Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle doing the Twist. That darn gazelle has a LOT of fun. In any case, it’s already Wednesday when it was just Monday. I must say that when I’m on a writing tear time just goes quickly. And I have been on a writing tear, heaven knows. The last three days I’ve done ten pages a day. In fact, I am about to end a chapter and then begin the final two chapters of the book – those are pretty well laid out, although I always end up inventing new things and just use the layout as a loose guide. There are about thirty pages to go. For the last week, every page has been tricky, but I’m hoping what I’ve come up with is good and fun for these last eighty to ninety pages I’ll have done. The Hofstetter books are really fun rides for me, despite the occasional hiccups and frustrations. I truly love Adriana Hofstetter and the other regular characters – I feel they’re all old friends. And it was great fun brining back my favorite character from the last book. So, on to the last thirty pages. Yesterday was, of course, filled with writing, although it was slow going in the morning – I could barely write three pages before I just had to go have some bacon and eggs and think about a few little details and about how to head towards the end of the chapter I was on. It all came to me, thankfully and I think it came out okay. I picked up one package and no mail, although a second package arrived after I’d been to the mail place, so I’ll get that one today. I wrote right up until rehearsal started. First up was Kim Huber, who brought her two beautiful kids with her. We got through her songs quickly and they suit her to a T and also a W. She’s singing Where Did The Good Times Go? from Over Here, the title song from That Darn Cat, and Are We Dancing from The Happiest Millionaire. Our MD for this show hasn’t been through our process before, so he didn’t quite understand my needs, but he’s so good and so quick and now he does, and Friday should go very smoothly. Sometimes new people who join our merry troupe think that our shows are like some others done around town – just sort of off-the-cuff and thrown together. While we don’t have huge rehearsal time, our shows are anything but thrown together and off-the-cuff – they’re planned, rehearsed, and very structured – in other words, a show, not a bunch of people getting up and singing random songs for no reason. After Kim, the wonderfully wonderful and very handsome David Burnham arrived. He ran Are We Dancing with Kim, which they duet on, then did his solos, Your Heart Will Lead You Home from The Tigger Movie, and a put-together of Busker Alley and She Has A Way (from that same show). We made some adjustments in the arrangement of Busker and She Has A Way so they’d work well together. Then came the delightfully delightful twelve-year-old Melody Hollis. She’s doing the Sherman Brothers nonsense words medley that Jason Graae did on the album. We had to do some fancy shmancy adjusting of keys, but Melody will knock this right out of the park and into the stratosphere. She’s just great. She’s also quite a cook – apparently she took a class in making desserts, and she brought me some of her homemade brownies, and I’m here to tell you they were extremely yummilicious. I shared some with our MD and a couple of the singers who arrived after Melody. Next up was Ben Platt, a very talented young man (I believe he’s seventeen). He’s doing one solo, The Eyes Of Love (a gorgeous cut song from the film of Mary Poppins), and two duets with Juliana Hansen. I’d already done a little arrangement work on The Eyes Of Love, and we finessed that. Then Juliana arrived and we ran the two duets – one is Ten Feet Off The Ground (one of my favorite Sherman Brothers songs) and a Teen Medley consisting of Tall Paul, You’re Sixteen, and Let’s Get Together. Then Ben left and Juliana ran her solo, Impossible/Suddenly It Happens, from my Cinderella album. I’d made the decision to do it even thought Impossible is not by the Sherman Brothers, because that album was how Dick Sherman discovered my work and he absolutely loved that arrangement. And I’ll tell that story before the song. Poor Juliana is just starting to get over a horrible bout of flu. But we wished her a happy birthday and she had a brownie. Last up was Alet. We had to do some work on a couple of the arrangements. Alet is doing Chin Up (from Charlotte’s Web, I think), Tell Him Anything (from The Slipper and the Rose), and a put-together of Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang and Hushabye Mountain. If we need it, she’s also doing The Age Of Not Believing from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It’s a fun show and we even have a finale in this one, with the entire company singing It’s A Small World After All.
After that, I wrote a couple of paragraphs, but I’d already done ten pages and I was wiped out. I really thought about doing another two or three and finishing the chapter, but I just couldn’t. So, I watched the bonus features from the Blu and Ray of Broadcast News. I have to say, I think I’m through watching these things. There’s an interminable thirty-six minute “documentary” on James L. Brooks that is ninety percent a talking head of some critic just going on and on. He repeats one word endlessly throughout his on-camera time. Then I watched the alternate ending, which was just horrible and then some equally horrible cut scenes. Seeing those lessens the film for me, actually, which is why I’m not going to watch that stuff anymore. If I love a film I love the FILM not what was left out of the film by the director who made the film. These companies insist on doing these bonus things and I wish they’d just stop. It simply robs movies of their magic and it’s Hollywood eating itself, which it’s been doing for years. Leave the damn magic alone.
Then I wrote another couple of paragraphs, and that was it for me. I could write no more, and I just played on the Internet until it was time to write these here notes. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get my beauty sleep as I go into the next two or three very intense days.
Today, I shall be up early and I shall futz and fix and then try to write at least four or five pages before my lunch meeting at one. I’ll come back after that and try to write another four or five pages before I leave for a five o’clock rehearsal. I’ll probably have a snack after that, and then come home and see how I feel about writing another few pages. I have a certain goal in mind in terms of page count but it really doesn’t matter whether I reach it or not. In fact, if I only did five pages for the day it would be fine. But I know that last time I was at this point in the writing, I actually ended up doing marathon writing sessions, which was really fun and quite exhilarating.
Tomorrow I’ll write in the morning, then I have a twelve-thirty lunch meeting, and then I’m coming home to do nothing but write. Friday, I have a lunch meeting and a rehearsal, and the weekend is very busy. I was thinking about announcing a release next Monday, a show title, but I just don’t think I have it in me to get the booklet together in time. We shall see.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, have a lunch meeting, write, have a rehearsal, and write. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, filled with yummilicous brownies.