Once in a Blue Moon...

Nothing says love like starting a new book
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

So, I walked around the office. I filled the staplers. I straightened things. I went through my files.

It is Tuesday of break week, and I have nothing to do.

Go me!

So I shall hold down the fort as a reward for a job well done, try and keep busy…and write. I have fallen in love with an idea, and am writing it cheerfully, to the point where I’d actually write it than pretty much anything else. I’ve named it The Chocolatier’s Wife. The basic premise is that it takes place in this sort of distant kingdom, where there is magic, but it’s about as advanced as the 18th/early 19th century. They use a small ritual to discover who is meant to be their future spouse. Not their true love, just who the spell would believe is the best choice for that person, and they grow up, knowing who that person will be.

Unfortunately for William of Almsley and Tasmin Bey they are from vastly different cities…the people of the different places each regard the other with complete suspicion. But William, over the years, has sort of gentled that between the two of them by writing her and sending her trinkets from his business voyages over the years. When he comes back to land to give up his part in the family business and become a chocolatier, (“For,” as he says, “I’ve never quite liked anything as much as I like chocolate.”) his family is even further dismayed, because their usually sensible, practical son has obviously lost his head.

Which would be alright, if someone was not found murdered, poisoned by bad chocolates, and William is the main suspect.

Now, Tasmin is free of her oath to wed William, and if she wanted to, she could continue teaching herbcraft at the university, someday perhaps become part of the inner circle of mages, but after some thought she packs her things, calls her pet wind sprite family, and decided to go and solve the murder…because, well, she does rather like him.

It’s written lightly…the letters between them that head the chapters so far show them to both have sharp wits and intelligence, I hope, and they are funny. Their dialogue is also spiked with this wit, but with a dose of practicality and straight forwardness that I love. I have always been in love with food magick, way before I’d ever even heard of Practical magick, and this will give me a chance to play with that. So far it blurs the lines over three genres, it’s a mystery, a cozy one at that, a fantasy-fable, and probably, well, a bit of a romance. In fact it’s probably a romance in the old way of speaking.

Anyway, I hope that it comes out as well as it feels it will. I think it would be one of those books you wrap up in a comfy quilt and sit down and read just for sheer pleasure, that will make people grin and feel wonder, because are the things I love most about writing, the things I want to accomplish so dearly.

Watched The Jolly Boy’s Last Stand last night, simply because it had Edward Woodall in it, proving yet again that my movie queue is driven by my hormones. I want to cap a few bits…especially his casting audition, which is quite adorable, and I have some friends who would squee over it. Over all, the movie itself was not bad. I didn’t find it hilarious, but I generally don’t find funny movies…funny. My humor setting is broke in my head, or something. But it was a very interesting movie, about a group of kids who stuck together since they were the group of bullied, unpopular blokes, through all sorts of things, and now they are all approaching 30 and realizing it’s time to grow up. Andy Serkis is the main star, and it’s neat to see Gollum/King Kong act without a costume that completely covers his quite expressive face and personality. Woodall’s Bullit is really sweet, a little bit of a dope, sometimes…that’s the point, they all are…but really nice, you actually hope he does eventually find someone nice. He has more scenes and lines than usual, comparable to his part as Mowett, maybe even more so, but then Master and Commander is much longer, so it’s hard to say. He has long hair, which was a surprise, but it looked good. So, all in all, a good Indy movie flick, probably more of a renter than a buyer.

Stop looking at me like that, you know I gave up trying to sound intelligent years ago.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:59 PM 0 comments

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Being Beautiful
Thursday, December 14, 2006

My GA's were typing in names and came across my webpage. I said, "Don't go into that page" which may have acted like a inducement...so, Hello Cindy, Sarah, Ian...

I think I shall be random.

First, a really lovely picture of Edward Woodall. http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/gallery/v/press/christmas/george/cast/Ed+Woodall.tif.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=0 In my fantasy life I'm rich enough to be able to study acting under him. Apparently he does a lot of classes about movement that I think would be really interesting. I read the notes someone took on a class he taught today, and thought, wow, that's fascinating. I've always thought that understanding how people move, how what they do to convey things, enriches a story. Gestures in story should be gently written of course, because otherwise it looks like your character is a frenzied mad person, but still, yeah, it would be good. (Here's the link: http://website-archive.nt-online.org/youth/scripts/notespilgrimage.html ) Of course, I'd like to see him on stage, as well. He's in a lot of very progressive things that would be interesting to experience.

Last weekend I went and watched the nutcracker, because my boss invited me. I'm trying to remember if I posted on it, but I'm too lazy to look. Anyway, I enjoyed it, and it made me think a lot about why we want to act. Why do we want to go on stage, why do we want to write. Why do we want to entertain? I am reminded of the idea that it is a drive, really, one that you can't quite fight. You want to try and use the talents inside you, sometimes they demand to be used. For myself, I've always wanted to act, to sing, to play an instrument. I settled for the loudest voice, writing, because it was the one that I could do the most easily, that I felt fit me best. But still, there's a part of me that would love, dearly, to act.

One hates to talk about it because, in some ways, it seems like that dream that everyone has, and when someone says, "I want to act" or "I want to write" it is easy to roll your eyes at them, especially if they want to do more than one thing. Everyone wants to be famous, sweety, you can almost hear them saying, "Get in line." But it takes work, you see, and you have to pick and choose. Ever since I was a little girl, like all the millions of other little girls, I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I thought they looks so lovely. Beautiful. Elegant. They glittered. They moved with ease and were never sloppy, and most of all, they were often the center of some very good looking man's attraction. But every little girl wants to be a ballerina, a princess, special and beautiful. Some of us get lessons and roles in local things, some of us, a very very few of us, continue that training and move on, and some of us borrow books from the school library, beg for the proper shoes for Christmas, and spend time trying to figure out how it is done. I spent hours standing against the living room wall, book in one hand, trying to learn all the ways to stand. When the text got beyond me, I gave up, figuring that something I could do would appear.

I wonder if sometimes it there is a cycle, here, that I will fall in to. My grandmother could not afford dance or piano lessons, so she bought them for my mother. I think she loved them, but she knew they weren't really for her, per se, but for the little girl my grandmother once was. She could not give me lessons, which of course, I wanted (I feel badly asking for them, because I know now that the guilt of not being able to give is often worse than the pain of not getting) which I thought of, wondering what my mother, wondering what my friend Stephen, looked like on the stage. It brought this to mind, and I thought, will I get lessons for my own daughter, whether she wants them or not, just because I could not have them, myself?

But that takes a turn away from the question, it does not answer it. Why do we all want to be beautiful? Is that my problem? That I want to be beautiful, elegant, accomplished, that I want to feel like maybe I'm interesting, special, still? Or do I have a true desire for the stage, and therefore, should consider pursuing it? Am I, at heart, still the same little girl who watched the firebird and wanted, desperately, to be a ballerina?

Those are not answerable questions, by the way. The only way I can answer them is to stand up, go find out if I can join the nearly brand new theater group, and try it. I'm scared, in a lot of ways, especially since I did pursue the theater before. You may know this, so forgive me, but I was in a [play, a main part, and I would spend, night after night, scared stiff I would fail, wishing to God I'd never done this....and then my grandmother died, and the understudy took over. But now I'm scared, not only that I am not fit for this world, but that if I pour too much of me into it, I won't be as successful as a writer as I could be. And I am a writer. I am a really, really good writer. I know that's me.

I guess it's not about knowing what i want, but knowing if i should want it?

I think I will go back to cleaning the office.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 3:15 PM 0 comments

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Holiday Flavoured Maunderings
Tuesday, December 05, 2006

I wanted to write a post about things I wanted to make sure I would always remember, but it ended sounding to falsely inspirational, so instead, I will begin by saying I'm bloody cold and Earl Grey Tea is good. Especially if it had enough sugar. *adds*

Ah, better.

I gave to the local combined charity appeal, partly because I felt like, since they asked me to volunteer to help pass out the stuff, that I ought to. It's not that I don't beleive in giving to charity, I do, a great deal, but I sincerely believe that you shouldn't tell anyone. Because when you tell someone, you get thanked, and then you've gotten your award for it. (There is a line in the bible, that says build your treasure in heaven, and don't do what you do for thanks on earth, because that goes away. It's one of the things I take seriously about my religion.) I don't want an award for it. I want people to get help. So, out of guilt, I did something somewhere else, but I got lazy, and instead of going and getting a postal order I used my credit card. So people will send me a thingy that I can use to deduct what i did off my taxes.

Which makes me wonder about the moral implications of removing something you gave as sort of a tribute to your chosen deity from your taxes. I mean, yay, tax break, but there's something...shoddy about it.

That's also why i don't want gifts for donating. I mean, ok, I send you a check for twenty dollars, so you're going to blow a quarter of that on sending me something back? Seems silly, to me.

And while we're on the subject, did anyone else who participated in NaNoWriMo find the last letter, sort of demanding a donation a trifle...annoying? Or was I just in the mood? Usually I adore the NaNoWriMo letters, but this one rubbed me badly. I will leave whether I donated enough to cover my use of their server for the month or whether the letter made me mad enough to scrap the idea up to you to decide.

I can tell you why I give. I give because i can't volunteer, which is better, i think it's much better to put your body where your heart is than just your money, but my situation doesn't give me much time to go and do something. This is the time of year where I am especially easily brought to sentimental tears, and the thing that kills me the most is the idea of kids not getting toys for the holidays. When I was little, we could not always afford a lot of things, but my parents always managed to get me plenty of things. I remember one year when I was certain Christmas would be pretty lean, but I had all sorts of She-Ra dolls...I remember my shock and joy, opening the one with the wings, then getting the one with the green hair and the peacock tail, then Frosta, then Cat-Ra...then the princess of power herself. I think there may even be more...I think there was one called Perfuma. My parents worked hard to make me happy, and so I feel like I owe two fold...I try and make sure my parents get a good Christmas now, and I try to...pass on what happened, so that other kids get something. And then you know how I feel about people being cold, or hungry. I'm getting teary eyed again. Hold on.

People then might mock because they say, that Christmas is too commercialized, etc. I've always gone at it with, what i think, is a fairly old attitude. Life is bleak, and the winter is a long, cold path until spring. We need this one last bright time, with the lights, with the good food and family and presents and songs to give us strength to face the winter, to face the world for another year.

PS: Still cold.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:43 PM 0 comments