I need to write. If I don’t I feel dead inside. That is the honest truth for me. I also know that my work, that is to say my creative work as a writer, cannot just sit around collecting dust. Bringing the creative work to the “real” world is part of the work. So I set these deadlines so that I make sure I do the things I say I’m going to do. Or rather, I do the creative work I think to myself that I’ll do. So these are my creative plans for the rest of the year. They are my beacons of hope in an otherwise boring mundane existence. I’ve often wished for my passion to be a mundane existence in an effort to trick my true creative desires but the muse will not be fooled. She has work to do through me ( I like to think or I’m just crazy either way it’s the kind of crazy that is blissful in a way except when it’s painful).
June 19th 2018 @ Betty’s
I will be performing 3 original songs. I will be accompanying myself on piano whilst singing 2 original songs and be accompanied on guitar by Murray Foster whilst singing another song we wrote together. The songs I will be performing are: Waiting from Nobody’s Idol; Popstar from Character Assassination and Astronaut.
I miss the song Waiting. It was one of the first songs I’d ever written. It was for the character Frances/Annie from Nobody’s Idol. The deal with Frances/Annie was that she was a young woman who had watched the 1982 version of Annie so many times that she came to believe that she was the little orphan Annie. In the musical I had written Frances/Annie was in her early twenties and had yet to experience finding her parents or being adopted and so this song is about her frustration of still waiting for that pesky sun to come out whilst remaining an optimist. In the musical she goes on this singing competition as a way to find her long lost parents.
Popstar is a song I wrote which in my mind has two purposes. Sometimes it’s for my virtual popstar, Violet Love and other times it belongs in the show I wrote Character Assassination: A Writer’s Guide to Killing Your Literary Darlings. I am singing the version of Popstar that is meant for the God of Fame in which this character is trying to convince the main character not to kill him.
Astronaut is a song written by Murray Foster and myself. I wrote a poem and brought them to a class with Murray and he put music to them and helped shape the poem into lyrics. The words of the song were inspired by a conversation most dreamers end up having at some point in their lives. The conversation where the dreamer talks about their aspiration and a cynical/skeptical/non-believer in anything the dreamer has to say vocalizes their disdain by saying well ‘I want to be an astronaut but that’s never gonna happen’. After I wrote these words it was (seemingly) the last time I (dreamer) was met with the cynics crusher of dreams rhetoric. This song lays all my vulnerabilities on the table about being a dreamer in a world full of cynics.
What I am doing to prepare for my presentation:
I am trying to practice every day or at the very least vocal warm ups. Practice playing piano and singing. Drink more water. Oh yeah and once a week I have a lesson with either my piano/singing teacher Anita Beaty or a lesson/music session with Murray. Still not sure if all my prep will help fight the nerves when it’s go time. That’s the part that’ll mess me up.
July 7th 2018 Longform Improv Show @ John Candy Box Theatre
I miss improv so much that I’m bringing together some old and new pals to do a Harold and couple of longform formats and at the end they’ll be an improv jam. I’m still looking for improvisers who might be interested who are experienced with the Harold and want to test out some longform formats.
Witch October 2018 Location TBD
A 90 minute staged reading of a play about two women of very different time periods and life experiences inhabiting the same body. Mercy is a woman with power who lived in the 17th century. Jenny is the 20th century starlet tasked with playing the juicy role of Mercy in the play about Mercy’s life. I’m mainly doing a lot of research by reading various books. I’ll go into more detail about my research another time.
Waking Dreams Up 