Conglomeration

You may have noticed (and if you didn't I won't hold it against you as I only mentioned it once) that I missed Writer's Sunday yesterday.

I actually kept my computer off all day long yesterday and it was so marvelous I have decided to take Sundays as my don't go on the blogs, don't sign on to Facebook, only check my e-mail once day. I feel so refreshed and ready to jump right in to the midst of things again.

So in lieu of that decision I am going to do Writerly Monday instead. So here it is. But today I have a couple of different things that I want to do, hence the title of the post.

First, I have to tell you that you should go over to Summer's blog for her Does This Make Me an Author? Contest Because she finished her draft and, honey, finishing your first draft is definitely something to celebrate!

Besides, I get extra points for posting it and I want that mug. Seriously.

Second, I am going to reveal to you which is the truth amongst the outrageous lies that I told last time. If you didn't have a chance to guess, you can go here and do it now. I'll give the answers at the end of this post so you won't accidentally see the answer before you go guess. So I guess this isn't actually second, but fifth? Or something...

Third, I am SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Falen held a 100 followers writing contest and she was going to have 3 places, but then she added a fourth place and it was a tie and I was ONE OF THE WINNERS!!!!!!!! I can't believe it. She posted the story here and while you're there you can also read Palindrome's short story, which was also full of awesomesauce. And Falen's going to be posting the other winners throughout the week so you should definitely check it out.

Fourth, Thursday is the first of April, and while, for most people this means it is a day to plan your most hilarious pranks, like Joan Crawford (whose blog you must follow and read, because every time she posts you will lose like ten pounds from laughing so much) for me it means the beginning of

I kind of talked about this before, but I'm going to expand on it a tad bit. I am a bit spastic as a writer and some day (probably when April is over) I will post about that. Not only am I not consistent in taking time to write, I am also not consistent in the genre/type of thing that I write.

I am hoping that Script Frenzy will help me with the first one and then after I get into writing regularly I will work on the second one.

When I first signed up I was all ready to do a romantic comedy screenplay. But as I thought about it I realized that I didn't have the idea formulated enough in my head for it to work. Although a lot of the fun of this kind of thing, like NaNo, is to discover as you write your head off, I knew by picking this project I would be setting myself up for failure and probably end up hating this fun idea that is floating in my head. So I will leave it to percolate and maybe do it next year or the year after that or in ten years or something.

So then I decided it would be fun to take one of my favorite children's authors and turn one of his books into a movie and I had bits of it in my head and I've considered this one for about a year, so I thought that would be a good idea. Then I realized I just don't have time to do the prep work required to familiarize myself with screenplays before the beginning of April. It just came down to a time issue. So I think I'm going to save this one for next year.

Which brings me to what I have decided to do. I am going to write a play. I have read a lot of plays and even been to see quite a few, so I feel much better prepared to work on this.

The idea is something I have been working on for, probably ten years now. I wrote a short story entitled, An Unlikely Fairy Tale and for now that is the temporary (oh so temporary) title I am using for the play. Until I can come up with something better.

Anyways. It's kind of a twist on the Cinderella story, blah, blah, blah. The short story is SO boring I don't know why I ever stuck with it, but I am glad I did. A while ago I thought it might work better as a play, than as a story. So I started playing with it a little bit. Over the course of doodling around with the story some very bizarre and hilarious things started happening, the most important of which was that the story became secondary to the narrators and suddenly they were taking over the main roles. and I love it.

So I am very excited to begin working on that and completely start it over with this new plot in sight.

Have you ever been working on something and had a secondary or completely new character hijack the entire story? Do you find that fun? Or exasperating?

And fifthly and finally, here are the answers to my six lies and a truth:

1. When I was in England I got a sinus infection and ended up in the emergency room. LIE! I was actually in France at the time, on a concert tour with the chorale from my college. It was amazing, but I wasn't feeling well. Then we visited the castle in Pau and the cleaner they had used on the floors got to me and my stomach practically turned inside out and the pastor that was travelling with us and Miss Carol Ann, our trip mother, took me to the emergency room where they took x-rays and stuff and discovered I had a LARYNX infection! Who gets a larynx infection?! Anyway, they gave me anti-biotics and I felt better after a day, but I couldn't sing. I was on a concert tour and I couldn't sing! How wrong is that?!
2. I have had the opportunity to perform in both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. LIE! I HAVE had the chance to sing in Carnegie Hall 3 times with my college chorale as part of a larger choir. It was so amazing!
3. I started reading when I was 4 years old. LIE! I was precocious and began reading at the tender age of 3. Crazy I know, but that's what my Mom tells me and she's usually reliable.
4. In our drama class' spring performance my senior year I played a monkey. TRUTH! And to make this even better, I wasn't a senior in high school, but a senior in college! We did a set of one act plays by David Ives out of a collection called It's All in the Timing. I got to play a whacked out business woman in one and then in another, I played one of three monkeys trapped in an experiment to see if they could type out Shakespeare's Hamlet. The play is chock full of literary and philosophical puns and it was a blast. For more info and pictures to satisfy Joan and Jenn see below.
5. I am allergic to coconut. LIE! I am not allergic to it, but I cannot STAND it. Disgusting.
6. One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen. LIE! I do not like Jane Austen's books. Shocking I know. I forced my way through one in college, because I didn't want to be one of those people that claims not to like something when they have never tried it. I have also tried to read Pride and Prejudice like five times. I cannot get into it. I like most of the movies that have been made of her books, I just don't like the books. And I don't like Mr. Darcy. (please do not stone me for such great heresy)
7. Sometimes coffee is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. LIE! Coffee=blech! I also do not really like tea, except for the occasional cup of herbal tea. VERY occasional. I just don't like hot drinks. I am almost always warm and so I just get the heebies at drinking something warm. Give me an ice water, or, if I'm desperate for a caffeine kick, a nice frosty Dr. Pepper. mmmmm...

For those of you who wish to torture yourself after this excessively long and rambling post, you may peruse some pics and descriptions of the play below.

As I said before, it's about 3 monkeys in an experiment to see how long it will take one of them to type out Shakespeare's Hamlet.

My name was Swift, my sister (not AchingHope, but Rae, who attended the same school I did) was Milton and another classmate was Kafka. With our director we worked up these ridiculous characteristics too. Mine was British and rather violent. Milton talked in almost a Mickey Mouse voice that had us constantly trying not to crack up and a no-nonsense outlook. Kafka had this breathy Marilyn Monroe voice and kind of a ditzy attitude.

At one point in the play, Swift gets angry that they're working for peanuts (literally) and I was supposed to knock this bowl of peanuts over. During one of the performances I got so into the part that I smacked the bowl clear off the stage and peanuts scattered everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE! I had a good friend near the front row and I scared her half to death when it happened, because she almost got hit with the bowl! Ha! Good times.

Ooff... I went looking for pictures and they are TERRIBLE quality and I also don't want to share my costars pics without their permission, so that limits it a little bit. But I will put one or two up anyway, because I said I would.

Gah! What happened. I added the pics and the text went CRAZY! Weird.

Here I am as the crazy, laid back business woman.

Here's a view of the whole stage during "Words, Words, Words". Like I said crummy quality. If anyone could identify my costars from this pic they are brilliant.

Here Swift is hard at work, coming up with the brilliant plan to kill our scientist with a poisoned rapier.

And here I am taking a bow. That is REALLY an unattractive shot. We loved the beanies and giant bow ties though :)

Now that is quite enough embarrassment for one post! See you all for Retail Wednesday!