Pemberley, O Pemberley

Sooooo, between talking bad Pride and Prejudice sequels with Laura and Kristen and half-watching while baking cookies a filmed MINISERIES of a *timetravelling* P&P (called Lost in Austen), and being rather strapped for cash, without a play to direct, and terrified about stepping into a world beyond Academia (considering the last time resulted in corporate padded cells), I thought to myself:

"Hey! Myself! You have a novel already completed that you could easily sell to some gullible fool smart, savvy business-minded publisher with a few revisions, a few addendums and hey presto! Instant gold!"

So, I took out Not All Wealth Is Bought With Gold (yeah, yeah, need a new title) and began rereading its 51K self. Not too bad. It's absolutely insane with commas that I'll need to take out, hyphens likewise, and I remember that the second half isn't nearly as strong as the first, and in glancing quickly at the ending I remembered how hastily I threw that together (as always, it seems - boo, Emily! Boo!), I set about finding what chump lucky fella I would set prey offer the MS to.

Wouldn't ya know it, I've found one that looks good enough - specializes in selling in Paper Stores and Wal-Marts and supermarche's etc. And also just released a "Hey! Libraries like our Austen stuff!" press thingummy, so they'll be salivating for more prestige where that came from...

...only they want novels to be at least 90K. Mine is 51K. So, I've essentially got to double it. Which, granted, shouldn't be that hard. I remember I wrote one chapter a day (about), each chapter around 1.5-3K words, sometimes less. I know there were parts I wanted to extend - especially why Col. Fitzwilliam likes Maria, introducing Regina Carrington much earlier, giving a bit more to Mr. Delford (because I likes him, and because I'd like to plant the seeds of his spin-away sequel which was justly rejected from Bits of Ivory at Pemberley for being too original and not Austen enough), and I'm seriously toying with the idea of exploiting that century's authors' penchants for filling up random chapters with random digressions (Dorian Grey's dust mote chapter 11 anyone?) and actually taking a full 5K or so and writing an entirely different story in the middle of our novel - and saying so to the audience. HA!

I'm a little freaked out over having to double the novel's length, but I'm psyched about more or less merely revamping a novel as it stands. Also, having, oh, been to London, Bath and what passed for Meryton in the Coswalds, as well as being older, snarkier and more full of Terry Pratchett should result in a better quality of writing than what is already there. So, yay!

I hope I can sell it - I'm pretty sure I can - and if I can, I hope that I can swindle convince them to, oh, buy Nachtsturm Castle (but not at 90K, please!), and my short stories (as a collection, with maybe a few more thrown in), and commission the sequel to Not All Wealth. Huzzah!

Here's to hoping. Because Heaven's knows I need the income....

Mood: Excited and tremulous
Music: Interior "Shy" from Mattress because it's stuuuuuuuck.
Happiness is: School begins tomorrow! Note to self: must track down Bob and shake him like a magic 8 ball, but lovingly.

Auld Lang Syne

For the sake of tradition...

It seems incumbent upon me to write something in this particular blog (good grief, did it really begin all those years ago?) to ring in the New Year. I listed in my own journal (for there is, mais naturallement, many real journals, a succession of scrawled bits of time and thought) the blessings of this past year and was somewhat dismayed to see the number of theatrical things that were on there. Dismayed not because there were so many, but dismayed because of personal items, there were so few. Dismayed because with New York, New York looming before me, I fear that I will become the thing I do and lose the who I am.

The loss of Hudson Catholic still lingers with me. The gain of Hudson High has been such a blessing. The nearing of Emerson friends has been a blessing. But I feel - oh, how I feel! - like a Nanny caught in Mary Poppins' gale, holding onto lamposts to stay, hanging onto iron fences, even as my own umbrella carries me away, head over feet over head over feet. All of my songs of late have this theme: I have to go far afield to sing a song (of my own) that is not about some form of loss. So, huzzah for Disney Songbooks!

I do not wish to be morbidly reflective this night, even as I feel the winds rush past me, teasing me on, drawing me forth, nudging me gently now but threatening insistence later on. Let me then list those people for whom I am grateful. In no particular order:

My Gaudete family. I am so glad that they are continuing on this summer, so glad they aren't merely drifting apart. I am so glad our numbers grew this past summer, so grateful to have met those whom I met, so grateful to welcome back those who returned. Now, it has been such a salve to see a few of them over break. I treasure you.

Krissytina. One of my oldest, my dearest friends, with whom a conversation always continues happily, even if separated by three or four months. And I am so grateful for this summer, when I really got to know her better (and not wilt too much in Central Park!). Je t'aime!

My Emerson Comrades. Who've helped me through unexpected turn of events, who taught me the joys of the occasional White Russian, who say knock-knock jokes in Franglais, who get excited and encouraging and are all similarly obsessed with the stage. Two years is two too short.

And my family. As always.

So, there art thou happy, Emily! Oh, I am so glad I do not know the future. To look back on my other New Year's entries here is to smile in shock, to remember the me of then, to remember praying and praying that one year and though I am oblique here, I do remember for whom. And to think that there was a time when I did not know this or that piece of music; when this or that show was new, a bare twinkle in the eye; the half-recorded conversations that I remember distinctly but which I hadn't realized all centered on the turn of this year to that - just the sense of youth and glaring, optimistic naivite.

Oh, Emily of then! You are so glad to not have known your future! And yet, I know from my private journals that the Emily of then - of many of those thens - was longing for the Emily of now. And then, I know that there was one Emily who was terrified of where this Emily is now (away from teaching, at Emerson), and thought she would lose herself. And yet here I am, and afraid of leaving what I once feared to enter! So, Emily of now, how much will an Emily yet to come laugh and laugh and laugh and show this entry to friends she has yet to make and they shall all shake their heads over little quivering you and go off to raise a glass to another year to come.

Oh, we are a succession of silly people. Thank God for Time that marches us on, despite ourselves; thank God for not knowing; thank God for friends yet to come and for friends who will remain; thank God for blessings yet to come and the strength to get through hardships as yet unknown; thank God for sights as yet undreamt of, wonders as yet unhoped for, goodness as yet unbelieved.

There is a phrase in Mass right now for the Christmas season, just at the Eucharist prayer that has been ringing like silver bells within my secret heart: "And so we are caught up in love with a God we cannot see." Julie's engagement and all puts into stark relief what separate path I am being drawn to: "Caught up in love with a God I cannot see." Writing Cupid and Psyche I feel if I can just understand how to be "caught up in a love with a God I cannot see" I will understand the story more and so tell the story better - especially for those quiet few so caught up. I know He restores all things and all that is good is never really lost. Oh, but I am obscure. Forgive me. There's a reason I mostly journal privately now!

Regardless, praise God in the morning and for the New Year and for this Holy Day of Obligation in honor of the Theotokos, praise God for all good things, all the earth, praise Him! And may I one day be caught up in that same Love; a love to break this withered, shaking heart that I may love all better. Amen!

Mood: Pensieve
Music: Les Miserables - oh, I'd forgotten how good it is! (On "On My Own" right now, Lea Solonga, soooo good.)
Thought: Thank God for Kristen.