Planet

It's three weeks until my show opens. Eek! How did that happen? It doesn't seem so long ago since it was the first rehearsal.

Things are pretty much coming together now; I know most of my lines, most of my song lyrics, and have a pretty good idea where I'm supposed to stand at any given moment. Can't wait until we start running it all the way through though - I know I need to build up my stamina as the show rolls from one big number into the next, and I really don't want to be panting and wheezing my way through "Great Balls of Fire".

Just to plug the show again to y'all, I'm in Return To The Forbidden Planet at the Concordia Theatre, in Hinckley Leicestershire, from Mon 21st - Sat 26th February. Tickets are £8-£10 depending on which night you come, and details about how they can be obtained can be found here: www.concordiatheatre.co.uk. I play the Science Officer, "a woman with a mysterious past".

Because of the increased time I'm having to put into rehearsals, coupled with the busy period starting at work, I'm going to have to put the editing of Matti to one side for the time being - simply until the play is done - otherwise I might have some sort of break down. Big plans are afoot for the week beginning 28th February, don't you worry.

Announcement

I am going to have my novel (working title "Matti") finished by August.

That is all. :)

Revision

Computer still isn't fixed. I can't find the paperwork for it, so don't know what sort of graphics card I need without taking it apart. I miss my Sims like they were family. So grateful for my external hard drive. It also means I have backup copies of all the novels, plays, short stories, etc that I've been working on since 1996, which is a huge relief. Thank you Past-me for having sense to want one, and to Alex for buying it for me as a present.

Speaking of presents, I have bought myself a little post-Christmas gift, James Scott Bell's guide Revision and Self-Editing in preparation for revising my Matti novel. I'll post a review once I've finished reading it, but I found his guide on "Plot and Structure" very good (one of the first writing guide books I've read that is actually useful). In the past, when I was editing Inter Vivos, I followed Holly Lisle's online advice for revision (see link in the margin), but thought it might be useful to get more guidance as this is the area of writing where I have the least experience.

I need to start managing my time better as well, especially as rehearsals become more frequent. May start spending Saturdays in the library again, like I did last year.
2011 is going to be my year!

Finished reading The 19th Wife, very enjoyable. Now reading Trudi Canavan's The Magician's Apprentice.

Happy Belated New Year

Right, let me explain the lack of posts since December. At first it was a case of "nothing much has happened today," which branched into "I'll do it tomorrow". Weeks past, and then suddenly in my mind, due to the delay between posts, my next blog post "had" to be about something interesting, witty and important; well written and relevant. But I couldn't think of anything.
Then Christmas and New Year flew by, and I missed the perfect opportunity to ease myself back into blogging with a quick non-judgemental Christmas greeting. But I didn't, because I was having an off-line Christmas, like we did in 1996 before the internet was commonplace and you actually had to turn on the telly and wait for a designated timeslot to find out the news.
And now it has come to this. A month with no new updates.
What can I say? I psyched myself out.
So here it is, not particularly witty, well written or interesting, but a blog post nonetheless, in the hope to get this thing moving again.

What I'm reading now: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.
What I'm procrastinating from doing now: Learning my lines for Return to the Forbidden Planet (I'm on at end of February folks!); re-reading my NaNoWriMo novel.
Weird proof that wishing on stars works, but not always in the way you'd like: I wished I would finish my novel. So my computer has broken, making it impossible for me to play The Sims 2. Annoying, expensive to fix yet will probably mean my second draft will be completed within six months.

If you're not already, follow me on Twitter @LucyAnnWade

It's nice to be back.