strongest ones was simply asking what would happen if one character did a certain thing, and it's something I'd been wondering myself. A few minutes later, I found myself beginning on a scene that would answer that question.

At first, it was just kind of a 'Let's see where this goes' thing. But now I've got a good-lengthed scene and... I really like where it's going. The problem? The one reasno I hadn't written the scene already is because I knew I could never use it in the play. To put this scene (and, if it's going where I think it's going, yet another scene) in between the two it's meant to, it'll slow the pace way down, and I don't know if I want that. But what I do want is this scene. In my play. Now. Unfortunately, there's a 99.9% chance that it won't work, and that's making me sad.

*sigh*

Oh well. Best get to bed- early rehearsal tomorrow, then I'm heading home for about twelve hours. Yay, broken teeth and dentist appointments :p

WIP Wednesday

2010-09-29T07:04:00.001-07:00

Time seemed to drag to infinity as I waited for Sarah. The clock ticked loudly.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

I clutched the locket in my hand and opened and closed it with my thumb. Finally, I heard a noise outside the front door of my tiny apartment. I went to the door and opened it.

“About time you showed up. You’re half an hour late. I need to get up early to-“ I stopped talking. The person standing in front of me was not Sarah… or at least, not Sarah as I had seen her before.

Usually neat as a pin, Sarah’s clothes were torn, her hair in tangles, and there was dirt on her face except where tears had streaked it clean. As soon as she saw me, she started to cry.

“I can’t take the locket back, Avery,” she sobbed.

This shocked me a little. I couldn’t keep the thing myself. Wearing any sort of finery at the factory, where we worked, was not only against the rules, it was dangerous. Leaning into the machines like we did, it was easy enough for a girl to get a necklace or long hair pulled into the machine, and the rest of her with it. Leaving it at my sad apartment, however, was also out of the question. The door’s lock had been missing since I took the place and I had a good idea that my neighbor was a kleptomaniac.

“What happened, Sarah?” I asked with concern, guiding her to the sagging couch in the middle of the room.

It took her a few seconds to get ahold of herself. “I was walking home from work and I took the back way; I didn’t want to walk through the protest on Park. I was about halfway when someone came up behind me and grabbed me. I couldn’t see them at first, but she told me to give her the locket and I could tell by her voice that it was Kathleen. I had asked her to take care of the locket before I asked you, and she told me no.”

“But… why would she attack you?” I asked. I knew Kathleen- she worked six people down the row and was always dutiful and quiet.

New tears trickled down Sarah’s face. “She said she needed to trade it for money- that her sister Elizabeth was sick. I told her I didn’t have it, but she didn’t believe me and tried to convince me to give it up. I can’t take it back, Avery, I can’t. I want to help Kathleen, but that locket’s all I have.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes as I tried to think. I couldn’t believe the lengths mouse-like Kathleen had taken to get some cash, but we all needed it for one reason or another. I didn’t want to keep the locket myself, but Sarah wouldn’t take it back.

Finally, I got up and motioned my friend to do the same. “Help me.” She followed me over to the woodstove on the other side of the room. It wasn’t lit this time of year, so I instructed her to help me push it away from the wall. We couldn’t move it far, but I didn’t need much room to carry out my plan. I took my small knife- the one I used to cut the threads at the factory- from my pocket and used it to cut a small square in the cheap drywall. I took the square out and set the locket inside, replacing the piece of wall. Sarah started to cry again as we pushed the stove back into place.

A Non Writing- Related Question

2010-09-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone. Pardon the deviance from my blog theme, but I am in need of some tech help.

I'm creating a new blog on this account to record my semester in England and I found the PERFECT layout. But since it was created outside of Blogger (though still for Blogger), I'm not sure how to apply it. I know you have to do some HTML stuff, but when I tried it, it didn't go well.

Any help at all would be appreciated!

Failure Demonstrated

2010-09-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Today I was told by one of my awesome teachers that one must be willing to fail big. As I told you yesterday, I did that last night. And I'm going to embrace it by posting what I submitted to my class. While you may be tempted to mock me mercilessly for it, I ask that if you must, you also give me some improvement tips. Because God knows this piece needs it. So... here it is. Steel yourselves.

CHARACTERS:
JILL: a woman in her late twenties.
ELIZABETH: a woman in her late forties.

(JILL enters, wheeling a cart full of file boxes. She stops in front of a desk where ELIZABETH is sitting, immersed in something she is reading.)
JILL. Okay. I’m done. They’re all filed.

ELIZABETH. (without looking up) You alphabetized the submissions?

JILL. Yes.

ELIZABETH. And the book order forms?

JILL. Yes

ELIZABETH. Did you fax the notes from yesterday’s consultation?

JILL. Last night.

ELIZABETH. Fine. Put them in the storeroom for now.

JILL. The storeroom?

ELIZABETH. Have you forgotten where it is?

JILL. No, but… you told me I had to have this done by five so you could take them to
the meeting.

ELIZABETH. Well, we don’t need them anymore. Damian had them on his computer and it’s just easier to do it that way.

JILL. (defeated) So you don’t need the copies either?

ELIZABETH. (returning to her work) No.

JILL. (under her breath as she makes to the wheel the cart away) Unbelievable.

ELIZABETH. What was that?

JILL. Nothing.

ELIZABETH. Jill, if you can’t get over the fact that sometimes plans can change,
you’re going to have a hard time getting along in this business. I suggest you get used to it or start looking for another position fast because the job market is going nowhere good.

JILL. I’ll take these to the storeroom.

ELIZABETH. (calling after her) Oh, and we’ll be here late since David forgot to get samples in yesterday and we have to make sure it doesn’t undo all the work we’ve already put in.

JILL. (turning back) But-

ELIZABETH. I know you asked to leave early, but we can’t spare you tonight.

JILL. Elizabeth, come on. You know I never ask for any favors, but I really need to leave by six tonight.

ELIZABETH. We all have lives, but we both need to put them aside tonight. We’ve got tests to run.

JILL. But-

ELIZABETH. And when you pick up dinner, make sure to get something for yourself. I need you take a look at these papers before the meeting.

(JILL doesn’t answer, just goes over to the storeroom and rolls the cart in. That done, she checks that ELIZABETH is occupied and takes her phone out of her pocket and dials it.)

JILL. (in a low voice) Hey, Sarah, it’s me.

(ELIZABETH’s phone rings.)

ELIZABETH: (picking it up) Harcourt Enterprises, Elizabeth speaking… oh, hi, Terry.

JILL. Listen, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get away in time… well, I know…

ELIZABETH. I’m fine. It’s just a little crazy here today. I think I’ll be here until
ten or so.

JILL. Probably until the end of my life… Ten… I’m sorry, you know I want to be there before he goes in, but I can’t lose this job! We’re lucky donors are covered by insurance, otherwise tonight wouldn’t even be an issue.

ELIZABETH. I could, but I’d rather not. I need to keep busy, you know? Keep my mind off it, otherwise I’ll spend too much time worrying.

JILL. Sarah, stop it, you know I want to be there, but I can’t get away. Anyway,
maybe it’ll keep my mind off it. I know it’s the right thing to do, but I don’t know why my husband has to choose to put his life in danger for someone else’s.

ELIZABETH. I’m just glad we found someone. He’s been waiting for so long that I’d kind of lost hope… No, he didn’t. You know Paul. Never sees the bad in any situation.

JILL. …No, he was completely willing. I mean, how else do you think his name ended up on the list? I swear, he practically did a dance when they contacted him. “Hooray, they’re going to take away my kidney!” I don’t understand it. Does that make me selfish?... (sarcastic) Thanks.

(JILL, after checking that ELIZABETH is still occupied, crosses to a tiny kitchen and begins to prepare two instant dinners, still on the phone.)

ELIZABETH. Thanks, that’s good to know… Well, as much as he wants to, he can’t work for another few months and I’ll even be driving him around for a few weeks. But I don’t mind... Well, when he’s working I don’t get to see him until dinner every night, so I think this will actually be nice.

JILL. It’s going to be awful… Well, Stephen needs to be driven everywhere for awhile, which I’m totally happy to do, but I probably won’t be able to do because I can’t get away from my stupid job, but I can’t quit my stupid job because Stephen can’t work... Yeah, right. You haven’t met my boss. She would have zero sympathy for me. The woman is a robot, I swear.

ELIZABETH. No, no one… I just don’t think it needs to be spread around. Besides, we don’t talk about much beyond business here, and none of them know Paul, so what would it matter to them?... Well, that’s the beauty of being my own boss, I can work my schedule around it and no one questions it.

JILL. Yeah, and get this- I can’t ask for those times off, but I took a look at the schedule yesterday and she’s given herself all of this time off for the next century… I know… Oh, it is? (Looks at her watch) Oh… Yeah, uh, just tell him I love him and I’ll be there as soon as I can… I don’t know, just as soon as I can, okay?

ELIZABETH. Already? Isn’t it a little early?... (Nervous) Oh, I see… No, I’m fine… Yes, I’m sure. I just need to… not think about it for a little while, okay?... That sounds good. Tell him I love him and I’ll be there when he wakes up… Okay, thanks. Thanks so much for helping out, Terry… All right, good-bye.

(JILL sees ELIZABETH hanging up her phone.)

JILL. Listen, I’ve gotta go, I’ll be there as soon as I can… Okay, thanks. For everything. I’ll talk to you soon… ‘Bye.

(She hangs up, picks up the two dinners and carries them both over to ELIZABETH’s desk. She hands one to ELIZABETH and sits down with hers, pulling the file folder toward her. They both eat in silence as they attend to their respective work.
Lights down.)

Success/Failure

2010-09-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today was a huge day, writing-wise, because it was my first day of having my writing workshopped in my two major composition classes.

For Poetry & Fiction, we're required to submit our pieces the class day before our work is to be critiqued, and when I submitted mine on Thursday evening, I was pretty confident about what I was sending in. After all, it was just a continuation of what my classmates already liked. We weren't really encouraged to submit "past" work (though it's still a WIP), but we were allowed to if we so wished. I decided to turn in something I had already worked on because I don't write well on demand. I like to fine-tune things until I don't think they can be fine-tuned anymore.
So anyway, I turned this piece in and I was feeling good about it. I felt good about up until last night. Then I woke up this morning with butterflies. 'Why did I send that?' 'What if they hate it after they liked the other part?'
Of course, there was nothing I could do to stop the inevitable. They'd already read it anyway, so my worries were moot. I walked into class very nervous, sat through the first person's presentation very nervously. Then it was my turn.

And... they liked it. They liked the dialogue and the pace and a good number of other things. Of course, it wasn't all rainbows and flowers- there was critisism. My teacher's pretty good at asking probing questions that get the class and the writer thinking. So after this, the class asked me a lot of good questions and gave me suggestions. And while it was technically "critical"... it was incredibly HELPFUL. Like, there was some stuff that really got me thinking and will cause some big tweaks to be put into not only the scene I gave, but the larger story. It was great.

So because of this success, I was excited to go to my Play & Screenwriting class. My first scene, a five minute piece, would be read and critiqued. I put in a ton of work into the piece- it took me about a week and a half to get the structure that I wanted and I was pretty proud of how it went. So I skipped off to class this evening and had my scene read second.
Almost as soon as it started to be read, I knew something was wrong. When did the pace get so slow? Why were there so many run-on sentences for the older character? And why was there so little conflict in the beginning of the scene?
But these were only the minor problems. The further we got into the reading, the more the tension grew in the air. Part of our workshopping is that we start off with something we liked and you could just feel people going, 'What on earth am I going to say about this?!'
It wasn't that it was terrible written. It wasn't. But I guess I was so focused on making that certain structure work that I forgot about other important stuff, namely characterization, and it was a glaring problem.
When we finally, blessedly reached the end, there was a long silence as people desperately tried to think of things to say that were complimentary. Thankfully, they actually tried and didn't resort to things like, "Well, the paper you used is certainly... white..." But there wasn't much to be said.
My piece was (nicely) torn to shreds. But it wasn't even the critiques they made- it was that the things they felt were going on- that the older character was this evil, evil woman and the younger character was this poor overworked girl and the main theme was that the latter felt overworked... that wasn't what I was going for at all. When I wrote it, I saw the older woman as a person who was covering up nerves through bossiness and I actually worried that the younger woman would come off as ridiculously shallow.

I read a quote recently that if there is any confusion as to what's going on in a book, play, or any piece of writing, it's always the writer's fault that the problem is present- the reader's just doing the best they can with what they're given. So I wasn't upset with my class for not understanding what I was going for, because I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't there.
But to be honest, I was still shocked at how badly the whole thing went. I had set mysef up for success, so excited from the afternoon that I honestly hadn't even considered failure. So when it came, it was ten times worse. I almost cried in the middle of class.

Now I'm a little overwhelmed. Not only do I have to have the rewrites for this awful scene, which is going to be painful and due in two weeks, but I have a ten-page scene due next week, a new fiction piece in two weeks, and other stuff to memorize for, like, yesterday.

Sometimes, the things you love can be the things that stress you out the most.

Taking the Plunge

2010-09-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

Today was a day I've been dreading since my first day of Poetry & Fiction- the day that I had to compare a piece of my writing to an author that had influenced me. Though Libba Bray is my #1 favorite writer, I just couldn't compare my writing to hers, so I went to another of my favorite authors- Maureen Johnson.

Actually, MJ and I do have sort of similar styles, or at least the way we implement our comparable senses of humor into our work is similar. So even though I can only wish I was as good as her, I decided to do my project on that comparison.

When I got up in front of the class, I was shaking, I was so nervous. I always speed-talk, but when I get nervous, it's gets worse by about a thousand percent. So I sped through her history and why she ifluenced me and then read a short excerpt from Devilish, one of my favorites of her novels. And then I read my excerpt.

The snippet I read was one I showed you guys a long time ago, from Q when Eliza and Jonah first meet. But something you guys probably already know is that sharing your work over the internet, to live yet invisible people, is completly different from standing in front of a bunch of people and reading your own words to them. I was terrified and shook a lot and kept my eyes on the paper only like you're not supposed to do. Finally, I reached the end of the page, looked up at the class and was astonished.

Because guess what? They all looked interested, some even impressed. And during the question and answer session, one girl asked me if I was still working on the novel and how far I'd gotten, and the girl after her said she really wanted to read it when I was finished.

Now I know. This praise from my fellow college kids is not the road to publication, necessarily. But I was on such a high afterwards that it almost felt like it. People liked what I'd written. They liked my little WIP baby!

This makes me a little (though not completely) less scared for next week, when I have to turn in ten pages of my fiction for a class-wide critique.

Tonight, another writing class! I've been working on the assignment (a five-page script) and am stuck on page three due to my determination to choose a really hard style of writing for my first piece. Someone save me from myself :P

WIP Wednesday

2010-09-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

I'm doing what I've always read that I should do as a writer, but never actually did: I am setting aside a few hours out of each day to devote solely to writing. Right now, it's at three per day, and I've scheduled them outside of my normal writing hours (9 pm- 3 am) so hopefully I can get some product in the beginning of the day by force and then continue working on that product when my brain is actually working. The curse of being a night owl.

So anyway, what I'm working feverishly on right now is my Peter Pan Inspiration, so here's a scene from it. All you need to know if that this is a teenaged Mrs. Darling after she ran away from Neverland after she had a big fight with Peter.

(MARY is in her room when she hears a tap at the window. She drops what she’s doing, runs over to it, and throws it open. PETER flies through and lands on the toy chest.)

PETER. Found you!

MARY. Peter! What are you doing here?

PETER. Where have you been, Mary? The boys all miss you so. Our house is such a mess.
MARY. I came back, Peter.

PETER. Well why’d you do that? (He looks around) It’s so dreary here.

(MRS. LIDDELL approaches on the other side of the door but stops when she hears her daughter speaking, apparently to no one.)

MARY. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again…

PETER. Here I am! You must come back right now- the mermaids and the boys are having a swimming contest!

MARY. Do you forgive me then, Peter?

PETER. Forgive you? For what?

MARY. Well… I left Neverland.

PETER. Well, you did break the rules of hide and seek, but you’ve always been a good hider. Of course I forgive you. Now come on!

MARY. No, Peter. I left because you were angry with me and I said… some terrible things. I’m sorry for that. I was just homesick and upset. I didn’t mean them at all.

(MR. LIDDELL comes through the hallway and MRS. LIDDELL silently motions for him to join her.)

PETER. (hardly acknowledging her apology) It’s fine. Now, I’ll just sprinkle you with some fairy dust and we’ll be off. The boys will be so happy I’ve found you! (He grabs her hand, but MARY doesn’t move.) What’s wrong?

MARY. I can’t go, Peter.

PETER. Yes you can. Just move your feet, silly. (He pulls on her hand again, but still she doesn’t move. He thinks she’s playing a game.) Ma-ary!

MARY. Peter, you don’t understand. I can’t go. My parents were so angry when they saw I had left-

PETER. Parents don’t know what fun is.

MARY. But they know other things, like how to send me away if I don’t act like a young lady.

PETER. (alarmed) They’re sending you away?! Where?

MARY. They won’t if I act like I should. But that means I can’t go to Neverland again.

PETER. Ever?

MARY. That’s right.

PETER. I hate your parents.

MARY. Peter…

PETER. Don’t you?

MARY. I- I…

PETER. I do. They’re mean and I hate them. I don’t want you to live with mean people. You need to come with me. Now.

MARY. (pained) I can’t…

PETER. Yes, you can.

MARY. (tearful) I don’t want them to send me away, Peter.

PETER. They can’t get you in Neverland! No grown-ups allowed! You’ll be safe!

MARY. I’m not going.

PETER. Yes you are.

MARY. No.

PETER. (stomping his foot) Mary!

MARY. (turning away from him) You need to go now, Peter. I don’t want my parents to hear me talking to you.

PETER. I’m not leaving without you.

MARY. You’ll have to. (She walks over to the window and holds it open for him. They stare at each other for a long moment.) Good-bye, Peter.

PETER. You’re wrong, Mary. You should be coming with me. They won’t be nice to you here.

MARY. I’ll miss you.

(After another long moment, PETER takes his leave out the window. MARY watches him sadly, but then closes the window firmly, latches it shut, and pulls the curtains over it.

Out in the hallway, MR. and MRS. LIDDELL look at each other in alarm.)
Lights down.)

Um...

2010-09-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

So I finally finally FINALLY had my first session of a class I've been wanting to take since before I was accepted to my school- a class for playwrighting and screenwriting. I was excited. I am excited. But here's the thing:

It's going to kick my butt.

Yes, my other writing class (Poetry & Fiction) is going to be a challenge for me because, well, there's poetry in there, and sharing/workshopping my work is always hard for me. But playwrighting... that's something totally different. I'm even more precious about my plays than I am about my novels. Maybe because there's less there to protect it? It's easier to realise that you need to cut out that overdone paragraph than hear that five lines of dialogue in a scene from a play need to be cut out. I thought I was ahead of the game, already having a good chunk of a new play written but... now I'm starting to second guess myself. I'm very, very daunted.

I guess I'm just getting to the point in my writing where I'm coming across roomfuls of people who are just as serious as I am. I had the same moment in my freshman acting classes, that realisation that there are people out there who care as much as I do.
My freshman writing classes, however, were a joke. I wrote stuff for those classes that, had I turned in while taking my high school AP classes, my AP teachers would have gone, "What is this crap?" and torn it up in front of my face. I was the star writer in my freshman writing classes largely because I was the only one who cared.

But now I'm going to classes where my classmates also read before class. They write every day as well. I'm not the only one nodding in understanding. AND IT'S FREAKING ME OUT. In a good way. And also in a what-is-this-parallel-universe? kind of way.

So here are my assignments for this week: start work on a project that discusses one of my inspirations as a writer and then produce and/or choose a piece we've written that shows how we're like them. Compare myself to my favorite writers? That seems sacreligous somehow.
And also write a five page scene with a conflict. I'm excited about this one. But scared, too.

And amid all of this writing will be lots of memorization. 'Cause guess what? I'm playing Alice in Alice in Wonderland :)

WIP Wednesday

2010-09-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

Bit down at the moment for things non-writing related, so I shall not bore you. Instead, I will live up to my obligations. This is a short story I wrote my freshman year of college, off the prompt that asked me to begin a story with "The hallway was silent."

The hallway was silent, and that was what put me on edge. Had the corridor been filled with the usual rush of people, I might have been easier. But as it was, I could hear my own heartbeat as I slunk down the hall, trying to get to my destination as quickly as possible.

In the movies, people always have really cool moves- they roll across a hallway or do back handsprings over motion detectors. I, on the other hand, can barely even walk down the hallway without tripping over my own feet. Anyway, I didn’t have time for fancy moves- I was on a mission. I was here to get… my English homework.
Okay, I know I built that up, but this was seriously important. We had been working on a paper in class, and so many people were trying to print theirs out at once that I didn’t have time to get mine. Then, of course, I completely forgot about it at the end of the day. The paper was due tomorrow, worth twenty percent of our grade, so I needed that paper.

‘But Julianna,’ you are burning to ask, ‘Why, in this age of e-mail, didn’t you just send it to yourself?’ I have one thing to say to you: shut up. I was busy, okay? I was working on my paper (and maybe playing around with the photobooth on the computer) and I didn’t get a chance to send it to myself. That’s why I’m here, poised at the classroom door, bobby pin in hand.

In the movies, the person doing the breaking in always sticks the bobby pin in the keyhole, jiggles a little bit, and voila! But it wasn’t until I had inserted the bobby pin into the lock that I realised my error- the keyholes in movies are always those old-fashioned ones. This was a brand new, tiny lock in the middle of a handle. I made to pull the bobby pin out, but it wouldn’t budge. Now Mrs. James has a straightened-out hair clip poking from her door. I think she’ll like it.

As I tried to pull the pin free, the door came open. Oh… it was unlocked the whole time. I slipped in and looked around furtively. In and out quickly, Julianna. Do not get distracted by that book you wanted to borrow. Just get the paper and get out.
I saw the printer out of the corner of my eye. Paper was resting in the tray. I dashed over and grabbed it. My paper! Yes! It was as I was making sure all of the pages were there that I heard a shuffling outside the door. Crap… crap… How could I escape?

My eyes fell on the window. The windows at my school are not easy to get out of, but it was either get away or stay here and get caught. So I opened the window as far as it would go and squeezed through, falling to the ground underneath it. A graceless getaway, but a getaway nonetheless.

I'm Writing Because I'm Nervous

2010-08-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

...And sometimes writing is the only thing that distracts me enough to calm me down (though sometimes the nerves are too much and I can't write anything of substance.)

I'm nervous because tomorrow, I start my junior year of college. Well, classes don't start tomorrow- they begin on Wednesday- but I move in tomorrow. I also have a big audition that I want to nail but am afraid I won't.

How does this relate to writing? Because this is a year of writing challenges, which is both scary and exciting.

CHALLENGE #1: Declaring my writing minor, which I haven't yet officially done (as in, the paper hasn't been signed. Everyone knows, though.) This is a big step for me... bigger than I realised at the moment that was sitting down with my advisor saying, "I want to declare a minor in writing." Bigger than I realised when I spent hours over a few weeks telling my mom all the reasons I wanted to pursue this minor while she said on the other end of the phone, "And what are you going to do with that?" (She asks this of an acting major- ha!) At those points, I was completely confident. It was the Right Choice and I knew it. Now, though I still think it's a good idea, I'm nervous that I've over estimated my writing ability and people will scoff at me.

CHALLENGE #2: Taking a play and screenwriting class. Doesn't seem like a huge deal when you consider how many plays and screenplays I've written, but again, it's the question of quality. And the fact that I'm going to be forced to have people perform my writing after very few revisions. I've only had this done a few times and they were cringe-worthy affairs.

CHALLENGE #3: Taking a Writing in Poetry & Fiction class. I'm less nervous for this because, unlike Play & Screenwriting (which is required for my major) the class won't necessarily contain people I actually know, which will make it easier for me to share. But then there's the poetry part. I strongly, strongly dislike poetry. I can count on one hand the poems I sort of know and like. Other than that, I just don't enjoy it- reading it or writing it. And because it's in the title, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be like middle school honors English (the last time I was forced to write poetry over an extended period of time), where it was just a unit. I think it's gonna be like... a big part of the class. Someone save me from my own poetry...

CHALLENGE #4: Writing a suspense novel in a month. That's this year's NaNo, as you probably know, and it's a genre I haven't tackled before. But it will be made 1000x easier by the fact that it's CONTEMPORARY! Let's hear it for much less research (despite the fact that an e-mail just arrived from a friend containing a thirteen page paper on the mathematics of light as possible source material... oy...)

And add into that that I'm living with four other people this year (though only rooming with one), none of whom I've lived with before, so you never know how that's going to go, and my plethora of auditions this week... I'm freaking out, guys.

WIP Wednesday

2010-08-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Some more of NaNo '10 for you :)

“Now, Lyddie, you have an appointment on the third; I’ve already written you an excuse card, so just hand this in to-”

“Wait,” I say. “I can’t leave early on the third. I’ve got a class.”

“You need to go to this meeting,” Aunt Kaye says shortly, still trying to hand me the card.

“Is it an appointment or is it a meeting?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, a meeting implies a general gathering at which people discuss something in an open forum while eating cookies. An appointment implies a nice couch and a psychologist.”

“Lyddie-”

“I’m serious, I can’t go.”

“You have to. Here.” She finally gets the packet into my hands. “Just read this over. It will tell you everything you need to know.”

“Then why do I have to go see the guy? Is he going to read it to me? Because I’ve been doing my own reading for quite some time now.”

“No, he’ll just explain things to you; the finer details.”

“I don’t need the finer details, Aunt Kelly. At the risk of sounding like a real teenager, my life is over and that’s all there is to it. I’d rather not add missing this class to my list of Reasons Why My Life Sucks Right Now.”

“Lyddie-”

“No, I can’t. I-”

“Lyddie, listen to me!” Something in my aunt’s voice stops my tirade. “You need to do this. The job you’re going to undertake may seem simple, but it’s not. There are a lot of intricacies that you don’t understand yet – Dr. Philips will explain those to you as well.”

I look at the pages in my hand. Admittedly, I don’t know much about this whole lantern thing, and I don’t want to screw it up. “Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll go. But if he tries to shrink me, I’m out of there.”

WIP Wednesday

2010-08-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

A continuation of last week's (also, "the group" has no name yet, which is why I use that phrase so much :p):

“So let me get this straight,” Eliza said, pacing between her bed and her desk. “You’re here to break me out of St. Claire’s?”

“Well, we prefer the term ‘liberate’, but yes,” Jonah replied

“Okay…” Eliza said slowly. “But why?”

“Well, to make a long story short,” Jonah started, “My group and I think that it’s unfair that you’ve been afflicted with a disease that will take your life at – how old are you? Fourteen?”

“Fifteen,” Eliza answered. “As of -“ she glanced at her watch. “Three minutes ago.”

“At fifteen. We’ve created a cure that will rid your system of all traces of the Attenuate Virus. If you come with me, I’ll bring you to our doctor, Abigail Markham, and she can give you the Cure. Then the plan is that you return here and convince the doctors that you’ve had a miraculous recovery.”

“But what’s in it for you?” Eliza asked. “Why wouldn’t you want credit for healing me?”

“It’s all right,” Jonah said. “We’re not working for praise. We want to make you and those like you better. None of you did anything to deserve this affliction. So come on! Pack a bag and we’re out of here!” He noticed Eliza hesitating. “What?”

“This whole thing is just… weird. I really want to believe that you and your… group can heal me, but I don’t know why I should trust you. Why would you choose me to save? There are twenty – six other people in the world that have AV. Why me?”

Jonah smiled. “Well, to be perfectly honest, you were chosen solely for your location, although your age doesn’t hurt, either?”

“I don’t understand.”

“As you know, AV has spread to people all over the world. You are the only one of the afflicted on the East Coast.”

“Lucky me,” said Eliza wryly. “And what do you mean about the age thing?”
“Well, it’s not required, but it always helps to have a subject that is younger. Usually, that means they’ll have less health problems and also respond to treatments more quickly. Abigail also has her own reasons for preferring younger candidates, but you can ask her to explain them when you meet her.”

“You’re talking like you go to medical school. How old are you?”

“I’m sixteen, almost seventeen,” Jonah responded. “And I didn’t even graduate high school, let alone go to medical school.”

“Then how do I know you know what you’re talking about?”

“Listen.” Jonah sounded suddenly impatient. “I’m offering you the chance of lifetime, literally, just like the group offered me last year.”

“You had AV?”

“No, but they inoculated me so I can never get it. I’m telling you, Eliza, this Cure works. The group has been working on this for a long time, much longer than I’ve been involved with them. Last year, they heard about my experiments in chemistry and asked me to help them. It was an honor to be asked, and far more lucrative than staying in school.”

“Exactly what kind of experiments were you doing?”

“God, you ask a lot of questions.”

Eliza raised her eyebrows. “Well, you’re asking me to come with you so you can inject me with something I can never be sure is what you say it is.”

“I was allowed to stay after school to try my experiments, but there were… limitations.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I couldn’t test my results, because that would require human or animal subjects. Besides being illegal, I could never morally do that, in case something went wrong. I would never be able to forgive myself.”

“But what about this Cure? You’re willing to test it on me?”

“Oh, I didn’t create it. I just helped. By studying under Abigail, I’m learning how to craft different vaccines and treatments without worrying that I’m messing something up. You know the influenza pill?”

“Of course,” said Eliza. In 2019, a pill had been created that all but eradicated the threat of the flu. Eliza had never met anyone who had had it since then. It was an unbelievable breakthrough.

“Well, the group created that. Now they’re working to cure more terminal illnesses, like the Attenuate Virus, HIV, AIDS, cancer, muscular dystrophy, stuff like that. Believe me, we’re the people you want on your side. So, will you come?”

Eliza chewed on her lower lip, weighing the situation.

“Okay,” she decided. “I’ll come.”

Encore?

2010-08-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

I was up until all hours this morning writing. While this isn't uncommon for me, what I was doing was plotting out the rest of The Other Side of Light, my NaNo 2010. As I was working on the end, something surprising presented itself- I may need a sequel.

This was a little shocking. I've never written two linked stories and I never set out to make Light anything but a stand-alone novel. I also don't know HOW to write something like this. I know now that if I want to do this, I need to plot out both at the same time, not only to make sure they are recognizable as related stories, but to make sure that I actually have enough to write two books... otherwise I may just have to make Light longer than I'd planned.

Have any of you done this? 'Cause I'm open to any tips :p

Those Things You Don't Want (But Need) To Hear

2010-08-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

My friend and I met to discuss what he had read of my novel. When we sat down to talk, he opened with the following:

"There's one really big problem."

Not exactly what I wanted to hear. But I knew he was right before he even started elaborating.

Basically, I have a lot of work to do. A LOT of work to do. And if I wanted, I could ignore all of his comments and just leave my novel as it is- I have no ambition of publishing this one. But the thing is, though I don't really need to see this one on the shelves of Borders, I want to make it the best it can be. I want to make it up to publishing quality, even if I never send it off.

Here's a look at one of the pages after his editing:

It's going to be a long, hard journey, but I think in the end, it's all going to be worth it. Right now, though, I've got a LOT of work to do.

WIP Wednesday

2010-08-11T08:00:00.001-07:00

I literally just ended a meeting with my best friend/writing partner Katie. We edited our screenplay that's been in the works since 2005. It was also a good-bye breakfast, as she leaves for another year in Texas in less than twenty-four hours. Sad :( But it all went very well and we have big plans for it.

As for WIP Wednesday, here's something I'm not sure if I shared before, but even if I have, I'm going to again :p Here's a clip from Q/Quarantined.

Eliza’s parents left around six o’clock that night. She tried to distract herself with a book, but soon closed it. At 7:02, she would have her final birthday. The idea didn’t astonish her as much as it did when she was first admitted. However, she couldn’t help thinking that spending her last three years stuck in a single room was not exactly living life to the fullest.

Impulsively, she crossed to the refrigerator and took out the box containing the second cupcake her parents had left for her. Placing it on her desk, she opened the package. Inside, she found not only the cake, but another candle and match. Was it cheating if she made another wish?

No, she decided. It was her birthday. Her last birthday. And if she wanted to make two wishes, who was going to stop her?

Placing the candle in the middle of the cupcake, she lit the wick and blew out the match. She watched the unmoving flame as it glowed. What did she want this time? She really only wanted one thing. Could you wish for the same thing twice?

Well, she was already cheating by making two wishes, so she might as well go for broke. She kept her eyes open this time as she thought, ‘I want my life back.’ Eliza blew out the candle. And as the flame went out, so did everything else. The room was suddenly plunged into darkness.

In her nearly three years at St. Claire’s, she had never experienced a power outage. What might happen to her - to everyone here - if they didn’t get everything up and working again?

“Sorry, my bad.”

When the voice spoke from the darkness, Eliza screamed and flattened herself against the wall.

“Wh-who’s in here?” she stammered.

“Hang on… crap, I can’t find the switch.” The voice was young and male and anomalously casual, given the situation.

“What are you doing here?” Eliza asked, wishing the fear would leave her voice. How did someone get in here?

“Wait - okay, found it.” The lights suddenly came back on, leaving Eliza squinting.

Across the room stood a tall, skinny, dark-haired boy of about sixteen. He leaned casually against the doorframe as though he broke into terminally ill girls’ rooms all the time.

“Who are you?” Eliza asked. “And how did you get in here? Where’s Darren? You should leave - you could get sick.”

After a moment, the boy spoke. “I guess I’ll take those one at a time. My name is Jonah Teagan. I came through the door. Darren is busy trying to figure out a way out of the storeroom he’s locked in. And calm down - I can’t catch AV from you. Or from anyone, for that matter. Which means you don’t have to stick yourself to that wall if you don’t want to.”

Eliza stepped away from the wall, but didn’t approach him. “I don’t understand- what do you mean you can’t catch AV? No one but me has been in this room for almost three years because they said I’m highly contagious.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you are. Just not to me.”

“What does that mean?” Eliza inquired disbelievingly. In her opinion, this Jonah guy was at this very moment taking his final uninfected breath, especially if he kept coming closer.

Jonah took a few more steps toward her so that he was almost an arm’s length away. “It means,” he said, looking her directly in the eye. “That I have an offer to make you. Care to listen?”

Just Chatting

2010-08-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

Today I went with most of the film crew I'm involved with to scout locations. When we finished with that, we went for bite to eat and ended up talking about writing, and, in particular, our novels. While I'm not going to outline our whole conversation, since it was a good two hours long, I will just say that having someone (or a few people) to talk to about this stuff is really nice. At the risk of sounding holier-than-thou, sometimes people who don't write, even just casually, don't understand what it means to be surprised by a character or the way a scene had to go. It was just really great to talk to people who are in the midst of doing the same thing.

Also, the one of them who is editing my novel right now is being really, REALLY thorough. As in, he edits a paragraph a night, is on page ten, and comment 40. While this is daunting, it's also good, for two reasons. The first is that I edit the exact same way. Well, I go much more quickly, because I like to get the flow of the story as I edit, but I am also usually up to comment 40 by page ten or so. It's good, too, for the reason that I need this. As my editor mentioned, my first editor did all the basic stuff, so now it's time for a more in-depth look at the story. I'm pretty sure his edits are going to kick my butt, and I'm positive it is going to be for the best. I'm equal parts nervous and excited.

And now I leave you with a picture I took with my new camera while we were location scouting:

WIP Wednesday

2010-08-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Oh... it's Wednesday... My mind has been all over the place lately, what with closing one show the other day and opening another next week. Eek! But that has nothing to do with the promise I made to you guys and to myself that I would post something every Wednesday. So, here you go. Some more Remembrance.

“Get up! Ruthie! Noah! Get up right now!”

Ruthie opened her eyes to find her nose a fraction of an inch away from the cinder block wall. Noah had sprawled out while he slept, claiming most of the bed as his own and forcing Ruthie to huddle close to the wall. She sat up to see her mother at the foot of her bed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Her mother was already folding the blanket Noah had dragged along with him the night before. “You need to get up and get dressed now. We didn’t bring a clock down with us and you will be late for school if you don’t hurry. Noah! Get up!” Mrs. Halpert pulled the blanket off of Ruthie’s bed and Ruthie felt the cold of the shelter steal over her. Noah must have too because he curled into a tighter ball in the middle of the bed, either still asleep or doing a very good job of ignoring their mother. She nudged him as she climbed over him and stepped onto the cold cement floor. Standing in the middle of the shelter, Ruthie realised that she didn’t know what to do next.

“Mum, can I go to my room to get some clothes?”

“No time,” her mother said hurriedly. “Your father and I took some things from your rooms last week in case this happened. Look in one of the boxes under the beds.”

Ruthie knelt down and peered under her bed. There were two boxes there. The first one was full of torches, tools, and other items they might need. She pushed that one back and pulled out the second one, which was full of clothes. She removed a set for Noah and tossed them on the bed as she searched for her own clothes. Her heart sank as she saw the frocks lying on the bottom of the box.

“Mum!” she cried, seeing the old worn fabric. “I can’t wear any of these!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ruthie,” her mother scolded. “I got them from your room.”

“Did you get them from the bottom drawer of my wardrobe?”
Mrs. Halpert was busy looking for something on one of the shelves. “Yes, I did. Why?”

“Those were to go to Annabel!” Ruthie said, naming her thirteen year old cousin. “They don’t fit me anymore!”

“Ruthie, we don’t have time for you to go up to your room to change,” her mother said impatiently. “Annabel’s not that much smaller than you, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Now please, get changed. Noah! Up now!”

As her little brother finally started to rise, Ruthie selected the biggest blouse and skirt she could find. She pulled them on and tried to adjust them as best she could. The skirt was a tad too short and the blouse pulled a little at her chest, but it was the best she could get at the moment.

“All right, your father’s got your school books,” Mrs. Halpert said when Noah was finally up and dressed. “Now hurry, or you really will be late. Go on, go.”

Ruthie and her brother each took their books from their father and exited the shelter, heading in the direction of school. As the pair made their way down the street, Ruthie continued to tug at the hem of her skirt – this was going to be a bother all day, she knew.

School was ten blocks away and Ruthie knew they were running very, very late. They would be lucky to arrive before the bell. She hurried a still – sleepy Noah down the street as fast as she could.

When they arrived at the school, the first thing Ruthie noticed was the energy in the air. While people were clustered in their usual groups, the conversations were hushed and the air seemed thick with anxiety. The air raid had put everyone on tenterhooks. Every now and then, a student would glance up at the sky nervously as though expecting a bomb to fall at any moment.

Ruthie looked around for her two best friends and spotted them standing by the entrance. After making sure Noah was headed in the direction of the lower school, Ruthie rushed over to them.

“You’re late,” Nora Savidge pointed out as Ruthie took her place next to her friends.

“We haven’t got a clock in our shelter yet,” Ruthie said. “We got up so late that I had to wear this old uniform that my mum had brought down – and she got it out of a box to hand down to my cousin!”

Annie Payson giggled as she straightened her own blazer. “I thought it looked a bit different today. Look, the patch still has the old crest on it. Make sure to avoid Mrs. Zaeler today – she’ll give you a demerit if she sees that.”

Ruthie groaned. “It isn’t even my fault!” Deciding she would worry about that later, she looked around at her fellow students, all talking intently. “Is everyone talking about the air raid last night?”

“Of course,” said Annie. “It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened! I didn’t sleep a wink all night; I thought our shelter would be hit any minute.”

“I was worried that a bomb would go off twenty streets over and the resulting wind would blow our shelter over,” Nora remarked wryly. “I think my dad just propped two pieces of metal against each other and put a door in front of them.”

“Your dad is a teacher,” Ruthie pointed out. “It’s not like he has ever had to do it before.”

Nora opened her mouth to respond, but before she could say anything, the bell rang and the students began to rush into the building, still chattering about what had happened the night before.

As Ruthie took her seat in the classroom, she noticed that the seat beside hers was empty. At first, she didn’t think much of it- it was not unusual for its occupant, Jimmy Henderson, to be too busy plying a prank to make it to class on time. But his seat was still empty when her teacher, Miss Whittaker, called the class to order.

“Class,” Miss Whittaker said, standing in front of her desk as her students took their seats again. “Miss Burns has an announcement she would like to make. Please give her your full attention.” Ruthie’s teacher stepped aside to give the school’s wide – girthed deputy headmistress the floor. The form rose and waited. Miss Burns was silent for a moment as she surveyed the students, her lips pursed and her stern eyebrows pinched together.

“You may be seated,” she said distractedly. “I am afraid I have some bad news, children,” she began. “As you must all be aware, we have been having air raid drills here at school for the past few months in case the building is attacked. Last night’s air raid gave you a taste of what could happen during school hours, and I do not doubt that many of you were frightened. In any emergency situation, some unfortunate things can come about, and I regret to inform you that such a thing happened during last night’s raid.”

The class was confused. While many of them had been anxious during the air raid, it was over now. What after effects could have a part in their lives?

“Several buildings were destroyed by the bombs that fell, one of them being the flats on Wannamaker Street. The Henderson family was a resident of this building.”

There were a few soft gasps as the class turned as one to stare at Jimmy’s empty desk. A heaviness seemed to fall over the room as the principal’s words sunk in.

“What happened to them, Miss Burns?” a girl named Evelyn asked softly. It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Miss Burns did not reprimand Evelyn for neglecting to raise her hand.

“I regret to say that, though Mr. and Mrs. Henderson and their youngest child were found unharmed, the authorities were unable to located James and his brother Arthur.”

“But they’re just… I don’t know, lost or something, right?” said a boy named Roger. “Maybe they ran to get help and couldn’t find their way home in the dark.”

Miss Burns’ mouth grew tight. “We can only hope that is the case, Mr. Jennings. There are people looking for the boys as well as a few others that have also gone missing, and you can be sure that if they are indeed still alive, they will be found.” With that, Miss Burns nodded to Miss Whittaker and left the room. But she did not take with her the grim silence that had fallen over the students as soon as she said the words “still alive”. Ruthie glanced again at Jimmy’s empty seat. She couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around the idea that someone she knew might really be gone forever. Could it be that this boy, this noisy, wise – cracking fourteen year old, had already reached the end of his life the night before? Was his body lying in wait of the search party? Or might he be gone completely, never to be found by anyone at all?

Ruthie shook her head, trying to rid it of these thoughts. Jimmy could take care of himself, she was sure of that. They would find him. By next week, she told herself, he’d be sitting next to her again, folding up paper airplanes in his lap and grinning that sideways smile of his. He would be, because Ruthie couldn’t accept anything else.