how encouraging. (credit)

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on outlining the second book in my I HEART BAND series. While I’ve never really been a seat-of-the-pantser, outlines haven’t exactly been my forte, either.

The outline for book 1 was fairly easy. With book 2…well, there was a lot of stuff I knew was going to happen. Fitting it together cohesively – and more importantly, finding the real conflict – was another story. I finally sent the outline along to my editor, who gave me some great comments that really helped flesh it out.

Then, just as I was starting to write the first draft, she sent me an email: “Can you come up with a few book 2 title ideas for the sales team?”

Initial reaction:

But I said yes, of course. Then I flailed. I’m not joking when I say the only thing I could think of for days was I HEART BAND 2: ELECTRIC  BUGLE-OO.

The thing is, I’m normally pretty good at titles, and I love figuring out what a book’s name is. In all honesty, I’ve never gotten more than a chapter or two into the first draft without a title. It’s hard for me to write a story without one, like swimming to shore at night when the lighthouse is burned out. (Thus endeth the over-dramatic metaphor segment of this post.)

Right about the same time, my agent asked for a book 2 blurb for the website. Even though I had the outline, it just wasn’t coming together in blurb form for me.

So I started with the title. My typical strategy for title brainstorming is as follows:

Half the time, the title I end up going with doesn’t appear in any form on that list. The point of the list is just to get my brain going. For I HEART BAND 2, I included a lot of music words as well. After too many hours of rolling the list around in my head, I decided the title had to convey three things: a music element, the friendship-rivalry theme, and the bake sale plot point.

I came up with a bunch of embarrassingly horrible titles which I will not share here. Finally, I was sort of settled on one, but it still didn’t quite work for me: FRIENDS, FUGUES, AND FUDGE

“Friends” worked for obvious reasons. “Fugues,” I loved – it’s musical, it directly refers to a plot element, and it subtly references the rivalry theme (if you know what a fugue is). “Fudge” referenced the bake sale, but that’s the part I was meh about. It was the only sweets-related “f” word I could come up with, and I wanted to keep the alliteration. And then, randomly, I thought “it’s too bad the kids can’t make fortune cookies to sell at their bake sale.”

And then I thought “why can’t they?”

And then I thought “what would happen if they did?”

And then, literally within about five seconds, everything that was still nagging me about the story fell into place.  I sent the title into my editor, she approved it, and I rewrote the outline.

A random word – okay, two random words – fixed my plot. After that, writing the blurb was a piece of cake. (Or fudge. Or…whatever.)

FRIENDS, FUGUES, AND FORTUNE COOKIES (I Heart Band, Book 2)

There’s nothing like a little friendly competition. When Holly Mead’s band director announces that their bake sale fundraiser will pit the sections against each other, Holly is positive the brass section will win. After all, the two most competitive kids in band are French horn players – Holly and Natasha Prynne. The girls might be rivals for first chair, but they don’t let it get in the way of their new friendship. Natasha is even helping Holly with the music for the all-region band auditions in a few weeks, when both girls will be competing not only with each other, but with other horn players from all of their district’s middle schools.

Holly can handle a friendly band rivalry with Natasha – but competing over boys is another story. Especially when that boy happens to be Aaron Cook. When Holly hears a rumor that Aaron is going to ask her to the winter dance, she’s ecstatic. After all, she has been talking to him a lot (and with hardly any drooling or stammering, too). Plus all the fortune cookies she’s been cracking open lately thanks to her brother’s new delivery job are about secret admirers and being lucky in love. So when Aaron ends up asking Natasha to the dance instead, Holly thinks she can’t feel much worse. Until she finds out that Natasha has had a secret crush on Aaron, too…she was just afraid of hurting Holly’s feelings.

With all the competition over boys and band, Holly and Natasha’s friendship is more than a little rocky. Before long, Natasha starts distancing herself from both Holly and Aaron. To make things even worse, a small disaster involving a rogue volleyball sets the brass section way behind in the band’s bake sale. Then Holly gets a brilliant idea that’s guaranteed to help them win – and with a little good fortune, it might save Holly’s friendship with Natasha, too.

I forgot about it until I took Adi on a walk this afternoon and was greeted with the madness below. We watched them do several takes of the scene (video at the bottom of this post). The ladies were lovely and the gentlemen were all quite dapper. In addition to all the film equipment, there were giant fans on both sides of the street to make sure the Norwegian flags were all blowing in the right direction.

My favorite person on the set was the horse’s trainer. In between takes, she’d stand there with her forehead pressed against his. They looked very peaceful.

Also –  yes, that guy in the video is sprinkling cat litter on the ground.

Click on one photo, and you can arrow through the rest full size.

The “work” included exploring Snohomish Country and having all sorts of amazing experiences – pumpkin festivals, wine tastings, a spectacular Christmas lights display on the beach, meeting alpacas, driving the Mountain Loop…all I can say is, my job does not suck.

The spring/summer issue is out now! My first two articles are below. I want to meet whoever did the layout, because it’s beautiful. I should send them some wine. Or an alpaca.

(Download the PDF here: Michelle Snohomish001)

1. Stuffed pizza

We got two slices of pizza stuffed with cheese, sauce, chicken, pepperoni, and sausage, along with the best garlic knots I’ve ever had, at Rocco’s in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. They have a great hot sauce on the counter, too.

2. Chicken roti

Took me right back to Trinidad! This was the real deal, bones (super tiny bones) and all. You can get it, along with callaloo, goat curry, and cow foot, at Rowe’s in Brooklyn on Tompkins between Quincy and Gates.

3. Proscuitto and ricotta balls

Josh and I first visited New York almost exactly five years ago, and one of our fondest memories were these little bits of fried procuitto-ricotta goodness from a cheese and meat shop. When we wandered into Little Italy last week and saw Alleva on the corner of Grand and Mulberry, we recognized it immediately. It was every bit as delicious as we remembered. (And 3 for $2. Come on.)

4. Green curry with salmon

It’s hard to find a place that really cooks salmon properly, where it’s still a bit pink in the middle. Tue in West Village definitely got it right. The curry was amazing, too – nice and spicy.

5. Truffle egg toast and Tuscan white bean soup

That first picture makes me want to cry. Three of the best things in the world – good bread, egg yolk, and truffle oil – all in one dish. Surrounded by asparagus, no less. ‘ino café also makes a pretty tasty soup. But seriously, that truffled toast is the star of the menu.

6. The Tuscan Platter

This was at Le Pain Quotidien in the Upper West Side. The platter included paper-thin prosciutto, shaved parm, black olive spread, basil pesto, and ricotta. A word about the ricotta: Whoooaaaaa. Honestly the best ricotta I’ve ever had in my life. I dream about this ricotta. The things I would dip in it. Strawberries. Chips. Fingers.

7. S’mores crepe

Heat griddle. Pour crepe batter. Add mini-marshmallows, crumbled graham crackers, and melted milk chocolate. Fold. Top with powdered sugar and more chocolate. This is what they do at the Creperie on Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side, and it is stupid good.

8. Ice cream, Part I

Grom Gelato in Soho: organic, “healthy” gelato. It’s healthy, right? Cause, like, the milk comes from organic cows or whatever. On the left is the “Cioccolato fondente,” on the right is “Crema gi Grom” (egg cream gelato with corn biscuits and choc chips).

9. Ice Cream, Part II

Pinkberry has a limited number of rotating flavors of frozen yogurt, and about a billion toppings. And (as you can see) you can get as many toppings as you want. At left: vanilla with brownies, gummy bears, toffee, and strawberries. At right: salted caramel with yogurt chips, carob chips, and toffee.

What’s sad is I ate so, so much more than this, but ultimately failed at taking pictures and notes, proving once again that I have not the patience for food writing/photography. I snarf down what’s in front of me then lament the lack of photos afterwards. But I can assure you that New York City is delicious.

Let me start over.

Last Thursday, I attended Taproot Theatre‘s newest play; Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain. Scott Nolte, the Producing Artistic Director, sums up the plot:

The setting is London. The date is September 3rd, 1939, the day that Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Outside Freud’s study the residents of London are activating evacuation plans, packing portable gas masks and huddling by the radio to wait for the King’s Speech. Inside Freud’s study, a young writer has been invited to take tea with an aging intellectual giant.

What would they talk about, these brilliant men, as the city around them prepares for war? An 83 year old Austrian doctor, reaching the end of a life that has seen revolutionary changes happen in the world, and a 40 year old British professor just at the start of his literary career. Here are two great minds, one an atheist and one a Christian, whose writings on the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the future of civilization will be immensely influential. Is it possible to have a conversation about important ideas without being demeaning, nasty, and arrogant?

Honestly, one of the most brilliant concepts for a play I’ve ever heard. Freud’s Last Session only runs 75 minutes – no intermission – and it just flies by. Nolan Palmer’s portrayal of Freud is fantastic; he delivers what could be downright insulting lines to Lewis with humor and a sort of surprising innocence. Matt Shimkus portrays Lewis as a highly intelligent man with strong convictions, yet who is still willing to listen with respect to the aging Freud in a way that doesn’t come of as a semi-pitying courtesy to the elder, but suggests he truly does have an open mind.

The punchlines are genuinely funny – and much needed, because the tense moments in the play are extremely so. The clips of announcements and news on the radio regarding the war build, and when the air raid sirens go off, the fear is very real. (When they finally stopped, many audience members heaved sighs of relief.)

The most emotional and well-executed moment is the climax of the play. Freud suffers from a cancerous growth in his mouth and reveals to Lewis not long after they meet his intentions on committing suicide – something which triggers a fascinating discussion between the two. The performances of both men in the final scene are among some of the most intense and emotional I’ve ever seen in the theatre.

Freud’s Last Session runs at Taproot Theatre through April 21st, 2012. Tickets are available online.

Kim Simplis Barrow, wife of Prime Minister Dean Barrow, invited me to visit the country as part of a special project we’re working on. This trip was quite unlike any other I’ve been on as far as what I experienced.

And not everything was captured on camera. The babies in critical care in the neonatal unit at the hospital. The children and their teachers in the autism classroom, working on some project that involved glue and straws and lots of laughter. The unplanned two hour drive to Cayo just for dinner – and for that matter, ANY pictures of me with Julie Schweitert Collazo and Kristin Fuhrmann Simmons. (Ladies, what were we thinking?)

But some great stuff made it in as well. Hopefully I’ll have more to share about Belize soon!

Belize is a great place to visit on the cheap! For other affordable trips, check out how you can visit Malaga on a budget.

“Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.” ~Moliére

Arguably the most popular comedic playwright of all time, Moliére clearly believed in this statement – it’s evident in his writing. Because Tartuffe is absolutely a comedy, but considering what the story is based on, considering the religious hypocrisy, gullibility, and manipulation of the times the play shines a light on…it definitely has its tragic moments.

As always, the cast and crew at Taproot Theatre bring this story to life in a way that somehow both manages to transport us centuries back, yet relay a still-relevant message. Oh, and make us laugh. A lot.

The cast is just brilliant. Ruth McRee starts things off as Madame Pernelle, the moral, strictly Christian grandmother of the family who is instantly familiar to the audience. Her son, Orgon, has taken in Tartuffe, a poor, wandering man of false piety…or rather, he’s been taken in by the impostor. Other than Orgon and Madame Pernelle, the entire family sees Tartuffe for what he is, and hatch a scheme to expose him.

It backfires, of course. This is a comedy, after all.

Brady’s Orgon is frustratingly wonderful – you want to leap out of your chair and slap a bit of sense into him. Jesse Notehelfer is excellent as his wife, Elmire, who has the daunting task of simultaneously supporting her husband by doing the unthinkable with Tartuffe. Ryan Childers is a much-needed voice of reason throughout the play as Cléante, Orgon’s brother.

Charissa Adams as Mariane (Orgon’s daughter) and Nathan Jeffrey as her (hopeful) fiancée Valére do a wonderful job, particularly in their first scene together as an oh-so-in-love yet oh-so-stubborn couple. And a special note about the costumes – they’re all wonderful, but Valére’s is simply hysterical, so much so that all of his entrances are greeted with immediate laughter.

Josh Smyth gets a few laughs of his own with the officer’s impassioned speech at the end of the play. Solomon Davis is too funny as Orgon’s well-meaning, extremely passionate and energetic son Damis. And Charity Parenzini as Dorine the maid delivers some of the best lines of the play with impeccable comedic timing.

And then there’s Tartuffe, played by Frank Lawler. It was rather a surprise for me to see Mr. Lawler in this role after last seeing him in Beasley’s Christmas Party – quite a different character, and he pulls it off amazingly. Tartuffe is sleazy, loathsome, and detestable, and Lawler’s portrayal is one the audience loves to hate.

Interested in seeing Tartuffe? The play runs at Taproot Theatre through March 3rd, 2012. Tickets are available online.

French Quarter

Last month, my family and I returned to New Orleans for a funeral. It was my first time back to the city I grew in since a short visit in 2005, a few months before Katrina.

I have vivid memories of my neighborhood, my schools, churches, etc, but I expected everything to look different. For one thing, 1992 was two decades ago. (Egad.) Also, hurricane damage.

I can’t say nothing changed – some high schools were still boarded up, covered in six years’ worth of graffiti, and the French Quarter had only a quarter of the peddlers and artists it once did. And I didn’t see the 9th Ward, which suffered the most. But my neighborhood in particular was shockingly unchanged, to the point where I expected to see billboards advertising Crystal Pepsi and Ross Perot.

My middle school is now a temporary elementary school (another result of Katrina), but the facilities are identical. The church, St. John Bosco, hasn’t changed either, down to the vaguely unsettled feeling I get when I step inside.

St. John Bosco Church

St. Rosalie elementary school has a new extension building, but the original with my old classrooms is still there and in use. It appears a little worse for the wear, but honestly that’s about what it looked like when I attended.

On St. Patrick’s Day we were allowed to wear green shirts (which clashed horribly with the girls’ red plaid skirts), and we’d spend most of the day sitting on that concrete performing skits and singing songs for the principal, Sister Jeanne. (St. Patrick’s Day happened to be her birthday, which she considered to be the more important of the two holidays.)

I can’t say I paid any more attention to the services in this church, but it didn’t frighten me like the other one did. Not hard to see why; it’s quite a bit cheerier.

St. Rosalie Church

After visiting the old schools, we drove through our neighborhood, past the Tastee Donuts down a long street through the suburb. This, too, looked exactly the same. We started to recognize houses and street names. I remembered the turns – all the way down, left at the dead-end, left on Chinkapin Street, which curved around to the right.

Our house was somewhere around the center of this street. We got closer and closer, naming off every single family that had lived in the houses we passed – again, all unchanged. Then we stopped.

Mr. Donnie’s house on the left, the Aycocks’ house on the right. In the middle, a grass lot. Our address, 3852, is still painted on the curb.

It was a shock. The entire neighborhood seemed frozen in the early 90s, minus our home. And there was no wreckage, no evidence of a fire or demolition. Not even the concrete base. Just a grass lot, as if a tornado had whisked our house right off of Chinkapin Street and dumped it on some poor witch with sparkly shoes.

Oddly, Google Maps shows the house still whole and well. I prefer to imagine it in some other-dimensional Oz. For some reason that makes it less unsettling.

I love big musical productions – the orchestra, the costumes, the constantly changing scenery and all the bells and whistles. But truly, it’s the smaller productions that really leave it up to the actors to draw you into the story and their world.

In Beasley’s Christmas Party, currently showing at the Taproot Theatre, four actors cover about a dozen roles, changing characters as quickly and effortlessly as they change hats (literally). In a few cases, one character is actually played, at different times, by two actors, and to hilarious effect.

The tale is based on a short story written by Booth Tarkington in 1909. Set in Indiana, it follows Booth (played by Frank Lawler), as he begins to suspect that gubernatorial candidate Beasley (Don Brady) is…not quite of sound mind. (As evidenced by the man’s chatting with invisible people, racing invisible men, and roughhousing with invisible dogs). He and Beasley’s neighbor Miss Apperthwaite (Lisa Peretti) speculate on the cause, although Miss Apperthwaite, as Booth soon learns, may not be the best person to discuss Beasley with, due to their personal history. Mr. Meyers, a close friend of Beasley, fills Booth in on the secret.

Lawler’s role as Booth is non-stop – if he’s not in a scene, he’s narrating it, and he keeps the pace moving wonderfully. Brady, Peretti, and Lamb are brilliant as the remaining eleven characters – on several occasions they flawlessly switch from one to another mid-scene.

The simple scenery and costumes are fantastic; effective, but allowing the audience to really use their imaginations and see the events as Booth did. And the story is exactly the type of story I want to experience this time of year – funny, charming, and quite heartwarming.

Beasley’s Christmas Party will be playing at the Taproot through December 30th. A special note: at under 90 minutes, there is no intermission, making this a great option for children. Tickets may be purchased online or by calling 206.781.9707.

I think I missed out, not growing up watching Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews on television every Christmas. When I think Cinderella, I think Disney. After seeing the latest production of the former version at 5th Avenue Theatre this week, I’m ready to switch sides.

The entire musical goes by in a flash of glittery, over-the-top costumes and dramatic, constantly changing scenery – the storybook screen used in the opening as the Godmother narrates the famous beginning is the perfect start to this fairy tale, and Lionel’s tap number (performed by Greg McCormick, who shines in his every scene) in “The Prince is Giving a Ball” is a great high energy early number.

The story of Cinderella changes slightly with every new cast, and this one brings a constantly positive vibe to a tale that can easily turn self-pitying or even dark. Allen Fitzpatrick and Cynthia Jones have a lovely duet as King and Queen, and great chemistry with one another throughout the musical. Kendra Kassebaum is absolutely perfect as the Fairy Godmother – it’s hard for me to imagine anyone else singing “Fol-De-Rol” and “Impossible” now. And Suzanne Bouchard is wonderfully wicked as the stepmother, without hedging into “pure evil” territory, which wouldn’t have worked well in this production.

I’ve seen Brandon O’Neill in two other 5th Avenue musicals – Aladdin and Saving Aimee – and I’m becoming more and more of a fan. He’s excellent as Prince Christopher; charming, of course, but as he gets to know Cinderella he shows a slightly awkward, nervous side that makes him even more endearing. And Jennifer Paz is easy to love as Cinderella herself; a difficult role to play, as the character could easily come off as vacant and two-dimensional, but Paz does a wonderful job – particularly in “In My Own Little Corner.”

A special note about the wicked stepsisters: they are hilarious. “Stepsisters’ Lament” was my favorite number of the night – Sarah Rudinoff and Nick Garrison work perfectly together, and without a doubt wear the best costumes of the night:

Other noteworthy moments: the Prince’s facial expressions and interaction with the other ladies at the ball during “The Gavotte,” (much of this is due to excellent choreography by Noah Racey and, as always, an outstanding performance by the orchestra); the subtle showing of growing sympathy for Cinderella by the stepsisters during “When You’re Driving Through The Moonlight”; and the most impressive costume change you may ever see on stage during “It’s Possible.”

Cinderella is playing at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle through December 31, 2011. Tickets are available online.