Happy Holidays!

Overcome by Christmas cards and gift-wrapping, there wasn't anything for me to write about since my last post.

I hope your holidays were joyful and that the New Year is safe.

Happy Holidays!

Dallas Opera: "Die Fledermaus"

There was only one skunk on the road to Dallas this past Sunday and the portent held true. There were no ringing or vibrating cell phones, no watch alarms, and no out-of-place applause. The only skunk in the audience was the woman next to me wearing perfume.

Fortunately, there were large blocks of empty seats in the upper balcony making it easy for me to move up and avoid having another allergic reaction to her otherwise pleasant fragrance.

I moved to an empty lower row of only three seats and settled in to having a good time with this comic operetta by Johann Strauss II.

Although the first act is filled with chuckles from the interplay of the characters which was easy to follow because the performance was in English, I was nearly overcome by yawns and general boredom. The only bright spots were the voices of Chad Shelton, playing Alfred, and Ava Pine, playing Adele, who turned out to be the star of the show both in voice and in acting.

To be fair, Ana Maria Martinez, playing the part of Rosalinde, was recovering from the flu. Knowing this only makes me wonder how much better she might have been if she had been in full health. On the other hand, Miss Pine was recovering from a sinus condition.

Since many of the singers, excluding Pine, Shelton, and later Grant Neale, weren't easily projecting their voices over the orchestra or filling the hall with their voices, it made me consider that the smaller capacity of the new Winspear Opera House with its 2200 - 2300 seats, compared to the 3400 seats of the Fair Park Music Hall, would aid weaker voices. In any case, a voice like Pine's will be sure to knock our socks off in the smaller venue.

Happily, the pace picked up in the second act and the production improved through to the end of Act III. Neale, as Frosch, the jailer, was in fine voice and left me in stitches with his pratfalls and complaints about opera and Alfred's singing. Indeed, I'd be lying if I didn't admit how well Shelton sang and portrayed Alfred despite Frosch's complaints.

The only character I found disconcerting was Prince Orlofsky, played by Marianna Kulikova. I don't know if it was her somewhat erratic voice which got stronger as she went on or her makeup or the sight of the side of her right breast bulging through the side of her uniform. There were too many lopsided features for me to ignore in order to catch the laughs. Was she a woman playing a man as a trouser role suggests? Or was she a woman playing a man playing a woman in drag as a man?

Overall, it turned out to be a gentle and pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon, not an expensive nap as I feared it would become during Act I, although it wasn't worth the 4-1/2 hour drive except for Ava Pine's performance.

If this production is any indication, we need to keep an eye on Ava Pine because she might be going places.

NaNoWriMo 2008

There it is. I participated. I met the challenge head on and won. I can't say that I'm proud of it, though, because it was a lot of painful work for a negligible reward. It feels like a hollow victory.

I'm not talking about the web badge or PDF certificate I was awarded. They're kewl and I'm glad to have them.

What I mean is that NaNoWriMo isn't for everyone.

The intent of NaNo is to enable a writer to produce a novel's first draft in only 30 days instead of the six months or longer that it usually takes. It is particularly effective for writers who can't quell their inner editors long enough to finish a first draft.

Unfortunately, as in other aspects of life, one size does not fit all. NaNo isn't suitable for every writer; I suspect especially those who don't tend to do a lot of rewriting. In case you're wondering, writers fall somewhere along a line that ranges across three basic categories: from writers to editors to revisionists.

For example, Lee Child writes a first draft and that's the only draft he does.

In "James A. Michener's Writer's Handbook: Explorations in Writing and Publishing," Michener described himself as being not a good writer, but a great editor.

At the opposite end of the range from Lee Child are writers like Louise Ure who describes herself as a revisionist who changes everything that's in her first draft. Everything!

Because I tend more to Lee Child's end than I do to Louise Ure's end of the range, being a polisher and tweaker instead of a rewriter or revisionist, I am still dismayed at the huge amount of untenable crap that was the result of my participation in NaNo. Sure, I won, but what I got from it was merely the length of a novel. It wasn't a first draft as far as I'm concerned. From the 344 manuscript pages that resulted from my NaNo efforts, I've been deleting everything I have to rewrite from scratch. As of this posting, only 55 pages remain.

That's a serious load of crap, isn't it? I'm not concerned about the actual rewriting because I have all my preparatory material. I'm annoyed only about the waste of time.

The reason for this is because the pressure of the short deadline and the advice given by Chris Baty and other experienced NaNo writers influenced me to cast everything I learned from Mary McClure to the wind. In addition to being a mentor to journalists, Mary encourages all writers and has an excellent sense for what works. It's not that Baty et al give bad advice, either, only that it doesn't always work for everyone.

So there I was, halfway through November, suddenly aware that extremely little of what I was writing could remain. It's not that the story is bad. It's because the writing was truly awful; I haven't seen my writing that bad before - ever. Not even in junior high school. By striving for the quantity that NaNo demands, I wasted nearly a month's worth of writing time that would have been put to better use producing pages that I wouldn't have to delete at the end of the challenge so I can rewrite them.

I would have given up and quit at that point of unhappy discovery, but I decided to see it through. After all, I had dedicated November to NaNoWriMo and I didn't have anything else to do on the spur of the moment. I did, however, quit as soon as I came to a natural stopping point after passing the 50K word goal even though there were more days left that I could have used to write more. I just didn't want to have to rewrite any more than I did already and I'm not enough of an adrenalin junkie to want the intensity of NaNo writing to last longer than necessary.

It really is an accomplishment to come out of NaNo as a winner. I only wish that what I got out of it was more like other first drafts I've done.

The bottom line is that while I have a winner's badge, the real prize for me is a workable draft. That is, a draft that I can actually work on, not one that I have to delete and rewrite.

Maybe if I was a revisionist, I'd be a happy camper. Instead, I suffered the insanity of NaNoWriMo and have only 12,000 words to show for it despite being a winner. I could have had that anyway if I hadn't been honor-bound to not start writing before November 1. NaNoWriMo simply isn't my cup of tea.

Will it work for you? Here are some things to consider. If you:

1. Are a procrastinator

2. Can't stifle your internal editor long enough to finish a first draft

3. Typically do heavy editing, rewriting, or revising

NaNoWriMo is likely to work out very well for you.

If you're a procrastinator who doesn't like to rewrite, all I can suggest is that you either set your butt down and write on your own volition, or bite the bullet, do NaNo, and rewrite whatever results.

To be a NaNo winner, I offer the following tips:

1. Dedicate enough time to churn out an average of 1,667 words per day for 30 days in a row. Get a haircut, do all the laundry, buy groceries, warn your family and friends that you won't be available, get an answering machine or turn off your phone, put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on your door, have your spouse pay all the bills or pay all you can afford on October 31 and delay as many as you can until December 1.

2. Persuade someone to prepare your meals or stock up on sandwich fixings, cereal, Ramen, and other quick foods like Knorr Rice Sides and Sides Plus to which you can add a drained 8 oz. can of vegetables and a drained, two-serving can of meat like chicken, ham, or sliced Vienna sausages after preparation according to package directions. That will give you a one-pot meal that serves two. If you're single, refrigerate the second serving and reheat it later for another meal. (For easy cleaning, fill the pot with hot water and a few drops of detergent as soon as it's empty, and let it soak while you go back to writing. It'll be easy to clean after a few hours.) During NaNo, I had an unusual craving for milk and grapes. Since protein and fruit are synergistic, I wasn't concerned, only noticed that the combination and quantities were unusual for me.

3. Plan your story as much as possible. The more you know about your characters and plot, the less you'll get stuck. Free-flow writing works, but if you get writer's block, having an outline or a stack of notes at hand will help you get back to writing. If it isn't cohesive, don't worry about it. Write on. Fix later.

4. If you don't have names for your characters before Nov. 1, don't get hung up on inventing them during NaNo. Simply call them something, anything, consistently all the way through. That way, you can go back after you determine a name and do a Find and Replace All if you're using Word or the equivalent in other word processors. Then, you can tweak the names according to how other characters address them during a regular editing pass. I used occupations such as POLICE CAPTAIN, WAITRESS, character types such as VILLAIN and VICTIM, and physical characteristics such as BLONDE when I didn't want to waste time thinking up a name.

That's all I can think of at this time. If you have other tips that helped you become a NaNo winner, please post them in Comments.

Happy Writing!

Dallas Opera: "The Marriage of Figaro"

I should have known by the five dead skunks I saw during my drive to Dallas, plus the two that I didn't, how the Sunday matinee performance of "The Marriage of Figaro" was going to be.

The opera is one of my favorites. Humor and wit abound along with the cleverness of Mozart's music. Like the road to Dallas, this production was thoroughly enjoyable and the best I've ever seen for this opera. The laughs were elicited from us by sight gags as well as by vocal phrasing and the performers' timing was impeccable. For example, Keith Jameson, who played Don Curzio, the magistrate, stuttered musically and majestically; we couldn't help bursting out with laughter and love how his stuttering was echoed by the other singers which enticed even more laughter from us. It wasn't just the laughs, either. Susanna Phillips, who portrayed the Countess Almaviva, sang so beautifully that I wanted her arias to last longer and wished we could shout, "Encore!" at the final curtain and get her to sing one again.

However, as excellent as it was, I am almost sorry that I went and I deeply regret buying season tickets; I am that disgusted. It wasn't the horribly uncomfortable seat that will hopefully be corrected with the move to the new Winspear Opera House next season or that I was perspiring until the third act when someone finally got smart enough to turn on the air conditioner.

The skunks were in the audience.

Every other opera I've attended in other cities, when the house lights go down, the audience settles in anticipation. In Dallas, chatter speeds up and doesn't finish until AFTER the music is started...except for the past-their-prime women sitting near me who started talking well into the act while the performers were singing. I couldn't give them the evil eye because they were in my row and wouldn't have been able to see me. I couldn't shush them without creating another disturbance. The only things I could do were pray for them to shut up already and wish my arm was long enough to reach over and head-slap the pair of them.

In addition to the talking were the cell phones. Not only did I hear a cell phone playing a tune that was discordant to the music being played by the orchestra, I heard the bzz-bzz-bzzz of a vibrating phone, and the ting-ting-tinging of a watch alarm. Which part of "Please turn off your cell phones" couldn't the morons understand?

Another skunk was the perfume. Ladies, when you're going to be sitting for hours, shoulder-to-shoulder with others, PLEASE DO NOT WEAR PERFUME OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF FRAGRANCE. All you need is the effective use of bath soap. For those of us who are allergic to fragrance, the watering eyes and congested sinuses are agony. For those of us who think your favorite fragrance stinks, it's misery. How would you like to spend three and a half hours sitting within five feet of a skunk? If you think I'm the only person who thinks this way, there were women in line at the ladies room who I overheard complaining about someone wearing perfume who was sitting near them, too.

Another thing, especially if you were among the group of idiots sitting in the right balcony and clapping when no one else was, here's a clue:

The superscription above the stage means that someone is singing or is about to sing and that you should be quiet and listen. It is NOT a signal for you to start clapping with all your might to drown out the singer's voice as well as the harpsichord being played by the conductor, Graeme Jenkins.

Since the Dallas Opera was founded in 1957, one would think there's been enough time for its audience to learn how to behave. Certainly, cell phones have been out long enough for people to have grasped general etiquette by now and turn off their cell phones in libraries, churches, theaters, AND AT THE OPERA. The mere fact that the performers are singing without microphones gives normal, respectful audiences the motivation to help them be heard by everyone by being quiet, but no, Dallas, you are too rude, crude, and socially unacceptable to exhibit the minimum in common courtesy or to have any degree of couth.

Dallas, it's time for you to grow up and start behaving yourself. I'm giving you the rest of the 2008-2009 season to prove yourself capable of not ruining another opera only because I already have tickets. Yes, I have thought about trying to get a refund or sell my tickets on eBay, but I really want to see the operas. After that, we'll see. There's also opera in Tulsa and Fort Worth's Bass Hall is too fabulous for me to waste nine hours of driving time plus the cost of gas and the ticket only to endure your atrocious behavior no matter how stellar the performance.

In the meantime, I'm telling everyone to stay away from you.

Review: Kaweco Sport Eyedropper Ink Roller

Specs:

Length capped: 4-1/8 inches
Length uncapped: 4 inches
Length posted: 5.25 inches
Diameter: 3/8 inch at the grip
Weight, filled as an ED pen: 0.39 oz
Weight with optional Monteverde mini converter: 0.325 oz
Ink capacity using a Monteverde mini converter: .45 ml
Ink capacity using a short standard international cartridge: .5 ml
Ink capacity as an ED fill: 2.5 ml
Optional clip
Optional pen case holds two Kaweco pens.

Using this pen since April, the Kaweco Sport ink roller remains one of my favorites.

I bought the red Ice which is an attractive, compact pen that fits neatly into a pocket. It's a true red that's not at all orangey. The pen, sold by Swisher Pens, was modified by Nathan Tardif to be filled by an eyedropper and it still accepts a short international standard cartridge or a Monteverde mini converter. I really enjoy viewing the ink in the transparent barrel. I usually write with caps unposted, but this feels better, and is comfortable, with the cap posted.

The ink cartridge that came with the Kaweco lays a bright, attractive blue line that is too broad (.6mm) to suit me. Writing with Montblanc Sepia brought the line width down to .4mm and Noodler's waterproof black brings it closer to .5mm. Very nice.

The Kaweco with the provided ink doesn't write as smoothly as my fine Parker rollerball and requires a bit more pressure with any ink I've tried, but being able to use my fountain pen inks and have different colors makes up for any lack of smoothness.

The best part is that I can write checks that have the carbonless copy using the fraudproof Noodler's bulletproof inks without caring if I'm pressing hard enough for the copy and still writing lightly enough to avoid warping the nib of a fountain pen.

For those who want the fluidity, variety of colors, and earth-friendliness afforded by fountain pen inks but who don't want a fountain pen, I recommend the Kaweco ink roller, especially the eyedropper pens sold by Swisher Pens because of the convenience of the larger ink capacity.

A Reminder

Now that the elections are over, many are deeply disappointed or maybe even angry that their candidates lost while others are elated that their candidates won.

This reminder is for us Christians because whoever our leaders are, whether we agree with them or not, we are called to pray for them and all others in positions of authority:

1 Timothy 2:
1. I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2. For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4. Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

That's what it was all about, wasn't it? Didn't we vote the way that we did because we want quiet and peaceable lives and thought the candidates for whom we voted had the better ideas for our getting them? Or maybe we voted the way that we did because we're so soft and desperate to reach the pie in the sky that we have to have the easy way out no matter what it costs us over the long term.

Personally, I'm not so sure about the godliness and honesty part because I know enough "Christians" who don't read their Bibles, preferring to follow the popular speaker of the year who usually says what sounds good, perverting the message of the Bible. They're not godly or honest because they don't want to take responsibility for what they believe. They're not real Christians because the word "Christian" means "a follower of Christ" (Acts 11:26). However, it's possible that they're baby Christians who simply don't know any better. For the others who aren't newly born-again, since listening to false leaders is a lot easier, that's what they do. They let the deceivers mute their consciousnesses and feed their greediness for personal gain instead of heeding good leaders who encourage us to pray and know the Word for ourselves, as Christ did, as they do themselves.

For Geocachers - My Car is a Travel Bug

A few days ago, I got and activated a static-cling Travel Bug window sticker for my car.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, geocaching is a great reason to get off the computer and go have fun outside. It's treasure hunting for individuals and families alike. It's for everybody with skill levels ranging from the wheel-chair bound to athletic hikers. Typically, you need a computer to get the coordinates from whichever website(s) you choose to patronize and a GPS receiver to guide you to the spot unless you know how to map coordinates the old-fashioned way. For most caches, the rule is that if you take something, you need to leave something of equal or greater value so there's something for the next treasure hunter to find. Many urban caches are too small to hold much more than paper and a pencil for you to log that you found the cache so you may not require additional supplies or equipment, but those who venture away from urban settings are advised to take the Ten Essential Systems, including a compass and map, like any other hiker should.

Travel Bugs are a little different from the usual treasure because the geocacher doesn't keep them, but moves them from one cache to another to fulfill the goal set by the owner. However, a vehicle Travel Bug doesn't require you to buy a GPSr or know how to map coordinates because it doesn't wait for someone to pick it up from a cache and move it to another. It is already out and about waiting for someone to only catch sight of it. If you spot a vehicle with a Travel Bug sticker, all you have to do is write down the tracking number that's under the bug symbol, go to www.geocaching.com/track, enter the tracking number in the box provided and click "Track" so you're taken to the proper page, click "Found this item?" and log in to record your discovery.

For further information, please feel free to check out Getting Started, Resources, the Travel Bugs pages on the Trackable Items link, and other pages at www.geocaching.com.

Playing With Water

I might be getting older.

Several months ago, I had the hankering to buy a few children's watercoloring books to revisit my childhood. Back then, I was never able to color inside the lines and painting was about the same but more enjoyable. I enjoyed swishing the brush around in a glass of water and swirling it in the pan of paint. That was the main activity. I don't recall how my pictures turned out or if any were ever completed. None of them ever made it to the front of the refrigerator.

In my second childhood, I'm learning that paper wrinkles up from too much water and that the depth of color varies by how it's applied as well as how much is on the brush. During a visit to Hobby Lobby to buy a dip pen to try with a new fountain pen ink I have, I saw that artist's supplies were on sale 25-50% off. Thinking that this is an activity I might continue, I bought a couple of instruction books, a set of watercolor paints in tubes, a small palette that folds in half and latches closed, a watercolor pencil kit with instructions for beginners, and a set of brushes.

Most of my time since has been spent reading the books and painting a couple of pictures from the children's books using a couple of techniques I learned from the instructional books. I don't expect to become a great artist, but hopefully, I'll be able to put a motif on my pearl white Crane's stationery to personalize it such as a small sailboat or a tornado or a cactus. Dabbing color in the impressionist style would serve nicely, I think, as a cactus flower. Anyway, it's a goal.

The truth of the matter is that I like to play with water.

My Space on MySpace

I neglected last week's post to set up an account at MySpace. It's not as user-friendly as Facebook because your age and location and other personal information WILL be displayed whether you want it to be or not unless you know CSS or spend time searching for CSS code to hide the information. As a result, I invoked a woman's right to be perennially 29 years old.

There's not much there, right now, but you're invited to visit my space at:

www.myspace.com/gailrhea.

I'm planning to use the blog there differently than I do here, perhaps for status reports on writing projects and such.

The Financial Bailout

Watching CNN earlier today, I saw part of the discussion and the following vote that was taken that approved the bailout of the financial sector. The emails read by the CNN commentators were overwhelmingly against the bailout and CNN was prompt to present Congressional views that while they didn't like the bailout, either, it was that or something worse down the road.

Basically, I agree with those who oppose the bailout. To those who bought homes when the market was high, I ask, "What were you thinking?!" Only people with money to burn can afford to buy without waiting for a sale. Everybody else has to stay where they are or rent until the housing market swings downward. Those who didn't wait, got that for which they signed up. We don't need to bail them out from their lack of patience.

Those who got loans without knowing exactly what their future payments were going to be were just plain stupid. They may have thought they'd never hand a signed blank check to a stranger, but that's essentially what they did by taking out loans that have future payments that are adjustable. Why they never considered that their future payments could be too much for them to pay, I have no idea. I don't believe the rest of us should bail them out because doing so would interfere with their education. There's no better cure for stupidity than going through the school of hard knocks.

The money lenders who gave those loans are loan sharks and crooks. They don't need to be bailed out, either.

Overall, the situation is that of predators gobbling up the prey. The law of the jungle. The survival of the fittest. I wish it was a situation of the greedy being hoisted by their own petard.

So, why are we bailing them out?

Supposedly, it's because the ever-expanding ripples eventually touch everyone and everything in the pond. It's so the good, financially responsible citizens who form the backbone of America may continue to function. It's disturbing that those who haven't contributed to or participated in the problem have to bear the burden of the solution that may turn out to be nothing more than a quick, stick-on bandage.

What makes me angry, though, are people like Karen Trainer and her husband who simply walk away from the contractual obligations to which they committed themselves voluntarily:

"As a successful professional, Karen could comfortably have managed the higher mortgage payments her bank demanded.

Instead, she decided to stop her mortgage payments altogether and let her bank repossess her apartment.

Her credit record will be badly damaged by the decision, but Ms Trainer expects this to recover soon.

'Generally speaking, within 5 years you are about back where you were, so my husband and I decided we'll take the hit and live with it.'"

It's shameful that Trainer and the others who bought when the market was high and were able to make their loan payments are too avaricious or too short-sighted to see that their depreciated home values would eventually recover at the next up-swing of the market's cycle. All they had to do was wait it out instead of walking away from obligations that they were well able to meet.

As with bankruptcy laws, I would like to have changes instituted that will deter people of low moral fiber like Karen Trainer from taking advantage of the system and leaving the rest of us to clean up their mess.

My two cents.

Psalms 37:21a. The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again...