Interesting Incompletion, Inspiration, Imagination and Invitations

Interesting Incompletion:

As I have mentioned before, I am currently involved in Script Frenzy. I am really going to try to hit 100 pages, but even if I don't between that and the A-Z Blogging Challenge, I have done more writing in the last 9 days than I did in the last 2 months, at least.

The other day I was desperately trying to pound out a couple of pages before bed when I found myself drifting off as I was writing. So I shut down my computer and went to sleep. The next day, when I started working again I realized that I had been apparently typing in my sleep, because I had left off in the middle of a sentence and the sentence made no sense whatsoever.

I'll post a little bit more about the play and a nice excerpt on Monday (yeah!) but here's a quick brief thing to let you know the basic context of this scene.

The play is a fairy tale, a kind of, sort of Cinderella-esque (but not really) story. But the twist is that the main characters are actually the narrators. There is a traditional narrator and then he is joined by an enthusiastic, unorthodox narrator and they clash and fight and help each other and, ultimately fall in love. I really, really, really love this play. I love the characters and the concept and everything about it so far.

Anyways, so this scene is the introduction of the Evil Stepmother, Harriet and the Evil Stepsisters, Ann & Nan (who act as one, though they are two), and the main fairy tale character, Jane. With lots of input from Jarvis and Gloria, the narrators.

ANN & NAN: Why are you still scrubbing the floor? I'm hungry! No, I was hungry first.

HARRIET: No fighting, girls. Obviously I was hungry first since I am older than both of you. Jane, fetch me some toast and jelly at once, with the crusts properly removed and exactly one teaspoon of jelly on each toast square.

JARVIS: In case you couldn't tell, the Evil Stepfamily was the jealous type and they forced poor Jane to slave away at their every whim out of pure spite.

GLORIA: This is just terrible. Someone should call the police or something.

JARVIS: It is a story! It is not real, we are... I am trying to tell a lovely piece of fiction.

GLORIA: So, you admit that it isn't real! This is all a giant setup to let little children know that these kinds of things, including happily ever afters, only happen in stories or on stage!

JARVIS: It is not saying that. Besides, they came in here looking for a story. They knew that is what they were getting into. Certainly there are no fairies that come and put spells on your hair. What is wrong with wanting to escape into a story for an hour or so? Have you not ever wished to escape from your life?

GLORIA: Well, duh! Why do you think I became a narrator?

JARVIS: Then you are doing a truly terrible job. I sincerely feel bad for all of the people you have narrated for. It is a wonder anything ever happens in any of your stories. I still have not gotten past the exposition, the opening or the introduction and you are still muddling things up. Normally we would be well into the first act by now.

GLORIA: In a snooze fest no one really cared about.

JARVIS: I cannot believe you just said that.

HARRIET: It's obvious that the two of you have some sever problems. I have the name of a wonderful therapist and we can talk about that later, but right now you two bickering is getting in the way of my wonderful, new and improved

(c) 2010 Rebecca Thompson

All Rights Reserved

And that's how it ended. When I pulled it up I was trying to figure out what on earth I was trying to say. New and improved? New and improved what? Personality? Try as I could, I simply had no idea what that sentence was going to be. So I changed it. But now it falls flat and I can't find the right words.

Has that ever happened to you? Ever get distracted or called away from your WIP and return to find that your train of thought has vanished and you have no clue what was happening in that sentence?

Inspiration:

In other news, today a group of ladies from our church were able to go to a women's conference sponsored by another local church. The keynote speaker was Patsy Clairmont and I was so happy, I can't even tell you. She is a riot. I laughed and then cried and then laughed again. She is a spitfire and real and so, so what I needed to end this stressful week on.

A quote that I brought away from it... "God is not the Great Magician, but the Great Physician. Healing takes time."

How true is that. So often we just want God to make everything better right now, but that's not always what is BEST for us. It's a good thing He knows what is best. Now we just have to work at trusting him about it.

Imagination:

Two short stories.

1. Yesterday I was frantically trying to finish the owl triplets for my Fifty Fabulous Followers contest and I suddenly found that I was missing the grey owl's wing. It just wasn't there. I looked around frantically and then said, "I'm missing a wing!" Dad's witty response? "How about a prayer?"

hahaha

2. We are in the middle of a little bit of a remodel project and my Dad had the door propped open with that slidey bar on the screen door.
Mom looked at it and said, "Why is the bar bent?"

Dad's answer. "Well, there was this aardvark that came around and he kept sticking his tongue out, mocking me, so I hit him with the door until he went away."

Mom's respons. "So it's your fault."

Dad. "No, the Aardvark wouldn't quit sticking out his tongue."

I love my parents :D

Invitations:

Enter some super cool contests I've learned about!

Wagging Tales passed 100 followers now and she's holding a choose your own prize contest! Holy cow!

Susan Fields also passed 100 followers and is having a gift card contest! Woohoo!

Lisa and Laura are celebrating 500! (Super major kudos for that one!) with a super contest! Yahoo!

Game Night

I recently picked up a game called Quad*Doku. It's kind of a cross between Boggle, Scrabble and Sudoku and it looked like the kind of game that my mom and my sisters and I would have fun with.

So with the snow today, my Mom, sister (AchingHope) and I pulled it out to play for the first time.

You make four four letter words that connect at the corners and then different letters have different numbers which, ideally, should add up to 10. We decided not to play by numbers because we didn't want to keep score, so we just made words. Which is a lot harder than you would think.

My Mom LOVES word games. She does crossword puzzles and things all the time, and is a complete monster at Boggle. So while we were playing, she kept shouting things out at us, telling us what we "could" do if we wanted. Finally we enacted a gag rule. This is the rule - "Mom cannot speak if it is not her turn".

Pretty simple right :)

As we got toward the end it got tougher and tougher to do, because your pool of available letters is much smaller. It was AchingHope's turn and she couldn't quite figure out what to do. Mom starts to say something, but then stops herself. AchingHope and I are staring at the board when I glance up and see an alarming sight.

Mom's face is bright red and somehow growing round. It looks like a cherry tomato. Both hands are clamped over her mouth and I can practically see the letters fighting to escape her lips.

I think it's the closest I've ever come to seeing someone spontaneously combust.

AchingHope sees and is just as alarmed, so she says, "Tell me! You're gonna explode!" But Mom shakes her head, determined to be good.

"You can help if you're asked," I say. "She asked. It's okay."

"She doesn't mean it," Mom mumbles behind her fingers, which sets us all of into a fresh set of giggles.

Finally we convince her to speak and her head returns to its normal size and color. Crisis averted.

As we get to the very end we now only have a handful of letters left - 1 or 2 random consonants and a ton of vowels. So AchingHope decides to just finish it off by creating verification words... :)

One of the last ones she stacks is FAFE.

So I say, "I will eat your fafe off!"

Which sounds completely ridiculous if you say it fast and growly like. That sets us all off again and we spend the next five minutes growling, "I will eat your fafe off!" to each other.

Ahhhhhh..... game night. Gotta love it :D