Thurs. Oct. 17, 2024: Rehearsals Start

image courtesy of Oli Lynch via pixabay.com

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Full Moon

Saturn, Neptune, Chiron, Uranus, Jupiter Retrograde

Cloudy and cold/frost

You can read the latest on the garden over on Gratitude and Growth.

I pitched for a 4–month writing job that’s well in my wheelhouse, at a good rate. It’s more hours than I was originally looking for, but if they want me, I will do it. Fingers crossed! There was also another job, that I could do in tandem with that, that would be a lot of fun, and I have the skills and the clips for it, so I put together a pitch packet and sent that off, too.

Blogged, did the social media rounds. Took care of some stuff around the house.

The RRS Sir David Attenborough has left the UK headed to Antarctica with the time capsule (in which my name resides), and the virtual postcards have begun! It’s such fun. I’m looking forward to reading about the journey with them.

Starting to get alarmed at the lack of scripts coming through. I still have other work this week – book reviews and a consulting client – but it’s worrisome. Which is why I’m upping the pitching game.

Heard I made it to the second round for one of the grants to which I applied. That always feels good. Although I’ve made it to the second round with this organization before and not gotten it. As Daniel Callahan reminded me during A4A, it’s a numbers game. Did not make the final round for a play reading intensive in November, to which I’d forgotten I’d applied (although it’s in the submission log) and I’m glad I don’t have to juggle that with everything else in November. It all works out, especially if a couple of other things I have on the boil come through.

I wrote the next scene in the Amanda section of I WILL BE DIFFERENT, where Milly (Amanda’s mother) recovers at a friend’s place from an overdose of sleeping pills after a stint at Silver Hill. It gave me a chance to bring in Alice, Milly’s mother, and the center of a previous section (as yet unwritten), and have the three generations in a scene. Then, I killed off Ron, and emailed the poet who’d read Milly all week in the workshop to let her know. She responded she hoped he had good life insurance!

Tried to get some rest, although napping didn’t work. Bea has started hanging out under the coffee table pretty regularly. Still not in petting distance, but close enough to let me know she’s there and she wants company.

I had questioned the gas company on some charges and cc’d the DPU. Got a notice today that we’d been overcharged by 25% (remember, our area already pays 48% over the national average), and now had all these credits rather than the additional charges the company had put on the last bill. This is why regulatory agencies are important, and why keeping them in the loop matters.

Our ballots for the presidential election also arrived yesterday. We will fill them out over the weekend, and I’ll drop them in the box next Monday. I’ve done a bunch of research on the ballot questions, so at least I feel I can make informed decisions on them.

Went to tarot, which was great. They had an art opening after, but I couldn’t stay. Came home, cooked dinner, read a bit, tried to stay awake until rehearsal, which started at 11 PM my time.

Got to read more in the book about Pearl London’s class. A poet named Marilyn Hacker brought in a piece where each stanza was a sonnet. The level of technique is exciting and a little intimidating (says someone who has never attempted a sonnet). I will have to hunt down more of her work.

Decided to set up the computer, et al in the living room, rather than my office. My office is above a room the downstairs neighbors use a bedroom, and I didn’t want to disrupt their sleep. The headphones worked on all the tests, but do not work on ZOOM, so I don’t know what that is about, and I’m glad we were in the living room.

Charlotte curled up in my mother’s chair, and Bea roamed around, climbing all over furniture, etc., and checking out ZOOM, which both fascinated and appalled her.

Bea really does not understand these spoiled indoor cats who have adjusted to human schedules! Cats are predators! Cats are nocturnal!

Meanwhile, Charlotte yawns and rolls herself into a ball.

It’s kind of hilarious.

We did a meet and greet, and then did a readthrough, and talked about a few things. The director assembled a really good cast. I’m excited to see what they do with it. I typed up and sent some notes about things I felt needed work on my end, and forgot to mention something about the ending that I thought of as I was going to sleep and will suggest later this morning, when the director’s had a chance to get his thoughts together.

We had to shift the next rehearsal to a different day, but I expected motion, and the rehearsals start so late my time that I’m going to be around anyway.

It took me a bit to get settled down to sleep, and then Charlotte started being a pest a little after 5. So I had maybe 4 hours of sleep? Which is back to my old theatre days. And it’s not every day, and it’s only until mid-November, so I’ll be fine.

On today’s agenda: chatting with the director, starting some rewrites, finishing the next book for review, finishing up the prep for tomorrow’s client meeting, hopefully some work on VICIOUS CRITIC and on I WILL BE DIFFERENT.

And hopefully some scripts will start coming in. At any rate, more pitches will be going out.

Have a good one!