Christy Matte

I just finished watching ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway. It’s a documentary that follows four Broadway shows (”Wicked,” “Avenue Q,” “Taboo” and “Caroline, or Change”) through development and opening night. As much as I enjoyed seeing clips from the shows and hearing from the actors, my favorite part was the announcement of the Tony Award Nominations. It was so much fun to see the writers surrounded by family learning that all their work had paid off with a nomination. I particularly enjoyed watching the folks from “Avenue Q,” who are just kind of quirkily normal. It was the sort of moment that makes you think, Hey, maybe I could write a musical. Reality quickly sank in that I am unlikely to ever write a musical, but it was still a cool thought.

I do have to wonder, though, why I never thought about writing a musical. I love musicals. Of course, I can’t sing very well and never had the patience to learn an instrument properly (besides being devilishly uncoordinated). I guess there’s still time left…

My favorite quote is from the father of one of the Avenue Q guys, “My kid’s a genius, what more can I say!”

I spent some time today getting organized, setting up my new Blackberry and looking for widgets to accomplish things I want to do. It’s amazing how much time you can spend doing administrative things like that without actually writing a thing! Hopefully it will pay off in the end.

I’ve got a lot of projects going on right now and it’s an exciting time. I’m loving the freelance life!

I’m honestly just too drained tonight to say anything wise, clever or even intelligible. Some days you just have to know when to hang up your pen and take a break.

Good night.

I am a bit of a perfectionist. It causes me to procrastinate rather than actually writing. Blogging every day is forcing me to let go of being perfect and just write. I know – this is one of the very basic methods for getting rid of writer’s block. And, as it turns out, it works! The only problem is my work blog, which still feels like it needs to be perfect. I still have to figure out how to stay ahead of the curve on that one and let go a bit. I’m not going to start posting total garbage, of course, but I just need to stop trying to find the perfect topic. I think that if I can do that, it will just sort of come to me.

[For those without kids, or those who clearly need to enhance their kids' library, that's a nod to "Jamberry" by Bruce Degen - fun to read out loud!]

Yesterday I bought a Blackberry. I’m a gadget fiend who has been limping along with a cell phone from 2001, so you can imagine just how excited I am. Unfortunately, Amazon.com [when they're good, they're very, very good, and when they're bad, they're awful] triggered some sort of flag on my account that T-mobile was delaying my approval and that my phone wouldn’t ship. After a ridiculous amount of phone relay back and forth (and across continents) and some conference calling with both companies, Amazon declared that they were having trouble approving the $0.01 charge for the new phone. And, yes, I got a wonderful deal. I know it was probably some sort of fraud trigger, but it’s a bit demoralizing to have your one cent charge declined. In the end, my phone apparently shipped, but that flag is still on the order. Not sure what’s going on there.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll soon be bloggin’ from the ‘berry. Cross your fingers for me.

Some days are just bad writing days. It could be a lack of sleep or building stress. It could be a two year old who doesn’t stop talking, or a one year old who simply will not let go of you, even for a moment. I used to fight it and try to force my way through something, but I have since learned that it’s ok to take a day off now and again. It’s refreshing.

Of course, that isn’t always possible. When I need to clear my head, I put on my favorite music (of the moment), turn it up and sing and dance like a rockstar. That always seems to make me feel better!

Despite so much rain

Cookout fun today with kids

But glad to be home

I’m trying to get into the blogging habit by blogging every day for at least the next month. Supposedly if you continue to do something long enough, it will become a habit.

We’ll see.

I might as well put it out there that I am a reality TV addict. And, no, I’m not the slightest bit embarrassed by it. I’m intrigued by human behavior, even when it’s showcased at it’s worst. It probably gives me a warped sense of the world, but it’s not much worse than the crime shows I watch with my husband.

One of my absolute favorite shows is the Food Challenge on the Food Network Channel. Of course, I only really like the challenges that have to do with desserts. I’m just not interested enough in chicken or BBQ unless I’m eating dinner! In any case, the most recent episode paired up two pastry chefs who had no professional relationship to one another. They were challenged to design a cake based on a famous nursery rhyme. Then, they were split up and allowed to work on the cake individually in one and a half hour shifts with no communication between members of the team. Only during the last hour and a half could they work together to finalize the vision. As in any team project, there was typically one chef who pushed their vision through and walked all over the other chef. I was actually surprised at just how unprofessional some of their behavior was. It would certainly make me think twice about going to that person for a cake…

This particular challenge reminded me of the round robin writing exercises we used to do in school. One person starts a story and then passes it off to the next person, who adds their own little bit. This goes around until everyone in the group has contributed. I always enjoyed seeing what other people had to add, but there was always a boy (yes, I said it – a boy) who felt the need to insert murder or mayhem into the tale. Sometimes it was a clever twist, but usually it was just kind of a gory cliche’.

Blood and guts aside, I think it would be fun to do a blogging round robin, fiction or non-fiction. Maybe we just won’t invite any boys to participate (just kidding, guys – after all, Stephen King is racking in the money!)

A brand new blog, much like a blank page, is daunting. I thought I’d put together a list of sites to visit when my creativity is at a low point. Here’s a starting point:

• The Prompt Writer
• Creative Writing Prompts
• Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day
• Dictionary.com Word of the Day
• NY Times Word of the Day
• Google News
• Google Trends
• Weird News @ About.com