pedanther

I dreamed that a respected elder writer had looked at my AO3 collection and provided brief feedback on each of the stories. I recall the feedback existing in the form of a printout with handwritten notes in the margins - rather improbably, as we live on opposite sides of the world and have never met in person.

I was well chuffed that on one of my stories (the one featuring Princess Ozma and a neglected character from the later Oz books) he wrote that his only major criticism was that it wasn't longer. Very specifically three times as long, which I had to admit was fair, as I'd basically written only the first act of the story, introducing the situation and characters, and then had run out of steam (or had hit a deadline on the fanfic exchange I'd written it for, I couldn't at the moment recall which) and left the rest of the adventure implied. I decided I should have a shot at finishing it off properly.

I did a web search to find a copy of the Oz novel the character first appeared in, and re-read that appearance. (In the manner of dreams, I didn't so much read it as see the action playing out in front of me.) I found that the character had more characterisation than I'd remembered when I wrote the fic, and a hint of backstory involving a large family that didn't accord with her situation in the fic. No worries, I said to myself, I can sort all of that out in a rewrite.

As I started waking up, I began planning out the changes I would make. After a while it occurred to me that you can never trust the results from Dream Google and that I was going to have to repeat the web search in the waking world before I committed to any changes to the characterisation.

After another while, I realised that this would be unnecessary because I've never actually written a fic featuring Princess Ozma and the Joyful Rabbit of Oz, and indeed that, to the best of my reasonably extensive knowledge, the Joyful Rabbit of Oz doesn't exist.

. The Rep Club's Christmas show opens this week. I'm running lighting and sound. I don't recall off the top of my head if it's the largest and most complicated show I've ever run lighting and sound for, but it's certainly the largest and most complicated one I've done recently. The night after the first dress rehearsal, I had a stress dream in which everybody got eaten by zombies and then I forgot to pack for an important trip (in that order).


. I've finished clearing out the pigeon nesting site and other clutter in the garage, and am spending a few days making noises at random times and other stratagems to convince the pigeons that it's not a good place to hang out. Once they've got the idea, I look forward to being able to store stuff in there without it getting decorated by pigeon droppings.

(While I was waiting for the baby pigeons to grow old enough to leave the nest, I had some interestingly ambivalent feelings about them. Fuzzy baby pigeons are a miracle of nature that made my heart warm when I thought of them, but at the same time I would prefer them to go and be miracles of nature somewhere where their family won't be crapping on my stuff.)


. At gaming group this month, I've played Dungeon Busters, Custom Heroes, and Betrayal Legacy.


. On homeward leg of the Globe trip, I listened to the audio book of Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks, the first official Doctor Who tie-in novel. I first read it years ago and enjoyed it, especially the bits that expanded on what was on screen; I didn't enjoy it so much this time, because parts of it are very much of their time. Ian has some moments of taking it for granted that women are the weaker sex that needs to be protected, and everybody, including the Doctor, is completely on board with the idea that the Daleks must be evil because they're ugly and the Thals must be good because they're beautiful. There's also a weird bit near the beginning where Ian, a non-smoker in the TV series, lights a cigarette to settle his nerves; it doesn't help that it's fairly obviously happening to set up the next bit of the plot, and Ian never so much as mentions cigarettes again for the rest of the novel.


. Here's a delightful Star Wars sequel trilogy fic that more people should get to appreciate before it inevitably gets stomped on by Episode IX:

a gate to many wonders (3643 words) by melannen

In which Luke Skywalker does his first manifestation as a Force ghost, and there's some interesting thoughts about what it actually means to be a Force ghost, and also the first person he meets is the last person he was expecting.

1. It's a recurring problem with attempts to put on big shows in this town that, for various reasons involving availability and hire costs, it's never possible to retain any of the big stages for more than a week, including bump-in and bump-out, so you end up rehearsing for months on end to go on stage for three evenings and a matinee. (The first big show I was involved in here was Kiss Me, Kate, which in a striking irony has a scene where a character's attempt to spin his show as successful is deflated by another character pointing out that it folded after only four performances.) Another recurring problem is that it's increasingly difficult to find people willing to get involved, with the whole "give up five months of your life for four performances" thing being one of the reasons why. In the past, that hasn't bothered me so much, but looking back on all the things I've had to pass over these last five months, I might be more reluctant in future. I suspect it will end up depending, as it usually does, on what the next big show turns out to be.


2. In other news, The Duchess of Coolgardie has closed after the usual four performances. The first couple were a bit shaky, for one reason and another, but everything clicked together for the third and by the end of the fourth we were kind of sad that we had to stop just as we were all getting the hang of it. (But also relieved, see above re: five months of our lives we're never getting back.) Playing in front of an audience changed the dynamic of the performance in ways I hadn't anticipated; the audiences were encouraged to get into the melodrama spirit and cheer and boo and go "awww" at the appropriate moments, and it took me a few shows to get a feel for where to set the level of the performance and how to fit the dialogue around the audience reactions. I may have had it especially hard because, as the villain, pretty much everything I said or did set off a fresh wave of boos. I do have to admit that some of the audience reactions were entertaining; I particularly liked a moment when my soft-hearted target was soliloquizing that, although by now she knew me to be a villain, she couldn't stand back and let me die alone and wretched - at which a voice from the audience called out "Yes you can!"


3. I had the usual opening-week nightmare the night after the last dress rehearsal, in the version that's become usual where I recognise it immediately and am not actually bothered by it. But then I had it again the night after the first performance - back to full strength, in a way it hasn't been for years. And then I had it again a couple more times the Monday and Tuesday after the show closed. Maybe it's been rejuvenated by this show being in a theatre I haven't worked in before, or maybe this show has been unusually stressful (which is not an implausible theory). But I kind of wonder, particularly since I kept having it after the show was over, whether there's some other stressor involved that's just been borrowing the shape of the opening-week nightmare because that happened to be ready to hand.


4. Rehearsals have begun for the Christmas Show. Not sure I have anything particular to say about that.


5. Spent last night hanging out with friends, chatting, eating pizza, and, at what felt like the appropriate moment, breaking out Story War, the storytelling card game where the cards have whatever powers you can persuade the referee to accept. This was my second attempt to introduce the game to this group of friends; the first attempt went somewhat poorly, I thought, due to a number of factors (including Earth Hour happening in the middle, which made the cards hard to read), but enough people had been there and had pleasant memories of it to be prepared to give it a second shot. It went a lot better this time, especially after several people dropped out and we switched from playing the team game to the one-on-one game. Partly that's got to be because we were left with the people who were really getting into the game, but it's been my experience that (at least in the context where I've usually played Story War) the team game generally doesn't go as well; on the face of it, it isn't that much more complicated than the one-on-one game, but it seems to be just that bit too much. This was the first time I broke out the expansion pack with the cards based on internet memes, and I apparently didn't shuffle very well, because we saw pretty much the entire cast of Bravest Warriors over the course of the night - which led to some wild flaily improvisation because none of us had the faintest idea who these people were. (I only know now because I noticed they seemed to share an art style, and looked them up on the internet after I got home.) One of my friends decided to post a running commentary on Twitter.

1. 'Allo 'Allo opens tomorrow. The last dress rehearsal went pretty smoothly, which I think I'd prefer to a disaster even if a disastrous final rehearsal is supposed to mean a successful opening.

(lost_spook, since you raised the subject: I know exactly where I put the painting of the Fallen Madonna; the trouble is that since I put it there, somebody else has moved it...)

I haven't had the opening week nightmare yet, which might mean that it's become too familiar to retain any power. On the other hand, there's still tonight.


2. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a quiz night with a group of people from the cast and crew of 'Allo 'Allo. We upheld my family's proud tradition of always coming second at quiz nights, though it was a very close-run thing and we nearly spoiled it by winning. At the end of the final round we were in equal first place, and it took two tie-breakers to bump us down to second.

It's the kind of result that makes one think back on the points that one's team narrowly failed to achieve. I can think of a couple of points we would have got if the person writing down the answers for that round had listened when I said I had the answer; on the other hand, I can think of a couple of points we would have got if I had listened when I was the one writing down the answers, so I suppose it balances out.


3. Rehearsals have already begun for The Duchess of Coolgardie, though at this stage they involve less acting than they do the producer trying to figure out the movement of the various characters on, off, and around the stage. It's got a relatively large cast for an amateur production, even if you only count the named characters, and there's a fair number of unnamed extras and walk-ons in addition.

My character is turning out to have more facets than I expected a melodrama villain to have. I rather guiltily prefer him to the hero, who has a tendency toward the kind of overwrought moping about his troubles that can only be described as "melodramatic", and frankly the worst of his troubles are more his own fault than either he or the authors seem inclined to acknowledge. The villain is a pretty poor excuse for a human being, but at least he's relatively straightforward and self-aware about it.


4. In the area of theatre I've been to see instead of been in, I saw Black Swan's recent modern-dress production of As You Like It. I liked it a great deal, and significantly it made me like the play itself more than I previously had. The only other production I'd previously seen had a lot of really neat sight gags interpolated into it, but left me cold on the play itself; this production made more of an emotional connection to the underlying story (and also, to be fair, had a few good sight gags of its own).


5. A few years ago, the stage magician Teller, in collaboration with veteran theatre director Aaron Posner, directed a production of Macbeth in which all the mysterious supernatural events were realized using actual magic: none of this business with witches and ghosts sneaking on and off stage in full view of the audience; they appeared and disappeared in front of the audience's very eyes. All the apparations apparated in suitably mysterious fashion. It also got pretty good reviews as a production of Macbeth even apart from that aspect of the production. I was very sad at the time that I had no chance of seeing it, and so I was unspeakably pleased to discover just now that it was filmed and has been released on video. It won't be the same as seeing it live, but it's a lot better than nothing.

The reason I was looking up details of that old production is that I recently learned Teller and Posner have done a follow-up this year, bringing a similar approach to The Tempest.

Now I'm certain I dream in colour: I remember noticing last night that the battery indicator on one of my electronic devices was not only low but had turned red to emphasize the fact. (In waking life, the battery indicator is old-style LCD, and doesn't change colour.)

It was the same vivid shade of red as some red ink I encountered recently and was struck by how much it stood out on the page.

I came across a theory recently that dreaming, instead of or in addition to being about consolidating the day's memories, is about limbering up the neural pathways that might be needed in the day ahead.

If so, my brain is apparently confident that today I'll be playing Batman: Arkham Asylum.


[Edited to add: And it was right. Self-fulfilling prophecy, really.]