Work has been hectic. I went from not tutoring students to tutoring six students. Five of them have special needs. Two of them have me working in close connection with their psychotherapists. One of them I meet with at least five times a week.
I'm recording the voice of Avatarr, the smartass with all the best lines in the upcoming, fan-made video game, Wing Commander Saga. I'm being paid by a hilarious German dude named Anton in Euros, so long as I make the time to sit in my closet and yell things into a microphone about alien fighter spaceships and hit on any female character Avatarr comes in any kind of contact with.
I'm enrolled in a Shakespeare class that formally meets on Thursdays and normally has a free workshop on Tuesdays. I joke about it being the closest thing I do to church. Every week, I go to join the congregation while we share the words of a great book we all admire, led by a respected elder expert or two, drop off donations if we feel able, and then go out afterwards for refreshments and a social hour or three after. The space is a basement rehearsal room, the book is The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, the leaders are actor/directors, and the social hour happens to be in the downtown bar MI-5, but the idea is still kind of similar. Nice community. We're having a showcase night, for which my scene partner and I still need to learn lines.
I'm blogging for myself, backstage, and now have been asked to submit some of my favorite places to travel to Glenfidditch Explorers as one of their extensive panel of travel experts. Who knows if and when that will ever get done. I'm even still doing some couchsurfing stuff. I hosted one of my friends from my time in Shanghai a couple years back, and through her ended up sipping green tea with a half a dozen other travelers on the roof of a high rise downtown with a stunning view of just about every bridge on the East River just in time for sunset (see pic above). That was before we got stuck up there with no food or had the security guards try to throw us out. Makes me miss life on the road.
But in case you haven't noticed from the last few paragraphs, I've got a good handful of responsibilities tying me here in New York. Including now, an onstage performance with SWEET: Actors Reading Writers. I'll be reading a personal essay from published novelist Stefan Merrill Block.
So what do you think I should do now that I've got all these jobs and things to rehearse for? Add something else to do of course! I wouldn't want to get bored, now, would I?
So I'm making it official here and now: I am registering for National Novel Writing Month. By the end of November, I'll have the finished draft of a brand new novel.
Anyone care to join me?
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