Smoke and Mirrors: March 2016

Hi everyone,

I wanted to end the month with a fun post, something that can trail into the next month. So I thought I would write a post about some of the things that inspire me and get me going through my day as I look for inspiration. I'm going to call these Smoke and Mirrors because they give me a bit of magic and whimsy in my everyday outlook in life. I also think that it would be fun to share some of my other outside interests with you.

Dark Shadows 1991 Revival: I am going to come clean that I am a huge Dark Shadows fan. It's eerie, addresses psychology and the supernatural, mod, and black in white. I'm such a sucker for practically all of those things and I've fallen in love with the entire series since.



 I discovered it with the recent Tim Burton movie of the series, but I've since started going back and watching the original. I've just finished watching the 1991 version. Since I'm writing about a supernatural dysfunctional family in my novel series, watching this just give me the 'someone gets it' feeling. If your love cheesy occult horror, please give Dark Shadows anything a watch.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke: I am currently going through this novel with so much love and respect for the author. I've been wanting to read this for almost a year now, but just got a hold of it late last year.


Eugene convinced me to watch the BBC series with him which was such a treat. I love how I can compare the moods of both the book and the series. If you love classics and modern fantasy, this has it all! It's packed every nook and cranny with fascinating tales and plot twists. My favorite part of the book are all the footnotes that mix real life legends, and legends created for the story in a way that it can be used as research for the overall plot (It sounds confusing, but once you pick up a copy you'll get it). It's such a rich world! Filled with magic, regency history, and colorful characters.

Dorian Gray Syndrome: Brink of Consciousness: One of the nerdiest things I do aside from running and Anime Convention is play Hidden Object Games as a leisure gamer. I love the dark gothic plotted ones that make you jump in your seat.


This one has to top the cake in what I've played so far. I loved every minute of it! I'm guilty of having a little bit of a crush on the sensitive psychotic artist, Oscar the serial killer. It's a great relaxing game that gets me in the mood to write. Give it a try when you need something different to unwind with.

I'm off to go read more of my novel for some inspiration. I hope that anyone reading this gives any of these things a try. They've made me so happy and it was great to share them with you.

Cheers!

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A Guardian's Abode

Today is the last day to make preparations for the play! As the cast are filing in their bios and meeting up for last minute line runs, we all anticipated this package. 

Notice how it's under Our main character's name? We did this for a reason. It's a bit of dark humor really...

You see we always seem to struggle with this one prop. We use guns, candles, fake cigarettes; but this particular prop is one that is hard to make convincing. We realized we had to go for the real thing.

 Lucky for us, Yuki, our lead actress is a former mortician (yep, you read that correctly). So with her help and a 'graduation gift' later we got this beautiful new urn! In fact, the actress playing the character that these 'ashes' are supposed to be contained in picked it out in a catalogue on our last rehearsal this past Sunday. My only request as a Director was that we pick a child size one  so it's easier to maneuver with on stage.

I've been relishing in my gothic tones lately, but I think that this really seems to top my cake. At first I was a bit jittery about it, but after seeing the beauty of the urn, I much enjoy it.

Can't wait for the play tomorrow! I'm looking forward to making history. Especially after this little fun fact.

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