NoWriMo – May

Okay, so I'm going to use this post to chronicle this month's progress in novel-writing. Hopefully the publicity of it will be an incentive to do well.

May the First: 1678 words. It's a murder mystery based on Cinderella. Today's excerpt:

Once upon a time a man was murdered.

Okay, so today was pretty bad prose-wise. I think that's why I got so frustrated last night and why I wrote barely minimum for the day. I think my plot is working out alright but maybe I just got out of the habit of writing prose like this. I dunno. Anyway, not entirely dreading tomorrow.

May the Second: 2324 total. I think May is not the right time to be able to focus. I just got out of school and the weather is just starting to let me take walks again. Prose still dull as dirt:

"Did you know that I have been invited to three balls this year and could not attend a single one because of my fatal lack of a proper ball gown?" Her dresses were all taken from the closet and strewn across her bed and floor.

"I'm sorry," said Eviri quietly.

"Don't be." Dell smiled cockily. "The gentlemen who invited me were idiots anyway, and will invite me again."

Plot didn't go anywhere, but I'm figuring out more of where it will go, if I ever make myself get there. Hopes are not high, which are not helping. Oh yes, and my characters are all named randomly because I decided it's too complicated trying to research names from a single era and area, and find ones that I like. Never mind that there's also magic.

Anyway, I don't really care, which is probably the worst of it.

Teal paisley tights, rhythm, and candy-coloured lights.

Also, Scribblers. A writing group of Bethel people. I pretty well enjoy hanging out with them, so that's good. Proof: I read them a short story tonight, and you guys (might) know I don't do that much. (Ethan, Robin-- it's the Santa one. They laughed.)

This would be a perfect time to use my habitual song-lyrics-that-hardly-relate, but I got nothing.

I miss Little Women. Objectively it might not be my favorite show (in writing or music) but there is something about being in a musical, even with just a small part. Something in the combination of story and music and people you are kind of forced to be friends with (because, short of knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll, surviving wet tech together is pretty much the best way to forge a bond).

Then, last night (at the Earl Awards, Bethel's theatre award ceremony), I missed having the nerve to just sit next to some of those people because we were working together or because we had a joke that made no sense or because we were too tired to care. Now it's just those people I did stuff with once. I don't know. It feels awkward now, and I don't know if that's just me.

Anyway, it's now one of my life-goals to be in a musical with actual friends.

Fame for Despina who shows the way!

1. I auditioned for and got into The Collegians, a show choir at Bethel. I'm excited because (watch out, meta-list): a) it's an opportunity to actually sing in ensemble songs (which I love) without being in the entire musical (which is a huge commitment and, for me, a rare opportunity); b) it's something I'll be learning from for at least an entire school year; c) as I am now a vocal performance major, I really should do stuff like this; d) getting some dance experience will no doubt be invaluable when I do audition for musicals; and e) the other people in the choir are some that I actually get along with, so maybe it is progress on having friends?
   
2. Vati asked me to be in his chamber opera next fall. It's called Così fan tutte (Women Are Like That), it's by Mozart, and it's Vati's own translation and abridgement (so that it can be done without a chorus and in two hours instead of three). I play Despina, the maid. It's one of the smaller parts but none of the parts are actually small, and if you know the story you'll probably agree that it's the best part.
   
3. If I enjoy eating animal crackers more when they're mini, even when they taste exactly the same as regular, am I secretly a bad person?
4. Today's chapel was, besides the initial prayer, entirely the giving-out of awards. In the introduction, they said it was because (quoting from memory) "here at Bethel we want to integrate chapel/faith/something with learning or whatever." Okay, I probably paraphrased that more than a little bit, but my point is that they think that replacing worship with something secular is the way to live a Christian life. I can't pretend I missed singing praise songs this morning, but it's just so backwards.
   

Wie gerne einmal spazieren gehn!

Here is the message I gleaned from today's chapel: The second birth Jesus spoke of to Nicodemus (John 3) was not baptism but when it feels like you have the Holy Spirit in you. Furthermore, that causes you to be inherently good. If you still have a bent toward sinning, you cannot be assured in your salvation.

Angry face.

In other news, Steel Magnolias was a good show and trying to help with strike when one is wearing a dress is idiotic.

Angiol mio caro, non mi lasciar.

Before anything else: Sita had surgery yesterday for her urinary reflux problem. Minor surgery, but general anesthesia. Everything went well but she still has to wear a catheter until tomorrow morning.

Okay, anyway.
Performing makes me think existentially. (At least, I think it's existentialism I mean. If not, whoops. I'm too lazy to check.) In Little Women, for instance, it always struck me in the middle of Weekly Volcano Press, when I'm looking at Becki, singing a story, pretending I'm in my forties and I own a boarding house and she's the daughter of my friend and the governess of my daughters and she's talking, not singing, and meanwhile a bunch of other people are playing the characters in her story; not just a fair maiden and an evil aristocrat and a tired knight and all, but a hag and a troll and a swamp. (Yes, a swamp.) I have to pretend that they are what I see and hear in my head as I watch Becki and listen to her telling the story. Add the mics and costumes and make-up and lights and set and props and dialects and the way we never turn our backs to the audience, and suddenly all I can think is, "This is ridiculous. Why do humans respond to this?"

But today in performance class I sang Il Sospiro, and even though it's in Italian (which I do not speak) and tells a completely fictional story, my thoughts were more along the lines of "I am sharing this because it is beautiful music, and singing it to the audience is more personal than pulling up a YouTube of it, even if the YouTube wouldn't shake so much."

And that is why I am not a theatre major; I may know it's amazing and everything, but when it frightens me, I abandon that thought.

This was written up very quickly between classes. Let's hope I said everything the way I meant, because I'm (again) too lazy to do any more work on it.

Wait.

I was gonna say something. Um.

I dreamed Vati turned evil (like Hitler, despite his well-known case of disagreeing with Hitler) and took over HT and the next conference was obligatory (mandatory? wait, I can't decide) and oppressive and dystopic and everything was wrong, and some MHers and I had to take it down from the inside like the D. A.