Hello hello! It's been quite a while! This wasn't just your run of the mill, average overwhelmed and panicked break, I was recovering (am recovering?) from a mild concussion through most of September up to now. In early September Northern Utah had a freak windstorm. Large swaths of the population lost power, thousands of trees were knocked over, and I got hit in the head with a piece of flying debris. It was a small branch… I get that branch sounds very dramatic, but it was bigger than just a stick. For sure a branch, just a very small one. I spent two days writing really strange emails, saying things to my family that confused everyone, and suffering from non-stop headaches before I saw my doctor. I thought it was nothing. But, at my appointment my doc took one look at me and said you have a concussion.
I had to go off my computer, off the TV, off reading books, off Sudoko, off of everything really except in-person conversations and watching my chickens run around my yard. It took close to two and a half weeks before I was no longer altered, and another week or two before my headaches stopped. This is the first week I've tried to write anything more than a couple of paragraphs. So far (thankfully!) it's going well! Which brings me to my wild plan for November (when I expect to be 100% myself again)….
NaNoWriMo! That fantastic and near-impossible writing challenge where folks write an entire novel during the month of November! Now I have never written a novel, but I'd meant to last Spring. Before the Pandemic made the world go side-ways I'd intended to adapt my play CHEERLEADERS VS. ALIENS into a young adult novel. It's something I've been toying around with for a looooong long time, and finally the stars have all aligned for me to take the plunge and just do it. Turns out it only took theater screeching to a halt for me to write something other than a play.
I'm planning to take it easy the rest of October, to give my brain as much time to recover before November as possible… But come on back! I will be popping up to announce some fun things that are coming down the pipeline. Two that are happening this month:
THE NIGHT WITCHES has TWO Zoom productions this month:
University of Utah opens THE NIGHT WITCHES October 23rd and runs through November 1st, directed by Alexandra Harbold. Click here for more details and to get tickets!
And Pulley & Buttonhole Theatre Company will run THE NIGHT WITCHES October 18th, 19th, 25th, and 26th. Click here for more details and to get tickets!
Hope wherever you are you are healthy and sane, and please please please watch out for branches of all size flying through the air!