8/26/2010

At last! Someone finally understands my fashion sense!

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Explorer

11% Elegant, 17% Technological, 27% Historical, 92% Adventurous and 46% Playful!


You are the Explorer, the embodiment of steampunk’s adventuring spirit. For you, clothing should be rugged and reliable, and just as functional as it is attractive. You probably prefer khaki or leather, and your accessories are as likely to include weapons as technological gizmos. You probably wear boots and gloves, and maybe a pith helmet. Most of what you wear is functional, and if you happen to wear goggles people had better believe that you use them. In addition to Victorian exploration gear, your outfit probably includes little knickknacks from your various travels. Above all, you are a charming blend of rugged Victorian daring and exotic curiosity.
Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

It's me down to the last syllable. Uncanny, by Jove!

8/22/2010

First rehearsal of "Hold"

Today was the first rehearsal of my (really quite short) play "Hold." If you're a regular reader, you may recall that this is the play that's getting performed as part of the Sydney Fringe; details on the actual performance dates and times can be found here.

I'd gotten to Sydney early (mainly to ensure I had time to get a special lunch: steamed pork buns, best I've ever had, from a little bakery in Chinatown — at only $1.20 each, they taste even better than they otherwise would), so I spent a couple hours walking around in the bright, relatively warm sun and peering into a couple of bookshops and getting progressively more apprehensive.

I needn't have, however. The actors are really excellent, the director is really excellent, my script is funny — and, what's more, even after they'd read through it a half-dozen times, everyone agreed that it was still funny! Apparently all of the eight short plays that will be performed as part of "Hi, How Can I Help You?" are funny, so you're in for quite an entertaining night, should you decide to go. And you should! You so should! Experts agree!

8/20/2010

Juggling fix

Regular readers will know I'm an enthusiastic advocate of juggling for writers (and anybody else). IT IS GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN. I don't think watching it is as good for you as doing it, but it can't hurt. Here's some contact juggling to enjoy (don't worry: the first minute or so is a little slow, but then it gets a lot more interesting):



Found via Failblog (listed as a WIN).

Writin' Rations™ — Bruschetta

"Ah," you murmur. "If only I had that three-book deal. I could sit at a waterside café, nibbling pensively and artistically at bruschetta and writing gripping tales in my Moleskine with a fountain pen. Jazz would play softly in the background, and soon it would seem good to me to order a glass of pinot noir, and so I would do. Ah, for the three-book deal."

Alas, I cannot give you the recipe for a three-book deal. But I can help your writing dreams come true to this extent: for the cost of a few cheap ingredients, a trip to the store, and no more than 15 minutes of your time for preparation, YOU CAN HAVE THE BRUSCHETTA!

Bruschetta (and it's pronounced "broo-sketta," I'm not kidding, if you say "brush-etta" I will hunt you down)

Six tomatoes
Half an onion
Three (or maybe four, if you're like me) cloves of garlic
A handful of fresh basil leaves
A half cup of olive oil
A teaspoon of freshly ground pepper (you do have a pepper grinder, don't you? Don't you?)
A teaspoon of salt*
A stick of French or Italian bread

Chop the tomatoes and onion relatively finely (about quarter- to half-inch/6mm to 8mm cubes). Chop the garlic extremely finely, as tiny as you can make it. Shred the basil leaves into tiny strips or pieces. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir well. Cover and put in the fridge. The hard part is done.

When you're ready to sit and nibble pensively and artistically, slice some bread, toast it**, slather it with bruschetta, sit by a sunny window, and nibble away. (Don't forget your notebook and pen. And put some jazz on the stereo. And if you happen to have some pinot noir, is there a law against opening it right now? No, you're quite right, there's not.)

*Invest in some good salt, like pink Murray River salt, or flaky sea salt, or something like that. I can't guarantee it will taste better than the cheapie supermarket stuff, but it will make you feel very special to use it. And you should feel special. You're awesome.

**Some advocate rubbing the toast with a cut garlic clove or whatever, and that that's the origin of the term "bruschetta" (that is, brushed with garlic). While that may be etymologically so, I consider the practice to be nonsense, and against the principles of Writin' Rations™. There's plenty of garlic in the bruschetta mixture already, so why add a step that increases the time, fussiness, and stress levels required to prepare the dish? There is no reason, that's why. So we need not do it.

8/19/2010

Hi, How Can I Help You?



I'd like you all to rush to Sydney on at least one of the following dates: September 14, 18, 22, and/or 25. While you are there I would like you to make your way to the Greek Theatre in Marrickville and buy yourselves and all your friends and family tickets to the evening (or afternoon, in some cases) of hilarity and enlightenment that is Hi, How Can I Help You. It's a night of short plays about — of all things — customer service. Because, after all, in a post-industrial, service-economy society, who among us doesn't have nightmare tales of either being a customer or trying to help a customer (or both)?

My request has a particular urgency because my own short play "Hold" is in the lineup. I'd love to be noble and say "Don't let that sway you, go for the love of art and independent theatre." But whom are we kidding? I want you to see my show.

Here's the info. It's part of the Sydney Fringe, so you know it has to be good.

8/16/2010

More Giants of Flanders background info!

If you love the Giants of Flanders as much as I do (and how could you not?), you'll be riveted by this UNESCO video that Houston found. The narration is a bit stodgy and ponderous, but that's offset by the indisputable, superheroic awesomeness that is the Giants.

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8/12/2010

The next incarnation of "The Dancing Mice and the Giants of Flanders"

My story "The Dancing Mice and the Giants of Flanders", which was (quite thrillingly) included in the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild's anthology Masques, is having another adventure. My husband, the stunningly talented composer Houston Dunleavy, and I are adapting it as an opera. Yes!

Everything is just at the very beginning stages. This involves translating the story, scene by scene, into something that can work on the stage, making the dialogue singable, finding ways to incorporate information and mood that had been in narrative in the original story into dialogue or monologue or the music itself. Houston is composing some gorgeous stuff, very evocative. I look forward to hearing how he approaches each scene. We're also at the very beginning of assembling the creative team (no speculation: when everything is confirmed, I will definitely post details here, but I can't really do that before that point).

It's an incredibly complex process, involving plans for workshopping, grant writing, international collaboration, regional cultures, managing languge issues, research, promotion — and that's all before we've written anything more than one scene! And I'm entirely, completely new to it all. I've helped produce concerts, and I've helped produce plays (and written them, of course; even directed a very short play, once). But this is both like and completely unlike all of these. It looks like I'm in for another learning experience.... <ulp>

I'll post updates as things go; I may even have to finally start using the tag/label feature, tagging the opera-related posts for easy aggregation and reading later, should any other budding opera-writers be interested in our experiences. (I wish we had a cool logo I could put in each opera post — I'm sure that will happen down the road.) Meanwhile, if you have any encouraging thoughts to think our way, please feel free to think them!

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8/04/2010

My Sydney debut

I have just received word that my short play "Hold" (first performed as a radio play broadcast nationally by the ABC) has been selected for a staged performance as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival. I am ecstatic. Here's the info, in case you're in Sydney next month and wish to catch a performance; there are five from which to choose. ("Hold" will be part of an evening of short plays.)