The Last Performance (almost) and a Day Off

Last night was our last public performance of AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME. We have one more on Tuesday for the Play Festival, and then we're done. We originally had rehearsal planned for today, but it was cancelled and instead I'm at home, lounging around in leggings and a tank top as I drink tea and eat animal crackers in an attempt to push the dream I had last night from my mind.

The performance wasn't the most high energy performance ever. Everyone was kind of tired from performing it so many times.There were also some family things that were happening to some actors that made an impact on their performances. Not to mention, it was the next to last performance and we were all kind of sad about it. When you're in a play, the cast becomes like a family. You don't think you'll ever have to leave each other. There are inside jokes and caring for each other when you're sick and going out to do fun things before and after rehearsals and performances. Its really sad to have to depart from such a great group of people. We've all got each other on Facebook for the most part, but its not the same as seeing each other in person on a daily basis. Some of them are leaving the college after this semester, so I'll be lucky if I ever see them again. But such is life.

"Don't cry because it's over, smile  because it happened." -Dr. Seuss

The dream I had last night was kind of terrifying. I dreamed that I had a younger sister. She was maybe eight years old or so. And somehow she died. And I was left to hide the fact that she ever existed. I woke up terrified and with a headache. I hate dreaming about death. And I've always wanted a little sister, so the idea of this nonexistent sister dying sucks. I was tempted to try to write a book or short story about this, but I think that might be a bit too scary. There's a reason that I'm not going into detail about the dream here. And I don't think that doing so for a story would be very nice, on my brain or the brains of readers.

I've started reading the book "Afterworlds" by Scott Westerfeld. I got a signed copy at Barnes and Noble a little while back and was putting off reading it. It is SOOOOOOOO good. Its actually like two novels in one that go back and forth every other chapter. The first and main story is of Darcy, who is a newly contracted author. She wrote her book in the month of November (NANOWRIMO!!!) and managed to get an agent and got the book bought by a publishing company. She moves to New York and starts rewriting to finish before the next November and is supposed to write a sequel. The other book is the YA fiction book that Darcy "wrote", Afterworlds. Its about death and ghosts and psychopomps and a love story. Its great, but I don't enjoy it as much as I enjoy reading about Darcy trying to write.

This book has brought me back to editing and rewriting my Nanowrimo novel, Letters Home.  I want to have it sent off to an agent or publisher or both by November. That would be AMAZING. I just recently made a huge change in it though, so I have to finish the rewrites from that. In Afterworlds, Darcy says that she found out that when you write 2,000 words a day for a month, you get a 60,000 word novel. This is a lie. Even at 2667 words a day, you only get a 50,000 word novel in a month. That's the length of The Great Gatsby. This is not long enough to be a novel on its own, really. Not in the current times. You need to double that to make it good, in my opinion. Short stories are lovely, but they make the reader hate you for not writing more. Oh well. I'm going to try to do some writing today on the novel and write an essay for Theatre class and work on homework for Government class.

-EW