Went to Nottingham yesterday...

[panik]

Where Hilary, my sister, was spending a day working on a show-reel for voice-over work. It’s something she’s wanted to do for a long time and she found a studio in Nottingham that specialises in that very thing. They’re also an agency and they’ve put her straight on their books. Talking to the sound-engineer after, it appears she impressed everyone mightily with her talent for characterisation – apparently it’s really hard to get voice-actors to characterise, they tend to want to do everything in their own voice - and Hilary is really good too, with a massive range. They’re sending her audition disc up for a couple of ads, talking books and the new series of Creature Comforts, which is most excellent news indeed.

I took my lappy assuming there’d be a green room where I could sit and work since I was only there for the moral support. There wasn’t, so I spent the morning in Starbucks, had a browse about (its been years since I wandered the streets of Nottingham) and passed a very long afternoon in the Costa in Waterstones where at least they had comfy sofas and a host of students and academics similarly occupying space for hours on end on the strength of a pot of  Earl Grey  and a ginger snap. *g*

I got a goodly bit of my sitcom worked out and some interesting ideas for the novel, switching to notes when the lappy batteries finally failed – a productive day, if a tad tedious and massively tiring, but there are far worse places to spend a day than drinking coffee, writing and browsing in a bookshop.

In other news, I got my first ‘where’s this story then?’ email from one of my Moonridge winners today. Gently worded but a prod nonetheless. Gentle reader, if  you too are one of those poor, patient souls waiting for the next update to the Academy tale (and/or waiting for Rainbows 3 to start) I can only tell you what I told them – I'll be back with you as soon as I can. I’m truly sorry, but the muse just isn’t dancing in that direction right now. I guarantee I will finish them  – barring death or coma – but I honestly can’t say when that will be.

Needless to say, I’m not offering anything for Moonridge this year.

And as my fannish life continues to diminish, I dropped another 23 communities from my flist – the bulk of them fandom and fic-related -
doctorwho, crack_van and the like. My morning sojourn on LJ hasn’t been this quick, easy and stress-free for a very long time. (o:

Comments

[castalie.livejournal.com]

Congrats to your sister, sounds like a pretty awesome thing to happen to her :-)

but there are far worse places to spend a day than drinking coffee, writing and browsing in a bookshop.

There are, yes :-) Hail to your being productive.

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

Sounds as though Hilary is very talented - I hope something good comes out of this for her. And your day sounded wonderful, with the afternoon spent in a bookshop.
You dropped 23 communities? Go you! I only belong to 29 in total. I'm a big fan of crack_van though, and couldn't imagine dropping that. I've found and enjoyed fics on that lj that I wouldn't ordinarily have discovered.

[laurie-ky.livejournal.com]

Glad you're cutting out stress. I've been feeling very guilty about not finishing my Mag7/TS moonridge story, although I've got 15,000 words on it, because the second part of A Fair Distance wouldn't get out of my head. But today I've gotten that story to a stopping place, so I'm digging the crossover back out. I can't do more than one major story at a time, apparently. M' brain's just not wired for it.

That is cool about your sister, maybe she'd like to do some podfics, for practice. Has she read your fanfic stories?

Laurie

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Oh, boy, I can't think of a nicer day spent than drinking coffee in a bookstore... when I was in college I used to fantasize about reading books (fun ones, not texts) all day in the library.

Congrats to your sister, and I'm glad to hear you got some work on Entanglements done! That story just sounds so cool... I hope I get to read it one of these days...

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Bookshops and libraries are lovely places to live (I have spent the entire day in the latter, and very nice it was too :)

[earth2skye.livejournal.com]

Cool, I mean about your sister. I'm afraid I didn't get exactly what it is she does but it sounds like she's making progress getting to where she wants to be! Contgrats to her.

As for the muse/fandom/fanfic thing, I think it's really good that you don't pressure yourself and follow to where your muse/heart wants you to take at the moment. It seems to me that, this way, you've found a way out of the low your life's been in for a big long while and you deserve to leave that place any way you damn well want and can. Ah, and hey, Moonridge. ::shrugs, knowing you know that you and I are sitting in the same boat there:: I haven't heard from my winner since I wrote back to her a few weeks ago and am happy about that. But even if she comes back snarky again, thanks to the support of you and the rest of my f-list, I'm now in a better place to deal with that. Things just are the way they are. The stories get written when they get written, no sooner no later. And me things, any person with half a brain should know that the writer is the absolute last person who'd willingly not write a story she's previously committed herself to writing or purposely delay its completion.

::cheers you on with all your other writing projects:: :-) Any day words are committed to paper or file is a good day!