Open Wardrobes

After watching Kelly successfully take on the NaNoWriMo challenge last November (i.e. write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days) I have decided to take up the challenge this year. I've been planning to do so for months, as this year I don't have a Fringe show to prepare for, but I've been stuck on one little snag: no idea for what to write. I've had a few possible novel ideas rattling around, but none of them felt quite right for this. One idea, for example, turned out to be a concept without a story, and as much as I struggled with it, no storyline emerged. Now, part of the purpose of NaNoWriMo is to turn off that internal editor and just WRITE, not worrying about how good it is or isn't (sort of like the 24-Hour Play Festival). And while you cannot start writing until November 1st, you can do all the pre-planning you desire. But you still need a beginning, something that you know will lead somewhere, that spark that gets the action rolling.


And then, on Saturday, a possibility. The germ of a new story emerged, one that instantly intrigued me. Characters started to form that I was curious about. How did they get where they are? How will they react when thrown together? I still had many questions about the story, such as some of the background, and the exact nature of what the main characters want, but it was a start.


Last night I headed over to a nearby coffee shop to sit and try to answer these questions. I made progress in figuring out some of the general background, as well as what happened to the primary character leading up to the story proper. There is still more to figure out, and not much time to do it in (Sunday is November 1st), but I am hopeful that something may come of this. When I sat down to write The Princess and the Moon I had a beginning and decided to follow it wherever it went. My hope with this new idea is to find that solid beginning and do the same. Then we see where it leads.

Well, I've taken a bit of a hiatus over the past month ever since the 24-hour play festival. But since then I've polished up Circus of Fate, plus finished up another new 10-minute piece (written for a project on the Playwrights Binge list) which gave me a total of 3 new 10-minute plays (including the revised NUTS!) to start sending out. Over the past month or so I've been submitting to a number of contests and theaters, including Lakeshore's 10-minute festival which I hope to finally make it in this year. And coming up this weekend is the start of NaNoWriMo (National Write a Novel in a Month month), so I expect to be less idle than I have been!


This weekend Kelly and I also attended the Start the Music! program at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, along with my sister and her two little girls. I've been wanting for years to take our nieces to this and so I was excited to finally be able to do so. Start the Music! is aimed at the 3-6 age range (my nieces are 5 1/2 and 3 1/2, perfect). It starts with a variety of hands-on activities focused around a family of instruments (this weekend was the brass family) and a story (The Tortoise and the Hare). The girls made little tortoise and hare puppets, tried out a trumpet, and decorated their own horn. Following that was a 30-minute concert featuring a brass quintet (the SPCO's trumpet players Gary and Lynn, and horn player Paul, plus additional musicians on tuba and trombone) that was centered around the story of "The Tortoise and the Hare" with musical accompaniment. The musicians also played a variety of short pieces while they explained their instruments and how they worked. It was a delightful program and the girls had a great time (all the kids seemed to enjoy blowing their horns).


All of the SPCO's family-oriented programs are now free thanks to Target, but you have to sign up for a random drawing to receive tickets since the demand is so high (the next one is in January). However, a little known secret is that people who receive tickets sometimes call back to say they can't use them, and those tickets are then given away on a first-come, first-served basis. So if you're interested in this sort of program, keep an eye on the SPCO's website to register for the drawing and don't be shy about calling even if you don't receive tickets, you never know!