Since November 2020, the very last Thanksgiving I had with my dad, I now want to get back into writing again, so much that I'm actually working on two projects at the same time.
And my new ideas are just chugging along like a train. Funny, but a Metro train station stop? That's the theme of Camp NaNoWriMo this year for April.
-these are from the store's website on nanowrimo.org.
"Stand clear, doors closing, next station stop... YOUR NOVEL!"
For the first time in the world, I miss hearing those words. It makes me sad that I haven't been on the Metro or the Light Rail in two years.
I've also announced in my own ASMR video while reading some Jane Austen that I'm working on two novels simultaneously.
There's just one issue. I need a nonfiction book to do some research on one of the books I'm writing. The new tale of The Debutante of Cassiopeia is a historical fiction. Takes place in 1820, three years after Jane Austen's death, few years before King George dies and Victoria becomes Queen of England. And one of the characters is actually alive during that time, as a widow, and she's a very kind sweet person who takes care of my protagonist Marina like a mother figure. The story shows that love does not know age, even though Marina is left destitute when her mother suddenly dies when she's 27 years old and unmarried, rejected by every eligible bachelor in Danvers, Mass. What she doesn't know is Miss Marina Dublin has never been on an airship (it has a little bit of steampunk quality to it) and she's about to, with possibly the man of her dreams, who saved her from being an advanced orphan in poverty.
And the old widow Aunt Eliza, who helped Marina's love find a forever home and become a wealthy captain, is in fact the same Eliza who was married to the aide du campe of General Washington, and the first U.S. Secretary of Treasury...
I need this book for research on her:
And somehow, I can hear the voices of the fan-people of the musical say: "Hamilton is in your BOOK! Do it! Do it! Do It! DO IT!" "One of us! One of us! One! Of! Us!"
Yikes. I am so much in trouble.
To clarify, if this isn't clear enough on my Twitter profile: I am STILL a Hamilton skeptic, but I'm slowly warming to the idea that it's actually a very good musical and it's inspiring.
Hamilton fans, I am what you call a Lin-Manuel Miranda skeptic who is converting to your fandom. That's why I tweet so much about it, that's why I sent him that powerful inspiring poem.
But I'm pretty sure he didn't get it because he's too busy. His Twitter is being handled by his professional team of agents and lawyers, he's not responding to anything, they did lock up his phone as he said in his book Gmorning, Gnight, even though his Gmorning's and Gnight's are my favorite things I get on my computer every day to lift my spirits, and they help me feel better about life, and my father's passing. Now I have to turn to the Hamilton Broadway Cast Soundtrack on my MP3 application of choice iTunes to help nullify the pain and depression. What I'm feeling inside is much like the jack-in-the-boxes in the Katy Perry music video below in the Playlist Selection, "Smile" from her new album released 2020, after the birth of her daughter, Daisy.
Also, if you notice in the music video of "Smile", it's a big boy/girl reveal video to show you if Katy Perry is having a boy or girl at the end. She was around seven months pregnant when she filmed the video, and she's playing this cutesy carnival-circus video game that's basically all about defeating mental illness and still having hope for her emotional health. The frog she kisses that turns into a prince in the video game, is actually in the form of Orlando Bloom, who she plans to marry, and is the father of her child! The big reveal of the gender of the baby she's having is at the end of the video game where she defeats the evil spider by making the spider laugh in throwing the pie in the clown's own face. The sparkles fly and turns into a teeny tiny little girl as big as Thumbelina, and is almost a mirror image of Katy Perry's clown image of herself, meaning that she's having a little girl. And in her joy and her own positive way, to keep her spirits alive, Perry takes her own pie and smashes it on her face, still smiling with pride.
If that doesn't inspire you, I don't know what else would.
With that in mind, there's the second story idea I've been playing with since college. Since it went off the air several years ago, I've been dragging it through the mud to motivate myself to write the rewrite of the ending to How I Met Your Mother, where Tracy doesn't die and Ted and Tracy are in love forever. And make it look nothing like that sad ending or the ending to the Abigail Breslin movie Definitely, Maybe where Ryan Reynolds ends up divorced anyway because he's still in love with April, played beautifully by fellow redhead Isla Fisher. I really didn't like Rachel Weis's character either, and definitely not the mother Emily, who we find out cheated on him at first, finding this out when Reynolds proposes to her.
I was originally writing a pilot romcom sitcom called Room for Rent, but it ended up being scrapped many times since I graduated from Towson University. Then, years later in 2020, I found an excuse to rewrite it at last, if not as a pilot script for television, I realized it would actually be a much better novel.
Inspired by the phrase invented by my ride-or-die best friend Kerensa Hayes, "Best friends lace each other's corsets for a big date," the novel in question is called The Corset Pact, the story of Ally, the steampunk/ saloon girl/ plague doctor loving best girl-friend who's about to get married to Nick, the dark skinned handsome dude's dude from Boston, Calliope, the gender non-conforming fashionista with a love of fabrics and making costumes and waiting for the chance they will meet RuPaul, and Charlotte, Charlie for short, the nerdy hero of the story, a normal girl from Baltimore who's disillusioned since her parents died in the times of COVID19 while her friends are displaced, and her dreams and hopes are shot down by the modern times of despair and evilness in the world, and thinks she has nowhere to go but down.
Until Calliope gives her a bet that Charlie can find her Prince Charming on an online dating site, and if she does, she'll be forced to go watch the Broadway musical she hates, which Calliope wants to convert Charlie to love the musical. The play in question: American Star: A musical about the birth of the National Anthem, which takes place during the aftermath of the Revolutionary War and goes into the War of 1812, talking about the biography of Francis Scott Key, a prisoner of war by the British Navy, and Maryland-native lawyer who writes songs. Not just any songs, Francis Scott Key made the biggest contribution to the United States in the history of his life: "The Star-Spangled Banner", our National Anthem. Basically, it's a version of Hamilton with a happy ending, in the manner of The Greatest Showman, the musical about the life of P.T. Barnum, inventor of the American circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, better known as Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus.
I've got songs from that soundtrack too. "A Million Dreams", "Rewrite the Stars" featuring Zendaya and Zac Efron, and "Never Enough" are my all time favorites. Zendaya and the opera singer Jenny Lind are my favorite parts of the movie, they're so beautiful.
I almost sang "Never Enough", the Jenny Lind song, at CCBC Essex for a talent show before COVID happened and I dropped out of school this year. I doubt I can sing that song now.
Question for Miranda- Why does every single Award-winning Broadway musical have to end sad and depressing where somebody dies? Why did that specific musical win more than your previous success In the Heights? I thought In the Heights was inspiring and even more beautiful, in a very cultural sense. I love the romantic relationship between Benny and Nina, like a 21st century Romeo and Juliet because their parents want Nina to marry someone Latino, but she's in love with Benny more. And Benny is just awesome, there is no bounds to his awesomeness or cuteness: "You still ain't got no skills!" Love it! It's also a great message about how home is where you dream at night, and wherever you dream, you're home, it doesn't matter where home is. FLAWLESS.
But why does Hamilton have to be better than that, and why is it better than Waitress? I want to know, I'm trying to understand it, which is why I want to see the musical for real. I have the Keri Russell movie Waitress and I have Sara Bareilles's masterpiece of a soundtrack, I already know why it should have won an award. But I still don't understand why Hamilton deserved it more. That's why I bought the soundtrack and listened to it straight through twice, then broke it up into parts so I can take it in stride without context and without getting too emotional. It is a powerful thing, you're right about that. Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe I will end up liking it!
But I love you no less. I ADORE your work, especially Mary Poppins and In the Heights most of all. And like I told you, "Helpless" was the first original soundtrack song I ever listened to, blame Jimmy Fallon, and I fell in love with it within the first 30 seconds of the video of you guys singing it. Can't wait anymore for June 11, 2021! So close now!
So far, I'm almost halfway through writing to my 30,000 word goal. I probably have to up the word count right now, though, it's only the first week. I must be out of my mind.
I have writing fever.
Second COVID19 vaccine I'm getting at the end of April. Three weeks away.
I think I'm losing it over this.
Na-night. Rock and roll on, guys.
-Lady in the Blue Box
Update: Now at 11,000 words at 6 a.m. this morning. I hope I do my writing much earlier and go to sleep better without causing a ruckus when I forget shit. Yuuuuuhhhhhchghhchchcghghghhhhh.
Playlist Selection- It's a Katy Perry day for me today. "Talk less, SMILE more." (Aaron Burr, Leslie Odom Jr.)
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