Rehearsals and a New Story

At the moment, rehearsals are consuming most of my time. I had forgotten how good doing a show makes you feel. It's all those endorphins, probably. It is so good to be singing again. In this show, I get to go back to my "alto" roots, after singing mezzo- and top-soprano for the past 5 years. Apparently, my alto voice is "sultry and powerful". :-) I was even given chocolates after yesterday's rehearsal, so can't be doing too badly.

I've also been working on a new short story, about a girl who gets possessed by a symbiont on her 16th birthday. I'm up to the point where she's got the thing inside her, but don't know what to do next. Am going to send it around to a few people to read, and hopefully their feedback will help me see where the story is going. I kinda like what I've got so far, so am a bit loathe to throw away the story just on the basis that I can't figure out what's going on! This is where having understanding but honest people who you can bounce ideas off is great.

Rehearsals and Dorcas

Rehearsals for Return To The Forbidden Planet are going well. Last night we set "It's A Man's World" and it was the first time I got to sing and act in front of the rest of the cast. It was a really fun night, though I'm feeling very tired right now. The show doesn't stop - it goes straight from one number to the next, and is really testing my stamina. At least I'll be a lot fitter after it's all over.

On the writing side of things, I've submitted a story to an anthology, so fingers crossed on that one. I've also decided to write a second draft of Dorcas Grubb, whilst I'm waiting for NaNoWriMo to start. So far I'm up to the second chapter. I reread it recently, and was surprised at how sad the story is, which I think is just about right; if your main character has just lost their father, then I think they would and should be sad. I suppose the story is as much about a family dealing with their grief as it is about time travelling adventures.

I do enjoy being busy. Does that make me weird? :-)

NaNoWriMo

I'm not sure what to do for NaNoWriMo this year. I still want to take part - I find it very useful as a motivational tool and also it's great for getting first drafts out of your head. It will be difficult what with rehearsals and work and all, but I'd like to give it a go. Perhaps I should write my "Matti and Eva" story - it's not coming along too well at the moment, as I'm still hammering out the logistics, so giving it the NaNoWriMo treatment might be good. I don't have anything else up my sleeve in any case.

If you haven't attempted NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before, I would definitely recommend doing it. It teaches you about discipline - making yourself write those 1,667 words a day no matter what. It also teaches you to silence your inner critic, a trick that increases productivity and can be used afterwards when writing first drafts (you'll need that inner critic back again though for draft 2!). But most importantly, NaNoWriMo shows you that you can complete something, that it is possible to write a novel, and when you write those two magic words "the end" on 30th November, it's quite rightly accompanied by a humongous sense of achievement. For further info visit http://www.nanowrimo.org/

So, my audition on Sunday was successful and I got the part of the Science Officer in Return to the Forbidden Planet! It is very strange, and it still hasn't sunk in properly; I guess because I didn't think I'd get either of the female parts. I just went into the audition room, knees shaking a little (literally) and had a good old sing, and I got the part. So I'm going to have to work hard on learning my lines and learning my songs. It's a really silly show (in a good way) - at the end of the 1st act I get attacked by a giant tentacle - and it should be fun to do. The rest of the cast are brilliant. Hopefully I'll be good in it. I'll try my best, at any rate. The video above isn't me or from the production I'm in, but it gives you an idea about the type of show this is (the clip is Miranda singing "Teenager in Love").

This does mean though that I'm now over in Hinckley every Monday and Thursday night until the middle of February. So I need to structure my time a bit better to make sure I can fit in work and my writing. Wednesdays I still go to Speculators, which has been a real help in motivating me to complete the things I'm working on. On Tuesdays and Fridays I will have to go to the library after work to get stuff done. Not sure how I'm going to fit NaNoWriMo into all this, though I've completed it before whilst doing a show, so I'll just have to make it happen.

Going to be a tad busy for the next four months.

To Do List

Things I need to do:

1) Practice for my audition on Sunday for Return to the Forbidden Planet.
2) Finish off the short story that I'm writing about a selkie, trying to avoid as far as possible having to describe what I will delicately describe as "seal cuddles".
3) Finish chapter 1 take 2 of my Matti and Eva story.

I will not be distracted by:

1) Curse of the Wolf Girl (this book is sucking away my life, so engrossing it is).
2) The Sims 2
3) Judge Judy

That is all.