Not Another Falcon! And Yet ...

I think I have created a monster. No, not my son - my friend Pam. I love both monsters (son and friend) so it's not as bad as it sounds. I'm not Mary Shelley or Rabbi Loew of Prague, and if you don't know the references you'll just have to look them up! In case I haven't told you, I'm off to Malta, all being well, in July. If I've told you all this (and as usual I'm not going to scroll down and double check, because it's midnight and I'm tired)then you can press the little x in the corner. If not, prepare to be astonished and amazed.
I invited myself to my friend's home in Malta and said, very casually, 'Who knows, I might be inspired to write a story set there.' After all there's a ton of history just begging to be fictionalized. So Pam rolled up her sleeves and set to work as my unofficial research assistant. Now don't forget I'm not only in the middle of working on my Musical, I also have a back-burner on which there are the following short novels on simmer: The dog story, the smuggler story, the highwayman story, the Canadian history story, Harold the Hero, a murder mystery (written under a pen name so none of my friends will read it and recognize themselves)and the medieval French doctor story. Also a few picture book stories. I'm 63. You do the math. Time is not my friend.
I sent the dinosaur story away this week AGAIN. Nothing ventured nothing gained, as my mother would say. Harold the Hero has now grown to 6,000+ words. He'll be going somewhere soon, and I hope he doesn't come back until he's printed and bound and there's a cheque in the mail. One can dream.
I don't want to disappoint Pam. She's sent me enough book titles and information website links to choke a horse. I feel I cannot live up to her high expectations. But I must try. I owe her that much. And once I'm actually in Malta, slathered in sunblock, rushing from museum to church to synagogue to art gallery (with breaks for lunch and cups of strong tea) to mosque to historical site and back again, I'm sure I'll experience an epiphany. And with luck maybe Pam will have created a monster - ME!

With a Bit of Power Comes a Lot of Responsibility

A couple of weeks ago we held auditions for my Musical-Fit-For-The-Whole-Family. My husband is experienced in this process because he's directed many times before. I'm not a director and I doubt I ever will be. The only audition experience I have is as an actor, so I'm aware of the stress and panic involved in trying to convince a director that you can do ANYTHING! So, the director (said husband) the producer, the dance director and I sat behind a table, just like Michael Douglas in Chorus Line, while performers read, sang and danced for us. I'm not accustomed to having so much power, Spiderman. What do I do?
I'm a bit of a disorganized person, so I was handing out script pages to people willy-nilly and getting them to read just anything. After a while my poor husband had to take over. Despite my chaotic handling of the situation one thing was clear - all the performers had talent! What do you do in a situation like that? There was no choice, I'm afraid. I'm creating more roles and writing more dialogue. This is, after all, community theatre, not Hollywood, Bollywood or Broadway. Not yet, anyway. Another happy outcome is that a professional composer is re-writing my songs - with my blessing.
Heady days, but my size five and half feet are planted firmly on the ground. Keep on writing out there. You never know!