The Face of Mime

What words do you think of when you hear "mime": White face. Black outfit. Silent. Mocking unaware people. Avoid.

Do you think of the animated tough guy on Rapunzel? How about the caterpillar on the street corner in A Bug's Life? Remember the mime that Dustin Hoffman pushes in Tootsie? (That's a while back, isn't it?). Even Garfield had a mime in one of his cartoon strips.

A Return to the Fairy Tales

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." —Albert Einstein

I love this quote, probably because I love fairy tales. I don't know if what Mr. Einstein said is necessarily true; I don't find myself genius level. But I can be darn creative sometimes. And reading to kids is a brain booster. Anyway...

Writing...

And that's what I'm doing. Just thought you should know because that's what it comes down to if you want to be a writer---WRITE!

Just to carry the thought a little further: There are many who think of being a writer. That's a good place to start. Nowwww, it has to move you to action. So, you write. If you've written a handful of stories--literally, one handful of stories--it's time to write more. Keep writing. My husband, then-older-teen son and I were attending a writer's conference. As we hung out in the hotel room after a long day, my son asked me, "How many

Laugh

Part of good theater etiquette is laughing! Seriously, it's laughing in the funny parts. Audiences seem to have forgotten this. Or people are too scared to be the first to laugh out loud. Don't be afraid to laugh--enjoy yourself! A friend was part of a theater group for years and sometimes audiences just didn't respond. The cast thought they had blown it but after the show was over, they heard many comments to the effect of "it was so funny, I could hardly contain myself." Well, don't contain yourself, laugh! Several director friends like me to attend their plays because I "seed" the audience--I laugh out loud and the rest of the audience takes permission from that and they start to laugh, too. Laughter is contagious and fun. It's energizing to performers. It just darn well feels good. So laugh! (and you don't have to wait until you're in an audience to laugh; you can also laugh at your--for instance--husband's dumb jokes :D )

Guess Who

Our writer's critique group had fun the other day. We each wrote a 1000 word story based on the setting of "beach" that we printed out with no name and no title on it. When we arrived for the meeting, each manuscript went face down in a pile. A neutral observer (my daughter) mixed them up and handed them out. We labeled the manuscripts A through E and read them aloud one at a time.

We were not allowed to look at the manuscripts or hear any part re-read, except for the one we read out loud. We just had to guess who wrote it and

How Do I Feel About Editing?

Daunting! Overwhelming! Frightening!
A bit exciting when one discovers one's story isn't as bad as one thinks.
A writer friend likes the editing process. As this is my first novel (my focus has been picture books and scripts), I guess I'll find out if I like editing.