NaNoWriMo: Day #1

Prologue: 1,057 words

Chapter 1: 2,820 words

Total words today: 3,877

Total words: 3,877

No witty title this morning. It's too early.

I'm in such a Disney mood. Partially because of Musical Monday, and partially because I'm thinking of going back to Disney for the summer. However...I would be gone from May 18 to August 14, which is way too long. I have wedding planning to do, and if I'm in a show this summer, there's no way I could do it. Because, you know, I'd be in Orlando instead of Nashville.

Speaking of wedding planning, I feel validated about mine. The girl I'm directing Enchanted Attic with is a very no-nonsense, I-call-'em-as-I-see-'em kind of girl. And she was asking me about my wedding ideas, and so I confessed my Alice in Wonderland details: teapots and teacups, the flower girl dressed as Alice, the white roses painted red. And she thought it sounded adorable. So yay! I'm not completely retarded!

I'm so distracted by this Disney thing. I'd really love to go down again...I miss my park! And it would be a great way to earn some more money before the wedding. But I need to plan the wedding! And I'll miss P to no end. I don't know. I'm just so torn.

Anyways...

When I'm in class, I am thinking two things: 1) "I need something else to do" and 2) "This is sooo boring." I mean, really...Fundamentals of Physics. Not that fun. So I work on other things...like my book. But since I didn't have my draft of Book #1 (Beatrice and the Cat) to edit, or my draft of Book #2 (Beatrice and the Greenfinch Carnival) to write, I worked on legwork- character descriptions, timeline, etc. One of the things I worked out is pairings.

Here's a bit of my dirty laundry: I'm a fanfiction author. And when I mean fanfiction, I mean hardcore-squealing-fangirl-I-really-need-to-stop-writing fanfiction. I've got 70-something stories on fanfiction.net. Granted, most of them are from my middle school and high school days, but I still pop out a good Avatar, Harry Potter, or Shaman King one-shot every now and again. So when I started writing my own book, I thought of it in terms of fanfiction. As in...

What kind of story elements made me want to write fanfiction? Was it dynamic, curiously fascinating characters? Was it an irrestible romance? Was it a mysterious event spoken of but never elaborated on? Was it an unusual event? Was it a desire to see these characters in the future?

The answer is...all of them. However, one of the biggest things that drew me to fanfiction was pairings. Shippings, if you will. Whether it was a die-hard canon pairing like Yoh Asakura and Anna Kyoyama, or a couple tantalizingly hinted upon but never solidified like Sokka and Toph Bei Fong, or a crack pairing that I made up for my own enjoyment like Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood, I wrote prolifically. So now that I'm writing my own book, I think in terms of pairings.

Will it be our heroine Beatrice Ainsley and Hero Greenaway, the bookish magic enthusiast?

Will it be Asher Kingsbury, the silly and fun-loving youngest triplet, and Rora Caldwell, the sweet but strong-willed blonde? Or will he choose Neddy Cooper, the talkative, lively, musically-impaired brunette?

Will it be Jack Hawkins, the more-than-a-little eccentric magician, and Fidelity Merrow, the demure young lady with a wild past?

Or maybe even Dr. Percy Darnley, the poker-faced chauvinist school headmaster...and...a mermaid?

(There's a running gag about Dr. Darnley being jilted by a mermaid.)

So yeah. I'm having a lot of fun writing these romances as ambiguously as possible. That way, if I finally publish this (eventual) twelve-book series, I can hopefully watch the fanfiction authors take off with all of these pairings.

Oh, and just so you know, I've already decided who gets together with whom. I'm so evil...

Audition Purgatory: Day #7...or is it #8?

I think it's day #8...

I don't really want to talk about callbacks. I looked fantastic, if I do say so myself (if you go here you can see my amazing outfit), and I think I did well with the improv, and I felt like I did a great job with the cold reading...but Mike the Almighty only had me read once. Either I was just a train wreck, or the one reading was so strong that he didn't need to see me again. Let me tell you, those are two wildly different options, and I don't know how it's going to go down. I was a bit of a wreck afterwards (read: broke down and sobbed), but Erin consoled me, and Shannon (who is an ACU person and knows MTAD really well) said that she felt the strongest auditioners for the role of Ethel were me and Becca. So I have no idea. Really, no idea at all.

If we can get ahold of Ash, we're duking out the cast list with Mike the Almighty Director tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to know then if I have a part...I certainly hope so.

On the theatrical upside, we did our first run-through of act 2 for Shorts. MTAD was very pleased with my work and my actors and only had a few minor notes for me. And...I do have to say that mine was the strongest of the three scenes for the 2nd act. Scene #1 is good, but the blocking is very flat, and Scene #3 is so talky that the actors kept getting lost...and the scene lasted an hour.

Now in other news...to get my mind off the drama that is theater...

I spent about two, three years writing a book. I finished it this summer with a grand total of 360 handwritten pages. I typed it up...and then I forgot about it. So now I'm trying to edit it so I can finally let my friends read and critique it. Some of them are chomping at the bit, so I should probably finish it soon.

...and now I've run out of non-theater things to talk about.

Crap.

Is it Friday at 5pm yet?