NaNoWriMo Day 7: Just Write

On November 7, 2012November 13, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo5 Comments

Sometimes things work out. I hit the end of my scene and my inspiration this evening, did a word count check, and found that I was exactly, to the word, at the point I had hoped to reach. I’m actually a full day’s worth of words ahead on the goal, which is what I need because I’ll be out of town for work tomorrow–which means I’ll be lucky to write anything.

I’ve been able to run ahead of the goal most days so far–yesterday was less because I was distracted by my civic duty, and both voting and election coverage cut into my writing time. I still got about a thousand words down, though, and managed to be about on target today.

I expected today to be a slog. I just wasn’t feeling it. But I sat down and wrote anyway, and the scene came out…pretty good. And Michael and Maggie had a bit of a moment that I certainly didn’t plan, so it was nice of them to be on top of these things. 🙂

I also had a rather entertaining time looking up poisonous plants. Don’t ever eat foxgloves.

Here’s an excerpt from a day or two ago. In a previous scene Maggie found a letter left behind by the deceased Princess Rebecca, which among other things advised watching the Grey Ladies, the nasty king’s mysterious attendants…

The midday meal gave Maggie her first opportunity to watch the Grey Ladies. She wished Rebecca had said what to watch them for. “All is not as it seems” was so vague as to be practically useless, really. Obviously something was strange; four women swathed in shreds of gray veils could hardly be called normal by any standard. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Day 7: Just Write” →

Phantom at Her Majesty’s Theatre

On November 7, 2012November 7, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews10 Comments

Last week I did a theatre review of Les Miserables in London. This week, I’m sharing about my trip to see Phantom of the Opera.

Seeing Phantom for me is different than seeing any other play, because I’ve seen it so many times. I never just watch; I analyze and compare. I’m convinced that this is really the strength of live theatre, because I swear it’s a different play every time. I admit this may in part be me reading into things…but since I always look for the same interpretation (because I have my own ideas for the characters), if it was all in my head, it wouldn’t come out different every time!

Counting the filmed 25th anniversary performance, I’ve seen seven performances by six different Phantoms, and I’ve yet to be bored. I saw the play for the first time on my previous trip to London, and that’s still the best performance I ever saw (though I admit the new-ness may have been a factor). With that in mind, I was excited to see it in London again. And it turned out to be one of the more complex and unique performances I’ve seen–which makes this review half an exploration of different interpretations of the play.

I assume everyone roughly knows the plot: the Phantom is a musical genius living below the Paris Opera House, hiding a facial deformity behind a mask. He falls in love with soprano Christine Daae, and clashes with the management of the Opera and Christine’s childhood sweetheart, Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is one of the best-known versions of the story–and the musical is wonderful.

I got to the theatre early, as I always do. My seat wasn’t as good as I had for Les Mis, but it’s another small theatre, so even though I was back pretty far, that was still only the twelfth row. Although I did spend an inordinate amount of pre-show time wondering if the overhanging balcony would block my view of the Phantom on the rooftop (it didn’t, at least not badly). This is what comes of seeing a play seven times–you think about these things.

The Phantom was played by Marcus Lovett, and it struck me as a very different performance. First, his voice didn’t sound like other Phantoms I’ve heard. I’m not musical enough to know the proper terms to describe it–good singing, certainly, but sort of deeper and broader somehow, with an element of thunder. It made me wonder in the early scenes how he was going to handle “Music of the Night,” which absolutely must be sung intimately. For me, Phantom performances live and die by that song.

Lovett ended up carrying the song fine–but it was different. This was the first time I’ve seen a Webber Phantom who didn’t really seem to be in love with Christine. The crazy thing is, the interpretation seemed to work (mostly). I’ve always thought the Phantom was making a mistake falling in love with Christine, but I’ve also always believed that he deeply, passionately loved her. This one didn’t seem to. His real interest was the music. It was the first time I believed a Webber Phantom when he said he had brought Christine below the Opera House to sing.

When you jump from that idea, “Music of the Night” isn’t a seduction at all, it’s a celebration of the music. It’s all about, come see the night and experience my music. Of course, some lines like “only then can you belong to me” are pretty unambiguous, but it still felt like that was his secondary, possibly long-range idea. All he really wanted was for her to be a part of his music, and I don’t think he’d object if it became something else…but that’s not the primary goal. After all, the last line of the song is not “I love you,” it’s “Help me make the music of the night.” Which can obviously be metaphorical…but in this performance, it felt literal.

That interpretation kept working for the rest of Act One. In the morning, after “Music of the Night,” the Phantom’s not mooning over Christine, he’s having a perfectly delightful time writing his music. After she yanks the mask off, he has a meltdown and then starts singing about his longings–for heaven and for beauty. It never actually specifies how she fits into that picture. There is the one line, “fear can turn to love,” but it almost feels like an add-on. The entire sequence with his disruption of “Il Muto” is all about making the performance of the music better. On the rooftop, does the Phantom feel betrayed because Christine and Raoul kissed, or because she said nasty things about his face and is planning to run away and not sing anymore? The ultimate line about the Phantom’s betrayal is not “I gave you my heart,” it’s “I gave you my music.”

So obviously I was having a wonderful time watching all of this–and analyzing. But then the interpretation falters a bit in Act Two. I started to lose the thread of the Phantom’s motivations. The more I think about it, mostly it should work–he’s still focused on Christine’s singing at the Masquerade, and on being the Angel of Music at the graveyard. It wasn’t coming across as clearly, though, and then I don’t know at all what to do with “Point of No Return,” most especially the Phantom’s “All I Ask of You” reprise, or parts of the finale. Which are all kind of important. I still think it’s an interpretation with value, though–because it works for so much of the play.

Christine had similar across-act issues at the performance I saw. I swear, in Act One she was a schemer. Disclosure: I want Christine to be a schemer. She’s that or an idiot, and I like the idea that she’s plotting. But I don’t think it was all in my head either. She was a little too gleeful yanking the Phantom’s mask off, and she was definitely playing Raoul on the rooftop. The lines are there, and the way they were being delivered–I was convinced she was manipulating him. (I’ve always thought that “order your fine horses” is not an appropriate response to “Christine, I love you” in that scene).

But then we came back from the interval, and Christine spent all of Act Two terrified, and I just didn’t know how reconcile that. Christine can absolutely be weaving plots in Act Two (a secret engagement? really?), but this Christine just seemed too frightened. There was a very strange moment in “Point of No Return” when Christine and the Phantom are struggling, and I honestly couldn’t tell who was trying to get away from whom. I know that seems like it should be obvious, but with Act One’s portrayal of the characters, it really wasn’t.

So I found the characters brilliantly different in Act One, but then mostly reverted to something more standard in Act Two. That was a bit disappointing, though it was still very effective portrayals as the play went on. Just a little inconsistent.

On to other characters…my favorite, after the Phantom, is Meg Giry. I make a habit of watching her during production numbers. This was the most social Meg I can remember seeing. She was talking to people in the background of several scenes, like the opening sequence, or “Masquerade.” I really wanted to know what she was saying! Unfortunately, my lip-reading is not that good. An odd moment in the “Finale”…she did come across as smarter than Raoul, but they dropped the line when she tries to go with them below (and I love that line! It’s important!)

Raoul made almost no impression on me, I think because I was so distracted by Christine and the Phantom. There was an unusually angry Raoul in the recent 25th anniversary performance, and I wondered if that was a new standard in London, but it doesn’t seem to be.

The managers had good comedic timing, as did Piangi and Carlotta. Piangi was obviously wearing padding and Carlotta wasn’t old enough, but their acting was good. And Piangi struggled mightily to get on his elephant in the opening scene, which is always my favorite moment for him.

The music is always wonderful, the singing and the orchestrations, and the costumes are splendid and elaborate. Don’t watch the chandelier rise at the beginning because you’ll be blinded–and it always falls with wonderful drama at the end of Act One. If you’re in London or anywhere else where Phantom is playing, I highly recommend it–as I suspect will come as no surprise to anyone! I know I had a wonderful time watching Phantom for the seventh time.

Quotable Hemingway

On November 6, 2012November 6, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn Quotable5 Comments

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and the sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.”

– Ernest Hemingway

NaNoWriMo, Day 4: Lightning Bolts (the good kind)

On November 4, 2012November 13, 2012 By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo1 Comment

We’re finishing up the first weekend of NaNoWriMo! I was lucky to have a fairly quiet couple of days, so I’ve been able to get a nice jump on my word count–even though I also went to my writing group on Friday. 🙂 Right now I’m about 2,000 words ahead of the goal, which is very good because I know I’ll have a couple of days next week with very little time to write.

So far I’m enjoying the pace, especially the way the process moves so much faster when I write like this. Inspiration has been coming at a rapid rate so far, and those lightning bolt “oh, that’s how it should work!” moments are among my favorite parts of writing. I don’t know if I could sustain this long-term, but it seems to work for a month–or at least four days so far…

My biggest lightning bolt up to now has helped me (I think) work out one of my biggest plot problems previously. You see, my premise got me into a very particular corner. The whole concept of the book started when I was reading fairy tales and somehow sparked off this idea about an imprisoned hero who has no actual ability to fight the monster, but keeps standing up to defend the heroine anyway. The villain finds that funny, and backs off–until the next day. And so it keeps repeating day after day.

I loved the dynamic of that interaction, and I think I’ve been able to write it to really work for the hero. The trouble was, it didn’t work at all for Maggie, my heroine. For the dynamic to work, Michael can’t have an actual chance when he stands up to the evil king, which means that there’s really no place here for Maggie to do anything.

I can’t stand passive heroines, and there I was in a corner with a heroine who had to be passive, at least for the first section of the book. This was probably the biggest thing that got me stuck the first time I tried to write this book. But, on about November 2nd, lightning inspiration hit me. I’m frustrated by this–and Maggie can be frustrated too. I don’t have to have a passive heroine–I can have an active heroine who’s being forced by circumstances to be passive, and she damn well doesn’t have to like it!

It was a really helpful breakthrough for the character, and for the feel of this part of the novel. And I’ve come up with a few things Maggie can do or at least try to do, around the fringes of this focus-point conflict.

There are more plot holes farther down the line, both things don’t make sense and sections I just don’t know what to do with yet…but with any luck lightning will continue striking! For tonight, here’s an excerpt.

Maggie woke up the next morning to find that she was still here. The idea was somehow even more oppressive the second day than it had been the first. She lay in the ridiculously large bed, stared up at the canopy, and tried not to roll over onto her stomach and cry into the pillow. If she managed to resist that impulse, then maybe she could muster enough will to get up.

It might not have been as bad if she didn’t feel so aimless. She wanted to do something, and she was at a loss to know what. It was entirely possible that this current situation, exactly as it was, was going to go on for days or even weeks. If the last two days were any indication, she could stay in this sort of limbo, not quite slipping into further hells, for the foreseeable future. At least until Michael developed a stronger sense of self-preservation or, as seemed vastly more likely, King Maurus decided to stop being amused.

So she had some space. And it made her want to claw the walls that she couldn’t think of anything to do with it. Escape plans and exploring were all well and good in theory and no doubt would be just the thing in a story, but the fact of the matter was she had no real direction and no clear ideas, and wandering around this castle, well…how likely was it really that she was going to find a secret tunnel, or a magic sword, or…anything, really.

She had always been the instigator. She had always been the one who made things happen if there wasn’t enough going on. It was a byword in Beaumont, that she and Lina always got into some kind of enormous trouble in February. One year it was nearly drowning trying to skate on a frozen pond; another year all the hunting dogs around the castle became decidedly drunk when their water was not-too-mysteriously spiked; and then there was the time she and Lina actually snuck along on a hunt and then got lost and…it was really just as well that no one knew about the time she’d dared Lina to climb out on the roof of the highest tower, and then of course she had to do it herself too. If they had slipped, that would have been a story to top them all, one they probably wouldn’t have lived to tell.

Things happened in February because winters were quiet and by February Maggie got tired of waiting for someone else to make things happen.

Now here she was in the most awful February of them all, metaphorically speaking, and found her hands completely tied. She wanted to do something besides stand there silently while King Maurus smirked and Michael went all noble. She wished she knew how to do magic, or even how to fight. Sure, one February she had tried to get one of the guards to teach her and Lina swordplay, but that had been stopped long before March. A talent for instigating mischief seemed hardly likely to help her here.

She didn’t cry, and she did eventually muster up the willpower to drag herself out of bed. She pulled on the first dress her hand touched in the wardrobe, some frothy blue concoction, obviously not designed for anyone who actually did anything. Fine. It was perfectly suitable, then.