Okay, today was the best and the worst day I've ever had.


Two rejection letters in one day (one within hours of sending it) and a minor nervous breakdown. This morning, I was about 36 hours away from doing something unpleasant to myself. This evening, I could rule the world.


I'm either a certifiable genius, or just certifiable.


One of my fellow teachers totally saved my ass. I discovered a child prodigy in my 6th hour class. I sent out 3 queries to agents. I pulled costuming out of my ass and totally rocked the house. I learned how to write a really kick-ass query letter which is under 1 page and... well...


Let's just say that my life is starting not to suck.


Plus, I only have about a week's worth of teaching left. :)HI!!!!!!!!!


*is still coming down off the endorphin rush*


Okay, after 6 months of whining, wheedling, screaming, cajoling, flattering,
threatening, rehearsing, drilling, fretting, tearing my hair out and
suffering 2 nervous breakdowns, my 4th hour theater class performed.


We did a scene and the song "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" from Guys
and Dolls. I had to sing the lead part since no one else would, but the
kids BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN.


We went on at 6:50.


At 6:00, I had one quarter of my cast, none of whom had costumes and only
one of whom had a speaking part.


At 6:15, my music director had not shown up, though I had about a third of
the cast and once again, very few leads were present. I also had no
audience.


At 6:30, my music director showed up and I started having kids in costumes.
There were about 20 people waiting.


By 6:40 I had a music director and all of the leads except one.


At 6:45, I introduced us to an audience of between 100-200 people.


At 6:46, my final speaking part showed up and the kids went on live.


At 6:50 we ROCKED THE HOUSE. The kids knew all their lines, were on time,
and all but shouted their parts in the song. The choreography went smooth
as silk and we got a huge ovation at the end. We all bowed in unison and
there was only a minor traffic jam in putting the chairs away.


Our performance was for the Open House for Folwell, which is designed to
convince parents to enroll their children at Folwell. The Principal went
out of her way to congratulate me.


I've got myself some leverage for a job next year, methinks.


I also bought the kids lots and lots of pizza.


And tomorrow, we're eating Subway and watching "Spy Kids."


Life is pretty damn good.
posted by Melinda at 9:48 PM

Hokey smoke, Rocky! It's been a heckuva long time since I wrote anything here.



This is ironic, since I've written a whole lot of other stuff.



I finished the last, last, last, final, final, final, if-I-don't-sell-this-book-soon-I'll-burn-it edit of Impromptu. It went a lot faster and smoother than I'd expected. It only took me about 2-3 days to edit 380 pages. AND I was able to hit the 380 page (95K) mark on the nose. How cool is that?



The biggest problem with the edit is by the time I was about 12 chapters in, I was a full 17 pages over the mark of what I'd told Dorchester. Now I may not be the most seasoned writer on the planet, but I strongly suspect that telling a publisher the book is 95K words, then delivering a 102K word manuscript is -- shall we say -- bad manners. I'm not in this business to piss people off. Especially people who can get me a contract. So I had the dilemma of how to trim 17 pages off the book without messing up my chapters.



It's actually really easy. Shorten paragraphs. Trim a word here, a paragraph here. Shorten each chapter by a page and you'll be amazed how much you can trim off the who manuscript. I needed to trim 17 pages, I had 17 chapters. I trimmed about a page off each chapter (mostly by cutting a few extraneous words here and there) and voila! 380 pages on the nose.



I also wrote 2 short plays. Each was based off of a storyline created by my kids (in 2nd and 5th hour respectively), but I was astounded at how quickly the things came together. Each took a day total to write longhand, then transcribe. Piece of cake. My husband (the immortal Plot Device Man) can up with a piece of brilliance; I'm gonna convert each play to a screenplay this summer and get a fast 2 screenplays under my belt. One is gonna be kind of an Amadeus meets Snow White in da Hood. The other is a pure inner-city adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.



How cool is that?



Yesterday, I was up at 5:30 doing teacher stuff. Then I spent from 9:30 to 4:30 sewing my butt off with Kat and company on the Moulin Rouge project. We got the skirts for all 4 costumes cut. We cut yards and yards and YARDS of ruffles and finished them with a coupla sergers. One of them was a little tiny workhorse of a 3-thread serger, the other was Kat's, and the third was my new 4-thread serger. That puppy can SEW!!! OOH LA LA!!!



We've decided we're gonna mount a "Because we CANCANCAN!" campaign to promote the whole thing, and I'm planning on wearing the Red Dress on friday. I'll also get to wear my new vinal dress to a Pagan Chocolate Ceremony, which will be endless amounts of fun! Convergence is gonna ROCK this year!



Kate Madson (aka Queen Jadis of Charn) and I are in process of creating a schedule for the practices of "The Rustling of Petticoats". I have a cast and hopefully will be able to secure some air time. I'm really looking forward to getting the radio drama up and running. I've also decided that scripts are where my greatest talents lie. I can write really good smut (and that will prolly be my preferred genre for novels), but my dialogue is my strongest suit. I love the way people speak. Kate is in heaven, because she's always wanted to produce Radio Dramas. We get along great because she's got the organizational skills, and I've got the script. Between the two of us, we should be able to do great things.



Basically, I need to just keep on truckin', because I have a feeling that things are going to HAPPEN this summer.



I'm not rich and famous yet, but dammit, I'm getting there.
posted by Melinda at 7:50 AM

ARGH!!!!!!!!!


Okay, this week is really getting away from me. However, I'm starting to be done with school-related stuff. I'm working on scheduling the last meetings for this, that 'n' the next thing. Only about 30 more teaching days to go. IthinkIcan IthinkIcan...


Anyway, MAJOR good stuff on the novel tonight. I finished the text edit (where I actually go back and MAKE all the changes I jotted down in the paper edit) of 6 1/2 chapters. I'm almost to the part where Miranda goes off and leaves Maestro. Poor Maestro. The dear boy just can't buy a break. I also printed out a coupla chapters for a friend to take a look at. She wanted to read some smut, so you can guess which ones I showed her.


And James and I finally changed the sheets on the bed. Ew. Gross. Some things one should not be lazy about doing, and changing the sheets is one of them. For some reason neither of us remember until bedtime, which is usually right about midnight. Then neither of us is in the mood and both of us snipe at each other for not doing it. Same goes for putting laundry away. James does do dishes more than I, however.


When I'm rich and famous, I'll have a maid. Or two. Or three. AND a Personal Assistant. I LIVE for the day when I have a Personal Assistant. It sucks to have to be in charge of my own life.


Anyway, just popping in really quickly to say HI!!!!!


I'm actually getting stuff done. Who would'a' thunk? :)
posted by Melinda at 9:38 PM

Today was a day of extremes. Extreme stupidity and extreme creativity. I got 4 1/2 chapters edited (including one 47 page one), helped two different people get costume stuff, half-finished a bodice, and cut out a whole lotta patterns. On the minus side, I neglected a student, neglected my lesson plans and played hookey from playing hookey.


Am I rich and famous yet?


Just one of these days, I'd like not to have to think about my finances, my job, or life beyond the next 24 hours. I need a vacation, but am gonna have to teach for another month solid because I'm outta sick days.


Okay, happy thoughts. Blog happy thoughts.


Kate is gonna have the most awsome costume. She's gonna be Queen Jadis of Charn, from the Chronicles of Narnia. In our universe, Queen Jadis has gone into business for herself, offering "Domestic Maintenence" for the unwary and untidy. James and I made her a "cleaning staff" a while back (an unweildy scepter-thing weighing about 10 pounds) which looks really cool. Today, I helped her pick out a pattern and fabric. She's gonna have a robe of grey-silver crushed panne, with an over-coat of black and silver brocade (with a pattern which will make your eyes explode). Then we got her about 5 yards of silver netting which strongly resembles steel wool, which she's gonna wrap around her head like a veil. All and all, it's pretty fearsome. But fun. I'm really happy with it. She spent about $93, which I thought was a lot, but she was happy with getting a costume for under $100. The pattern she chose is REALLY easy -- it's designed to go from fabric to finished product in 2 hours. And she won't have to do anything with the netting other than wrap it around her head, so it should be pretty cool. The brocade is reversable, thus she has the capacity to make a quick and cheap belt.


I'm really excited for Kate, since this will be her first con. It's the first time I've seen her be giddy about something. She was like a little kid on the way home, wondering when and for how long she could wear the costume. I told her that cons are totally fluid in rules. You can pretty much wear anything anywhere, in my experience. I should know -- I HAVE.


(I am not a bad teacher, I am not a bad person, it's all gonna be worth it this year.)


Okay, end with happy thoughts.


James and I are still happily married after almost 7 years. We have a nice house, 3 fat happy cats, a huge collection of movies and a whole lotta friends. I'm working on being published, am making strides into becoming a name in the SF/F community and have come out of the genre-fiction closet. I also will never have time to do and be everything I want, but that's not a bad thing. And in 2 years, I'll be doing last-minute planning for Hawaii.


And I'm on chapter 15 of the edit of Impromptu.


Okay, time to go to bed before I go back to whining.


LATER!!!
posted by Melinda at 9:41 PM

It's early (well, relatively speaking) on a Sunday morning and I have a little fuzzy cat on my lap. My typing always suffers when a furry feline is trying to eat my fingers.

Last night I edited Impromptu through the first few pages of Chapter 10. That's gotta be my favorite chapter -- the sexual tension is winding up, the romance is palpable, and I can almost hear the seats creaking as the audience leans forward with "Will they, won't they?" on their lips. I so totally get a kick out of torturing readers. It's really fun. We're almost to the smut too (2 more chapters to go, as the smut is in the infamous chapter 13) and I'll be curious to see how it reads. I'm resisting the urge to skip ahead.

It's unnatural to obsess about a book the way I do. I'm trying to finish this one mostly so I can evict Maestro from my skull. Leos and Scorpios should never room together. He picks up my melodrama, I pick up his brooding. Most people would like to bitch-slap up both.

Anyway, my hubby and I also picked up about a dozen Laserdiscs and DVDs. We've got a marvelous Laserdisc player in perfect working order, so it makes sense for us to snarf up used laserdiscs at $5 per (especially considering they were $40-$50 new). We have 93 films on DVD and Laserdisc, most of them acquired recently and second-hand. Several of them are ones I either haven't seen or haven't seen in a while. I gotta sit down and watch "Gaslight" again. That was the BEST movie. And the costuming totally rocked my world.

Speaking of costuming, I purchased fabric for the Fiona Project. Those boxing boxers are gonna have a nice bit of pizazz when I'm done. Not to mention that green really is a good color for me. kihihi!

The last bit of good news concerns one of the DVDs we bought yesterday. It's a yoga thingie that includes the Sun Salute. I've been dying to learn that, as just about every acting class recommends or uses it, and here it is. If it's not too hard, I'll see about teaching all or part of it to my kids. Grin.

The rest of Impromptu is sitting on my lap. Only 6 1/2 chapters to go. Considering that I did 2 1/2 last night and more than 2 the night before, that's entirely doable. I'd love to have the paper edit done by the end of this week. I'm learning that I wrote better dialogue for the screenplay than for the novel -- because convention insisted on short, sweet lines, I really had to trim down my meanderings into nice, tight statements. I also learned the fine art of subtext. I could see the characters ineracting with each other and knew their histories well enough to know what to leave unspoken. I'm trying to weave some of that back into the novel to make it cleaner and more satisfying.

*squares shoulders* TOWANDA!!!
posted by Melinda at 7:52 AM

OOH!!!! OOOH!!!!! OOOOOH!!!!!


Okay, James has earned enough Husband Points to last well into the next millenium. He bought me (on sale no less) a beautiful wood box with an antique-style ink pen in it. Ya know: one of those really gorgeous ones with the changeable nibs. This one even has the kind of self-reservoiring nibs that make it possible to write whole pages without having to re-dip the pen, and the ink stays even and lovely. It has a glass quill in it too, but those are more pretty to look at than to hold or use.


(Yeah, I know: I'm the only person on the planet who waxes enthusiastic about technology that's about 150 years out of date)


Anyway, I figure I can put bookplates in the box below the tray of nibs, and the whole box is small enough to be easily portable. One of these years I'm gonna haul the thing with me to conventions and book-signings and wear out my hand dedicating and personalizing and making autographed copies... in India Ink, no less. (Maestro would get a kick outta that.)


I also bought the fabric for Fiona's dress from Shrek. That should be FUN!!!!. I'm really looking forward to fake-kicking the crap out of my friend, Amy, onstage. That'll be fun. Between that and the Moulin Rouge stuff I'm doing at Convergence, it's gonna be a busy weekend.


Now all I need is time to sew and a pattern.


Speaking of patterns, I took my girls out fabric shopping today and introduced them to the costumer's paradise that is S.R. Harris. Anyone who has ever had the slightest inclination to be a costumer will have a full-body orgasm at that place. And everything's half off -- how can you NOT love that? We bought all kinds of lycra-mix stuff for the girls' costumes. I bought fine, holographic glitter (which we'll coat them with) and all kinds of cool stuff. Should be a helluva lotta fun. Now all I need's a sewing machine.


But I LOVE YOU, JAMES!!! My sweetie is the best. How can you not love a man who quietly supports your writing career by buying you a new ink pen? I gotta go use it and get some more editing done.


LATER!!!
posted by Melinda at 9:14 PM

WOOHOO!!!


I just finished the edit of Impromptu through Chapter 6. I gotta say, I really like Blake. He's such a complete asshole that I find him endearing. Also, if 'n ya wanna have some music to read by for this segment, know that I listened to Alice Deejay nonstop while writing the whole "A Good Time" nightclub scene. The girls are kinda cheesy and the music is more popcorn than anything, but such is the nature of techno. It's cute and fun.


Okay, I'm REALLY scared about how the new stuff's gonna look in this book. I'm afraid a little too much bumping and grinding is gonna look funny. I keep telling myself the book's already got a ton of sensual imagery, but still...


Courage.


Courage, woman. You're entering into uncharted territory. And you're out of the genre closet. Paranormal romance, remember?


Okay.


In other news, I went and bought all the fabric to be Liberte (one of the Cancan girls from Moulin Rouge). Also bought 6 yards of really nifty red taffetta for Satine's Red Dress. Being a natural redhead, I'm looking forward to that one. They're gonna build me a kick-ass corset. I'm REALLY lookin' forward to that.


Techno music is oddly relaxing, in a bubble-gum-ish way. And sometimes I need not to take myself so seriously.


Dammit, am I rich and famous yet?

Ah well. Back to work
posted by Melinda at 9:11 PM

Today is the day of days, the end-all be-all of my existance, the it, the now, the when, the to-tal ex-per-i-ence.



Well, maybe not. But it is a day when a buncha stuff happened.



I had the first part of my Pathwise assessment done. This is the nifty little bit of paranoia which ensures I will continue to have a job as a teacher... that is, until my first screenplay sells. I also got official word that my ass is kicked to the curbstone. They're pink-slipping me to look for someone who actually has a license to teach Theater Arts (apparently, secondary level Social Studies certification just won't cut it.) I've been told not to despair, though I'll have to wait another two months for official word on whether the school will come crawling back. We'll see.



Impromptu is languishing on my desk. I got about 70 pages into the final final final final, absolute last, I'm sick to death of this damn book edit of the thing. I'm so ready to evict Maestro from my head that I'm helping him pack. To that end, I'll start posting Dissonance to the Online Writing Workshop in mid-May. Call me a glutton for punishment. I just want to be done with this damn series which no one wants to buy. I'm also still waiting for rejection letter number 25. (Please don't tell me any more sob stories; you'll never top the one author who took 450 rejection letters before being published.)



I've also decided not to apologize for being a Paranormal Romance writer. I'm out of the genre-fiction closet. I like writing high-class smut involving bizarre-yet-loveable creatures. Not furries, though. And no Star Trek. I'm a high-class whore. ;)



So now I have to go downstairs and do the reflection piece of my Pathwise. I have to concentrate on being a teacher for another two months. Then I can dress up like Satine in my red dress, cavort on stage in a can-can outfit, and make fun of Shrek. My writing panels should be fun too. And that's not even counting what I'm gonna do at Worldcon.



I'll be in and out on occasion, though I seldom do anything on a regular basis which doesn't involve a paycheck... and even then. However, I'm serious about my writing career, and even hope to soon have one.



Peace out.
posted by Melinda at 8:24 PM