I'M FREE... Sorta

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.

I'm Growing (I Hope)

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 :)

Shame

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.

Um...

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 :)

I'm Writing Because I'm Nervous

...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.

Flashback Friday

That writing exercise is still giving me trouble, so instead, here's another installment of Flashback Friday!

Today's excerpt is from a mystery short story I wrote for Communication Arts class in seventh grade entitled The Case of the Missing Dogs. And... I still can't write mysteries, LOL.


Chrissy Carlson was driving past the Humane Society on her way home from the store when she saw red and blue police lights flashing in the morning sun. She pulled into the driveway and almost ran into a small building that hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited the Society.

Chrissy stopped to talk to a policeman.

“What happened here?” she inquired.

The policeman glared at her with sharp, steely blue eyes. “Who wants to know?” he asked. “I’m not givin’ out any information to nosy spectators!”

Chrissy was furious. “I’m not a spectator!” she began. “I’m a detec…” But the policeman had turned his back on her, writing on a notepad.

Fuming, Chrissy walked into the large white building that was the Humane Society. She walked up to the desk and found Aliya Wilson, typing away at her computer.

“What happened, Aliya?” Chrissy asked for the second time.

Aliya sighed.

“Three dogs were stolen last night. It was almost four, but Nero got away. He ran to my house and barked at the door until I let him in.”

“Which dogs were stolen?” Chrissy asked, immediately drawn into the mystery.

“Daisy, the Yorkie, Roscoe, the Dalmatian, and Scottie, the Scottish Terrier. And like I said, it was almost Nero, too, but her got away.”

Chrissy was confused. “And he ran to your house?” she asked incredulously. “You don’t even live in town!”

Aliya looked surprised. “Oh, but I must have told you I moved onto the grounds. It’s that small building near the entrance to the driveway.”

“No, you didn’t.” Chrissy said. “I almost flattened it with my car!”

Aliya looked out the window and said thoughtfully, “It is in a bit of an awkward spot, isn’t it?”

Chrissy rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, it’s quite convenient. I’m going to go and have a word with Juliet. Bye.”

As Chrissy started down the long hall toward Juliet’s office, she noticed that none of the cops were inside. Then she passed a small room with a picture window and saw Juliet Wyman inside, training a dog.

Seeing that her friend was busy, Chrissy headed down toward the dog room, thinking Nero might be able to lead her to some clues. When she entered, she walked down the rows of cages until she came to one that read, Nero; German Shepard.

Chrissy opened the cage and then took a brush from the shelf. As she brushed the big dog, she looked closely at his fur, looking for clues. When she stood up to empty the brush, she noticed a spot of blue in Nero’s dark hair. She emptied all of the brush into the trash can except for the clot of fur with the blue spot in it.

Looking closely at it, Chrissy picked at the hair until the blue spot came free.

“Whose is this, boy?” she asked Nero, as if he could answer her.

Chrissy stuck the bit of cloth into her jeans pocket, gave Nero one last pat and put him back into his cage. After making sure the lock was secure, she went out to see Juliet.

Juliet, a busy person with very long, brown hair came out into the hallway.

“Sorry I couldn’t talk to you before, Chrissy, but I was training.”

“That’s okay,” Chrissy replied. “I had some other stuff to do anyway. I was brushing Nero. Look what I found!” Chrissy presented the scrap of mangled cloth with a flourish.

Juliet only seemed mildly interested. “Oh,” was all she said. Then, very suddenly, she looked straight at Chrissy and said sharply, “In case you’re getting any ideas, Chrissy, I was at PetsMart, getting supplies for today.”

“Chill, Juliet, I wasn’t blaming you. I just can’t ask one person and not another. Anyway, I know you’d never do anything like that. I have to go… um… Ask Henry some questions. See ya later.” Chrissy waved as she started down the hall.

Juliet stared after her then yelled, “And I was wearing green yesterday!”

Doing What You Love

This has become sort of my motto for the past few years. A few of my friends are or hav been waffling on their majors at their respective schools and when I get questions from them like, "Should I stick with pre-law or change to music?" I always tell them to do what they love.

Of course, my advice probably isn't the best- I'm a priveleged twenty year old who, honestly, has still never dealt with the real world on her own for an extended period of time, who thought it would be a good idea to add a writing minor to her acting major. Stability is sooo overrated :p

But despite all of those facts, it's still what I heartily believe. I can't imagine going through life not doing something I love. How do people get through their day like that? I know the reality of my chosen profession(s) is that most likely, I'll have to do something else in order to do afford doing what I love, but still... can't I love those backup jobs, too? My mom and I were driving somewhere the other day and she said, "I think this summer has turned out pretty much the way you wanted it to, hasn't it?" And I had just been thinking that. I had applied for a pretty awesome job as a counselor at a professional theatre camp... and didn't get it. But then I got my job at the caverns which, while not related to acting, I still enjoy. And taking that job allowed me to audition for and accept the role of Portia, not to mention the role I just got last week at a different theatre. Sometimes things just work out- no, I'm not getting paid to act, but I am getting paid to tell stories and work on my projection and THEN get out early enough from said job to do what I really want to do. So this is a good thing.

Ha... this entry didn't have much to do with writing (except that I love writing also.) I will tell you, however, that I've jumped back into my novel revisions, and they are kicking my butt. In a good way- I'm getting a lot of stuff done on it. Previously, I've been too scared to go through the novel in order; I'd just tackle pieces that had been brought to my attention. But then I realised that, well, a novel is a complete story and only working on bits here and there would not really improve it overall. So I took a deep breath, scrolled up to page one, and started there. And actually, it's not as bad as I thought and it is helping me see things from an... in-order perspective :p I'm almost halfway through now and hopefully I'll be on time with sending it off for another editing spree by the end of the month.

Taking a Step Back

I've written in previous entries how well my revision has been going, and I've gotten a lot more done since then- a few more new scenes, more conventional changes, more realistic dialogue rather than some of the "I-am-seriously-reaching-for-a-higher-wordcount-here" conversations.

But yesterday, I hit a rough patch. It wasn't a wall, or even really writer's block. But I felt like he entire novel was blurring before my eyes, not allowing me to see what needed to be changed or fixed anymore.

Another thing is that I'm still learning as a writer is how to throw things away. I hold on to what I've written so tightly that I'm often unwilling to cut it out or edit it too drastically. I've gotten much better with this novel, perhaps because I know how much work it needs and/or because I had an outside editor. In yesterday's case, I wanted to add a scene I had written a few weeks ago, that I had really begun to like- there was some logic in it that was missing from the novel thus far and I liked the ideas it exercised. When I first wrote it, I wasn't sure where to put it and so kept it in a separate document and worked on the rest of the novel. These past few writing days have been spent working on the suggestions given to me by my "editor", to the point where I went to go put that separately written scene in... and it didn't fit anymore. I was quite disappointed, but there doesn't seem to be a way to include the scene that I've grown to love. *sigh* Sometimes you have to kill your babies, as we used to say at school.

So since my novel was giving me some trouble, I gave a bit longer and then decided to take a step away from it for a bit. I didn't stop writing, though- I finally returned to my Peter Pan inspiration and wrote part of a scene as well as a partial scene breakdown. I am beginning to fall back in love with this idea, which I've missed working on since May. I really do love writing :)

Clicking

Things have really been clicking for me with my novel revisions. This past week, I had two completely free days- no work, no rehearsal, no voice lessons, nothing. And while I love those things (well, mostly the latter two, LOL), it was wonderful to have two summery days. I decided to use those days to really dig into my novel revisions. First, though, I finished reading my friends' novel- read and edited abuot 150 pages in twelve hours- and I think that got me into the mode, because as soon as I started on my own revisions, things just started to work.

I had already made notations from my "editor" in my document, but she had enclosed a letter with the edits that covered some bigger plot points that needed to be looked at. So I wrote these down on a list and as I started to apply them, rather than being frustrated by them, as I had been previously, they made sense. Of COURSE she would have that extra interview... and I really liked the scene that came out of it. And I'd always thought the girls needed to meet up again... out of that came a scene that was sadder than I wanted, but also showed the way some friendships just go after a shocking event.

I used my time wisely- I spent most of both days writing and got a lot done. I feel accomplished. I'm still feeling revision-y and have been trying to write as much as possible. My free time, however, it diminishing- today I had rehearsal and went right to an audition from there, and tomorrow I have work and then go right to voice lessons, and Merchant tech is coming up (eep!) Thankfully though, I have a couple of free days this week that I plan to utilise well.

I think I've also been more successful because I'm feeling a lot of support in my corner, from my friends, my parents, and my teachers. And that really does help.

WIP Wednesday

So today I took some time to do some true summer chilling- I watched three movies (Bend it Like Beckham, The Lizzie McGuire Movie [hey, stop laughing! It's cute!], and Dead Again), the last of which just blew me away. I love Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.

I also got a ton of novel work done. Not only did I read about 130 pages of (and therefore finish reading) my friend's novel, but I also edited it as I went along and sent it off to him. It was really cool to see his growth, since the first time I read parts of this novel was years ago.

For my own novel, I did a plot storyboard kind of thing- I'm hoping this will help me see where holes are and where things can be expanded. I thought I would have maybe enough cards to fill my medium-sized bulletin board in my room. What I ended up with was 26 notecards with two or three (sometimes five) bigger plot points on them. This made me happy. I also wrote a good amount of new scenes, as well as making many conventional changes.

So anyway, enough chatter. Have some more Remembrance. This takes place while Ruthie and one of her best friends, Annie, are looking for their other friend, Nora, in London.


She left the shop and rushed over to Annie. “It sounds like the man in there saw her.” She told Annie all of the details she had just learned and Annie looked confused.
“But… why would Nora have gone with the woman?”

“I know, I can’t figure that out either. If Nora was taken by the woman, she would have fought back, I know it.” Ruthie shook her head. “But that’s the only thing that doesn’t match up. We need to try and figure out who the woman is. There’s a chance she might still be with her.”

This was a fine plan, but without the woman’s name, the girls had no place to start looking. With nothing to go on, Ruthie and Annie wandered the city all day, asking this person or that person if they had seen an older woman and a teenage girl walking together on the day Nora had disappeared. Their questions turned up nothing, and the girls tried to make their way back to the place they had started from. Within ten minutes, they were completely lost. They were standing on the corner, discussing their options, when they heard a sneering voice behind them.

“Well, well. Wot do have ‘ere?”

Both girls spun around the see a group of kids making their way toward them. They all looked to be between the ages of eleven and seventeen, wearing old, dirty clothes and smug expressions. One girl, close to Ruthie and Annie’s age, stepped forward.

“Look at the little schoolgirls, with their sweet little skirts and white blouses. Come slumming, schoolgirls?”

Ruthie willed her mind to unfreeze so she could think of what to do. While the kids didn’t look particularly threatening, she and Annie were outnumbered three to one. She decided a passive approach would be best. “Hello,” she ventured, offering a nervous smile that was not returned. The kids surrounded the girls, their eyes narrowed.

“This is our corner of the city,” a small boy proclaimed. Though he was shorter than Ruthie by a head and was all skin and bones, Ruthie was quite sure that if she crossed him, she’d be sorry.

“We didn’t mean to intrude,” Annie said, her voice very small. “We’re just lost -”

“Aww,” a girl with braided hair jeered. “They’re lost. Poor little girls.” She looked at the oldest boy in the group. “Do we help lost little girls, Sidney?”

“I dunno, Kit,” the boy said, matching her tone. “I suppose we do, in our way, don’t we?”

Another girl, about thirteen with pale hair, grinned delightedly. “Yeah! How nice of us to lighten their pockets for them. We’re regular Robin Hoods.”

Through all of this, the kids had been circling Ruthie and Annie, making sure they couldn’t get away easily. Now, they moved in a little closer until one of the older girls was only a foot or two away from Ruthie. “So just what are you doin’ in our territory, schoolgirl?”

Ruthie, too, stepped closer. “We need some information. We thought you might be able to help us.”

“And why,” the girl asked, “Would I want to help you?”

Ruthie could not think of a reason why the girl should aid them, but she had a feeling that these kids might know something. Then she got an idea. She dug around in her pocket for the money she had left over from her ticket – not much, but it might work.

She held out the coins. She could see that the older boy was tempted, but he didn’t reach for it right away.

“What d’you want?” he asked.

“We just have a few questions,” Ruthie said, still offering the money.

The boy looked suspicious, as though wondering if the girls were mocking him. “Like what?”

“We’re trying to find our friend,” said Annie. “She’s missing, and we thought you might have seen her.”

“She a little rich girl like you?” the plaited girl asked snidely.

“She’s our friend,” Ruthie snapped. “Either you let us ask our questions, or we take our money and go.” She didn’t think it would be wise to mention that she and Annie had nowhere to go.

The older boy eyed the coins in Ruthie’s palm a second longer, then snatched them and tucked them in his pocket. “All right, rich girl. Ask away.”

Ruthie and Annie quickly explained how Nora had gone missing.

“After we got out of the cellar, we found each other,” Ruthie finished, “But we couldn’t find Nora anywhere. We looked for hours, but there was no sign of her. Then a shopkeeper saw Nora with an old woman soon after she disappeared.”

“They put out a description on the radio,” Annie added. “Have you heard it?”

Kit looked at her scornfully. “An’ just how would we have done that? The Blitzers don’t got a radio, do we?”

“Blitzers?” Annie repeated.

“That’s us, half-wit.”

“All right,” Ruthie said quickly. “We can just tell you what she looks like.” She described Nora and all of the kids shook their heads. Her heart sank to her feet.

Flashback Friday

So because I'm at the part of rehearsals where I'm trying to forget just how much memorization is ahead of me and the fact that I couldn't fall asleep last night, I decided that I HAD to finish my writing file last night. I love boxes and organizing-type things, and I recently bought a new file box and decided to use it for my past and present writing.

A CONFESSION: I am a pack rat. I keep everything because I always think I'll have a use for it later (and generally, I use the excuse that I might need it for a future play/musical that I'm in... which is the case a lot, but not enough to keep all the stuff I do.) It took me about four hours to go through all of my past writing last night and tonight (most of my preseny writing was already filed away.)



SOME PROGRESS

And that was only about a quarter of all of the notebooks I threw away. And while some of them were, as the top notebook suggests, academic, most of them (even those in the school category) were filled with writing. In between pages of a+b=c were ten pages of a story I was working on at the time.




TWO FIFTH GRADE NOTEBOOKS


Yes, I was rather proud of the name stickers that made it look like my moniker was exploding out at you in a burst of confetti when you moved the cover. These are two notebooks that I kept intact rather than simply tearing out the pages that had my writing in them. I carried these two notebooks with me EVERYWHERE during my last year of elementary school. The turquoise one contains a "Happy 11th Birthday!" message from my best friend inside the cover, a "complete" twelve-page play called Thoughts vs. Reality as well as a props list, cast list, costume sketches. There is also an incomplete play (twenty-two pages) of a play entitled The Parkers vs. the Sytas (I was apparently really into putting "vs." into the titles.)
In the final section of the notebook is eight pages of an incomplete play, untitled, that I abandoned that same year, picked up as a novel the next year, abandoned soon after, then picked up again at sixteen, when I turned it into a screenplay, entered it into a contest, and won an award for it.

In the marble-covered notebook, I have a partially-written story about a girl who really wants to have a carnival (or, as I said it back then, "carvinal"), another half-written tale about a girl who starts a new school in fifth grade, a list of play ideas and titles, a series of drawings I did in seventh grade, and a "Things I Want to Bring to Middle School" list. Also, onc contained in this notebook (though it was torn out for the performance) was a sketch I wrote for the D.A.R.E graduation at the end of fifth grade, in which I played the lead, Natalie, who was peer pressured and had a classic "angel and devil" moment, with one on each shoulder :p


Besides the satisfaction of storing everything away neatly, it was also cool to see my growth as a writer (though I didn't read most of the things I filed away) and also, just to see how much writing I've done in my life, which is, well... a lot. Also, to see what types of composition I dabbled in. In first and second grade, I wrote both stories and plays. Third and fourth grades were strictly stories. Fifth grade was some stories and a reintroduction into plays. Then in sixth grade, I became convinced that I was a terrible playwright and refused to write anything but stories for four years. Eighth grade was stories and some poems I was forced to write for my comm. arts class. Tenth grade was when my friend Katie and I began our feature-length (still in-progress) screenplay and I got back into writing plays in addition to stories. During my theatre-school years (eleventh and twelfth grade), I was almost strictly a playwright. And college so far has been plays, novels, screenplays, and short stories. It's been an adventure, and it's all contained in a purple accordian folder.



MY FILE BOX AS OF HALF AN HOUR AGO


I don't know/think that this "Flashback Friday" thing will be a regular to-do on my blog, but it might pop up occasionally, because I think it's cool to see writers' growth... even if that writer is me. And so to kick off this thing-that-might-possibly-never-happen-again, I give you the opening scene (and the only scene I actually physically wrote- the rest was memorized by dictation and rehearsal) of my very first play, written at age seven (with my clarifications in italics):

DIRECTED BY: Rachel & Allison D.

The rouel (royal) anonsment (announcement)

Pupets: Gorge (George): "Crunch, munch, crunch, munch.
"Oh hi I'm crureos (Curious) gorge, and,,,,, [crash he drops the pepper he is holding) Ops, I drop a pepper, ernie is going to be mad!"
ErnieL "GORGE"!
"what are you eating?!"
Gorge: "Nothing"! Well. ah, Ernie I was eating a pepper but juce (juice) din't get anywere or, or, or."
Ernie: "Just be quit (quiet) and let Me do the talking, buster."
Gorge: O.K., O.K. I will be quit, but you have to promies me, you'll let ME do the talking for the NEXT show!"
Ernie: O.K! (go backstage). (sound effecs.) (backstage) CRASH!
Ernie: you broke the tape! That was the tape we were saposed to use!"
Gorge: Oh well."
STARTING THE PLAY: Loud speaker
"Introdusing..."


I know, after reading that preview, you are all amazed that this play was only performed in my basement and grandparents' living room (where we hung a sign reading "we hop you injoy the play!") I had a lot of fun with it though. It was about ballet dancers because I had just gotten a pair of slippers that looked like ballet shoes for my birthday (the puppets were not in the ballet part... for some reason, I was adamant that all my plays had to start that way.) In fact, here's a picture of its final performance at my grandparents' house:



ME IN MID-TWIRL




CURTAIN CALL


Now, if I can just get that confidence in my writing back...

Copycat

I'm a bit of a copycat. When I read something I like, writing-wise, I always want to do it myself. While copying, I generally find my own style that encompasses what I like as well as my own style and I go from there, but there's one area where I've succeed at neither copying nor finding my own style: plotting.

I want to be a fan of plotting. I want to be an outlining wizard with notecards and charts and lists. I've always wanted to have a wall like Maureen Johnson's:



Unfortunately, this is not my style. When it comes to plotting, I have no style. I generally play it by ear; what feels right (or... what comes to me at the time) for the book/play/whatever is what I do. Sometimes it's trial and error. For example, I tried MJ's type of outlining* but it didn't work for me. I was advised to try a similar approach to parts of a play I wrote recently, but nothing clicked.

And after trying to copy and just plain trying, I still haven't really found my "method", but I do know that outlining is not for me, LOL. And actually, I'm usually okay with that because that's how the twists and turns happen for me- I start writing and things just start to come to the surface. I don't take all of them, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even have them as an option if I had outlined in the first place. Libba Bray- another of my favorite authors- said something similar about the writing of my favorite book, A Great and Terrible Beauty... not that I'm copying her ;)

In other news, how do you like my new layout? I loved the other one, and a lot of the newer options offered were really cool, but I thought this one fit what I'm blogging about most.

I got home from work early today and thought, 'Great! Some time to devote some quality time to my novel revisions!' Want to know how far I've gotten? I've had the screen up for three hours now, have scrolled down a few pages and read a few sentences. *wipes sweat from brow* Now that's what I call work! *sigh* Scared, much? It's pretty much the same thing that I (and a bunch of my fellow students) were told in Shakespeare class last semester: "You're stopping yourself because it's easier and safer to fail than to go all the way and look silly while you move toward success."


Also, on the non-writing side, I'd like to ask any of the actors that read this blog if you have any tips on how to memorize Shakespeare. In the trend of copying, I do have my own methods, but I've never done an entire Shakespeare play and will take any pointers!


*Although MJ also recently said on Twitter that she only outlines these days to have something to laugh at later.

Running Scared

A lot of people- even those who know me well- are surprised when I tell them that I am the queen of cold feet. But it's so, so true. While outwardly I seem like I know exactly what I want and how to get it, the truth is that I am pretty scared most of the time.

Some of it comes from loving two (possible) careers that are so unstable. Acting and writing- am I insane? But I love them so much that there is no way I CAN'T do them, so I've made the decision that the chance is worth it.

I am incredibly guilty of nearly backing out of things at the very last minute. Most of the time, I eventually decide to do them, but that's less bravery and more my conviction that quitting would let down those who are relying on me. When I was sixteen, I got accepted to an amazing arts school for theatre. I was ecstatic when I got my letter, jazzed for the rest of the school year that came before my enrollment there, and excited all summer. Then the first day of school came. I felt sick. I was nervous. I didn't want to go to this strange school where I knew no one and ACT in front of them. No, I wanted to go back to EAHS and meet my friends at the lockers and be bored in math. Change? No thanks.

My other cold-feet tendency is to just ignore big things. For example, right now- I have a HUGE, incredibly important audition coming up on Monday. I'm terrified... so I'm jusdt ignoring it. This is not good. Sure, I know my monologues back to front, but I need to rehearse them more. This is potentially a huge career step and I'm close to just throwing it away because I'm so scared of failure.

I've been doing the same thing with my writing lately. You probably noticed there was no WIP Wednesday. While I haven't been working on my writing as much as I would like (my excuse has been that I have to use my time to prepare for that big audition, but, um... not doing that either), I did have something to post, but I was too scared. The scene from my new play is very very rough and I didn't want to loook stupid.

But here's what I've been learning:

a) Being scared really gets you nowhere and

b) I need to stop caring so much about what other people think.

I mean, I ended up going to my arts school that day and not hating it. In fact, I loved it- I fit right in, instantly, and I spent two of the best school years of my life at that school. And while I need to buckle down and work on my audition material, I had an audition a little over a week ago for The Merchant of Venice where I decided I wasn't going to care what the director thought about me. I was dramatic, I dared to mispronounce words... and guess what? I got the leading role of Portia.

I need to remember that good outcomes can come from risks; this theory has rarely been disproven in my case and yet I'm still scared. So from now on, unless it's an emergency, I will not be skipping WIP Wednesdays. If I do, you all can call me a coward, LOL.

Struck by Inspiration

Yesterday I went to New York City to audition for the national tour of a very big show. The audition went well (though I don't expext a callback) and afterward, I headed to one of my favorite places in the city: The Drama Bookshop. I go there whenever I am there and spend far too much money on far too few plays. This time, I hit the jackpot. I had a list of plays I wanted to get and got some of them as well as a few others. I got tired of walking a few hours later and went to find a seat in Borders. I cracked open the first play I had bought (The Metal Children by Adam Rapp) and read it straight through. It's fantastic; the plot revolves around the banning of a young adult book in a small town, and since censorship is something I'm strongly against, it was a very interesting read. Then I started July 7, 1994, by David Margulies (which my school is doing next spring) and read straight through, too, and sat crying in the middle of Borders over the sad ending. Then, while waiting for and on the train, I read Sarah Treem's a feminine ending, which is fantastic and I want to play the lead character so badly.

Reading all of these amazing works was very inspiring, especially since I haven't read a play that made me feel any of those things for a long time. I was so inspired, in fact, that I wanted to write something, anything, right then. But I didn't know what to write. I had no ideas. But about half an hour later, a question and a name tiptoed into my head and I quickly noted them in my phone and didn't return to them for awhile, until on the train, all of these ideas started flowing. At first, I only had a tiny snatch of dialogue, which I again typed into my phone. But two hours and one piece of paper later, I had this:

I got home fairly early, so I typed all of this into my computer (with a bit of difficulty- when I'm writing quickly, my handwriting is atrocious, and adding the bumpiness of the train made that entire page almost unreadable.) As of now, it seems like I've got almost all of Act II sorted, and a tiny, tiny bit of Act I. I'm pretty excited, although daunted, as I've already got one writing project I need to work on and three more I'd like to. This will be the fifth project on my plate. But I'm enthusiastic, and that's all that matters, I guess.

Why I Write YA

There are times in my writing process when I wonder why I write what I write. Why do I tend toward young adult fiction when there are so many other choices? Certainly, I explore different genres within YA- mystery, comedy, drama-and set them in a myriad of different time periods. But why don’t I write adult fiction or children’s books?


The answer, I suppose, is that this is what I like to read. For those of you that don’t know, I am technically out of the “young adult” reading category, age-wise. I’ve been twenty for over two months now. But even though I do read books from the “grown-up” section of the library, and have for many years, I always gravitate back toward good ol’ YA.


There are a few reasons why I believe this happens. The first is that I still feel like I’m about fourteen. Not only do I look like I’m that age, but I’m sort of a late bloomer, I guess, in many areas of life. The most grown-up experiences I’ve had have been in the theatrical world- good and bad. This is also probably why I enjoy playing the roles I am generally cast in- the slightly awkward teen; it feels like me. I am also still in school, so I’m still going through a lot of the stuff the characters in the books are. (Drama does not disappear at the collegiate level, believe me. It just means that it can happen ALL DAY, in many different buildings, and not just within a six-hour time block.) Reason #3 is that the books are just good.


The sad thing is that it sometimes seems that the general public does not share my opinion on this. YA, they think, is lower-level reading, meant for those in-between ages who aren’t at the reading level of adult books yet. But this is definitely not the case. Just like with any other category of reading, YA has its share of not-so-great books, but it has more than its share of absolutely wonderful books. At the moment, my favorite YA authors are Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson. Both exceptionally smart, funny women and both incredibly talented authors who have chosen to grace their skills on us YA readers. Their books tell teenagers and those who are not yet teens that they don’t have to wait to be an adult to have cool/funny/thrilling moments in their lives. Their books- and all YA authors’- are empowering to kids who may otherwise think that they can’t do anything because they’re too young.


When I turned eighteen, I questioned whether I was too old to keep going into the YA section of bookstores. I asked the same question when I turned twenty. But the answer lay in the books I gravitated toward when I was sad, happy, stressed, or just wanted a good read- young adult. Are you ever too old for stories you love, stories you can relate to? The answer, I believe, is no.


As for writing YA, it’s almost the same case. I can relate to younger characters. Perhaps when I feel older than a teenager, I’ll be able to write from the perspective of characters that are over eighteen. But right now, I feel connected to my young characters and what they’re going through. In addition, should I ever publish, I want to do for my readers what the authors before me have done for me- empower, inspire, and awe.


(Speaking of YA that empowers, inspires, and awes, last night I finished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and it absolutely blew me away!)

When I Least Expected It... Success!

In two areas!

This morning, my Children's Theatre teacher gave us back our Peter Pan adaptation projects. I really wanted it, but she's doing so much in addition to her teaching that I didn't know if we'd ever get them back. But this morning, we finally did! She said she is going to send us our grades through e-mail but that she had written some comments on the papers we had given her. I had handed in a nice, covered copy and flipped through it... no comments. I was rather upset. But then I thought to check the copy that was just stapled, which I had given to the second judge. Lo and behold- comments! Only two, but they were both great. She really like the vocabulary I chose for George and Mary Darling, both, particularly the lines, "Your sister is the very embodiment of sloth," and "The verdure of England is hardly my chief concern at the moment." I was happy to see this comment because, as I stated before, I like to give characters their own ways of speaking.
The second comment was the one that made me happiest- at the end of the rewrite of that terrible scene that gave me so much trouble, she wrote, "What a great rewrite!" and underlined it four times. Hooray!!!

A non-writing success surprise: after eight months of being without a real production to act in, I was cast in a student film yesterday! I am soooo excited, especially since it's something completely different from anything I've ever done before (a slasher film, in which I play a violently raised, murderous teenager.) I'm not exactly sure what this film will entail besides four days of filming- I haven't gotten the script or the shooting schedule yet. But I can't wait to get started!

Things I'm Excited About

(A segment inspired by my friend Angela's blog, though I'm not doing exactly the same thing.)

1) Last night, I wrote a lot of The Other Side of Light (and by a lot, I mean around 2,750 words). I love that I love this story right now, and I need to take advantage of it before the "I have no idea what comes next" wave hits. So I was typing away until nearly two in the morning. I knew I had to get up at seven to film, but I couldn't stop writing. I love that.

2) I was so excited about the stuff that I wrote last night (as well as Hannah's encouraging comment on last night's entry- thanks, Hannah! (: ) that I wanted to share it right away. I know from experience, however, that what seems great at two in the morning through blurry contact lenses might not look so great in the light of day. So I didn't post it, and in the morning, I nervously opened the document and read over what I had composed early this morning. And... I still liked it. A lot. I changed a few things here and there, and there are a few important details I need to work out, but I still like what I did. I want to share it with all of you, but I think I'll save it for WIP Wednesday!

3) During the filming of the short today (which I wrote), my friend made a passing comment about how he loved my word choice in the piece. He was mostly referring to the directions I had written more than the lines, but it was still nice to hear this. I choose every word carefully, which is why I am so specific in memorizing others' words as an actor.

4) Sort of writing related is how much we filmed today. Ten hours' worth: the short and a teaser trailer for the mini-series. I was only in front of the camera for the former, but I was still crewing the latter, and WOW am I exhausted. But also very, very happy. (It is also easier to not feel guilty about spending all this time on these films lately because my mom LOVED our last one. When we were filming the one she loved, she was not a huge fan of Enscribe, for a few reasons. But, without any promoting from me, she found our latest project and let me know how much she loved it. It was gratifying and just plain awesome to have someone whose opinion I respect come to me and say she loved something I put a lot of work into.)

5) Though I'm NOT excited to get back to school and all the projects that are due the day I get back, I can't wait to get my NaNo novel revisions back. I'm nervous as well- I know there are a lot of improvements to be made- but I think my editing buddy will be open about what she likes as much as what she doesn't like, and I'm eager to hear both sides. I've been itching to get back to that story, but have held myself back to allow my mind to be fresh when I get the edits back. I can't wait to see that yellow parcel slip in my mailbox!

Making Distinctions

As I was working on the Peter Pan project I have mentioned before, there was one question that we had to answer as part of our final presentation: What makes your writing disctinctive?

In the case of the project, the question was inquiring specifically about our style of writing for that particular story, not even our playwrighting style overall. But it got me thinking- what makes my writing different from other people's? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps something.

I tend to be a "copier" in nearly everything I do. Though I do think it partially comes from a lack of confidence, it's is also sometimes a homage to something wonderful or even an unconcious thing (the latter is something I have to be quite careful about, actually. I have a really good memory and will sometimes form this wonderful "original" idea, writewritewrite... and then realise it's the exact premise of a novel I read when I was in elementary school. Oops.) But looking back at my writing over the years, even my early writing, there are a few things that stand out to me as being very "me":

-Dialogue. I've been told I have an ear for dialogue, and though I take that with a grain of salt (because I've also been told by a few others that some of it is unrealistic), it is something I pride myself on. I love to hear the differences in people's syntax and regionalisms; this may come from the fact that I planned to minor in linguistics and read a lot on the subject in high school, but some of it is just general interest. I could write a lot more on this subject alone (I'm the nerd who, just yesterday, was reading theses on the Lancaster County, PA syntax- and I'm from there!), but suffice it to say, dialogue is something I pay attention to. I like to give each character their own voice and I try to pay close attention to making anything they say fit with the period of the story, as well as their own personality.

-Character development. This is actually not something that I, myself, notice in my own writing, but what has been told to my by some people I've worked with, writing-wise. Even though I can't see it (maybe because it's my own creation and I can't step outside of it), I am glad to know that, even in a short film script, viewers feel like they know a character after just ten pages.

-Sarcasm. Writing is the perfect way for me to unleash my inner cynic. I recently saw a Facebook fanpage entitled, "You think I'm a nice person? You should hear what goes on in my head." While this is a very extreme version of what I'm saying, I do allow my most sarcastic, and sometimes cynical, voice to flow into my characters, especially one in particular that I'm writing right now. Even looking back at writing I did very early on (like elemntary and middle school), the sarcasm is definitely there. I never realized just how sardonic most of my characters are until recently, when I wrote two protagonists (in different stories) whom the sarcastic voice just did not fit. Both of them are far too earnest of people, one because it's just not her and the other because she has had very little contact with people who would think of speak like that, so she just don't know how. It was actually a relief to find that I could write someone more straightforward, to know that I wasn't stuck in one voice.

-Grammar/Conventions. Yes, I know this blog (and my writing in general) is not perfect, but I like to think I've got pretty good grammar. Though I pride myself on it, I also sometimes find myself jealous of those writers who can just write, knowing that they will find their errors later and edit them. I just can't do that- I try to get it right from the first. Of course, this never happens, but I still try :p One of my friends just writes, not worrying about whether "cat" should actually be capitalized or not, what should be four sentences flowing into one because she's so into what she's writing that she forgets to put periods in. I wish I had this sort of freedom (although, having edited some of her pieces, I will say that this style makes me crazy!)

That's about all I got. Fellow writers, what are things that make your writing distinctive?

Writing My Own Opportunities

This blog is about my writing... which means this blog, at the moment, is about one of the only things that is keeping me sane at the moment.

See, when I'm not being a student at college, my life is mostly focused on being an actor. Besides the fact that I'm studying acting at school, a good chunk of my free time is spent looking for auditions, preparing for auditions, going on auditions... and then waiting. The waiting doesn't really bother me because I know that's how it works most of the time. But usually, something comes of that waiting, namely a job. And lately... it's just not happening.

This very frustrating to me because when I was in high school (a mere year and a half ago), I was always in a show. Most of the time I was in two at once. I was by no means the lead in most of them, but even a chorus role made me happy because I loved being at rehearsal. When I wasn't at rehearsal, I was at auditions. During performances, I sat at the dark edges of the wings and did my homework by the lights of the stage, quickly stuffing it away when it was time for my entrance.

Last year was a little slower than usual, but I chalked it up to the fact that I was in a new town. I went crazy for one showless semester and then I got the biggest show of my life so far- a wonderful Equity show where I played a fun, constantly-crying character in a little-known but fantastic play. The small cast was the best I've ever worked with, and the same goes for the crew.

This particular show has been on my mind a lot lately, for two major reasons. A) In two days, it will be the anniversary of its closing after an extremely successful run and B) I have been showless for eight months. EIGHT MONTHS.

I wish I could say it's because I've been lazy or busy. I have been loaded down with schoolwork and stuff, but I've been auditioning constantly... and gotten nothing. I had an audition at the beginning of last month where I knew the pianist, who kept me updated on what was going on behind the scenes. For two weeks I heard nothing but "You're in the top two" "The director loved you", etc. etc. Wonderful, encouraging things... and then I didn't even get a callback.

My acting teachers have assured me that this is all "fine" and normal. And maybe it is... but I can't help but feel restless to the point where I will do anything for a show.

So how does this relate to my writing? Well, as I've mentioned before, I'm part of a film crew. I became involved with them when we were all in eighth grade. Now we're nineteen and twenty and still working together. While I started out playing bit parts in their short films, I'm now their go-to actress (the rest of the crew are boys) and writer. I've written two feature films for them- one that we shot in the summer and fall of senior year and another that we're doing this summer. I've been cranking out shorts for us to do in between feature shooting and the aforementioned Stuart (director, writer, actor, and friend) has asked me to write a series of shorts that follow the same storyline, something I've never tried before.

This is all wonderful for my writing. Writing shorts, especially, has given me a freedom I've never experienced. I'm mostly a novel/feature-length screenplay writer, and working a plot, or part of a plot, so that it fits into a certain timeslot is a new challenge for me, and a really fun one at that! So far this semester, I've written about a brother and sister on a killing spree, a long-lost romance rekindled in a coffee shop in the wee hours of the morning, an odd and comical encounter at a funeral, and the return of a prodigal sister. This is stuff I'd probably never get to touch in a novel, and maybe not even a screenplay.

As good as it is for my writing, it's just as beneficial for my acting. As I said, this is all stuff I would probably not normally write about. It's also stuff I wouldn't usually act in. I'm generally cast as the sweet (sometimes overly-emotional) teenager (case in point- in my school's musical theatre club, I just got cast as Leisl in Sixteen Going on Seventeen.) I adore playing these characters because they're very close to me and I love them. But I won't be able to play them forever. While I'll probably always look young for my age, I won't always look sixteen (even though I'm beginning to sense that I'll always feel sixteen inside.) Writing these crazy parts is an interesting process because, as the only girl on the film crew, I know that most likely, I'll be the one playing the female parts. I could take the easy way out and only write the sweet girl characters. I could, but that wouldn't challenge me as a writer or as an actor. My teachers are school are working to stretch my range (one of them loves to cast me in roles for class where I scream and rant a lot), and I want to figure out how to do that myself.

So I'm going to continue to audition- you bet I'm going to continue- but I'm not content to sit around and wait. I'm going to keep writing and acting and practicing and maybe one day, it will all work out.

Writing Buddies

I have mentioned before that I rarely show my writing to anybody, but there are two people to whom I regularly show my compositions, and those are my two friends Katie and Stuart. These two friends have been very important to my writing process.

Katie and I began writing together when we were fifteen. We had been friends for two years already, but in our tenth grade honors English class, we were given an assignment to write something based on the story of the Fischer King. Out of our possible options, we chose a news program. We began writing and didn't stop, even after the project was turned in and graded.
Four and a half years later, we have a feature-length screenplay that's crazy and quite funny.

How has Katie helped me? Well, I'm usually pretty serious in my writing process, as I suspect she is, but with Crosse's Time, we both threw away our restraints and would spend hours IMing each other ideas, which we would immediately incorportated into the story. It was like improvisational writing. She's supported my craziest ideas, and I like to think I've done the same.

Stuart and I began to work together, writing-wise, in about eleventh grade, perhaps sooner. I know he proof-read a play I wrote and I read a lot of his poetry. As the years went by, we began to exchange more and more writing, and soon those collaborations turned into movie collaborations. We write scripts both together and separately and then act in them for our film company, Enscribe Studios.

How has Stuart helped me? By being blatantly yet gently honest- he tells me what works and what doesn't and he also helps me with the guy's point of view. When I was writing the period film Requited (which we're filming this summer), I was trying to figure out how I wanted it to end- happily-ever-after or not so much. I ended up deciding on the latter and at one point in the writing process, needed a guy's point of view on it. We had some very interesting discussions as to what an audience of guys and girls alike would accept. Some of the stuff I presented didn't work for him and a few ideas he had didn't work for me. It's been cool to have the different perspective.

I very much value my writing buddies and hopefully we'll keep up the work we've been doing well into the future :)