Oops

22 Mar

So it has been a long time since I updated. Life seems to be moving faster these days. My mom friends wonder if its directly proportionate to the age of our kids – the older they get, the quicker time goes.

It is now 2017 – I didn’t really bother with resolutions this year however I haven’t had a Diet Coke for over a week which for me is nothing short of a miracle. I’ve had lots of iced tea and I’m up to 2 cups of coffee a day so we’ll see.

Writing-wise? Totally got discouraged and threw myself into anything else. I am circling back to it. Contemplating the self-publishing route. Looking forward to this summer and down time – only 2 weeks of camp for the kiddos, no travel, what?

Stage Management-wise? I’ve done a lot of theatre. I’ve done one a season at the Moxie and am scheduled to do 2 in their upcoming season. I have a new company that I’ll be working for in a couple of weeks. I helped a company close out their final season as a company.

Lots of theatre mom-ing. One kiddo just closed Midsummer Nights Dream and the other is in rehearsals for Wizard of Oz. I might never get “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” out of my head.

My hair is currently purple, I’m all excited about an online lipstick party (apparently that’s a thing–who knew?), and I have a loaf of beer bread in the oven. Life if good.

Next week is Spring Break and we’re planning to take a leaf out of Ferris Bueller’s book and try not to miss anything.

 

Happy New Year!

11 Jan

I usually sit down at the end of every year and write up a list of resolutions. Then I start the year off with a bang and lose momentum fairly quickly. This year I tried a new approach.

This year I decided to physically clean up my world – I sorted my yarn stash (for the non-knitters, I organized the bins of To Be Knitted yarn), I cleaned up my office, I cleaned out my inbox (and only deleted a few things–that I’ve discovered so far–that I wished I hadn’t). Yay! I also revisited my novel.

I have been absent due to a malaise that overcame me in October/November. I was so excited to be querying agents for my novel (Who’s The Name of That Song?) but I was not as excited to receive the rejection letters. Yes. I know. Foolish me. And after about 80 rejections I gave up.

But then the people I’d sent copies to read started to get back to me and I became re-energized and updated my query letter (something must not have been working), bought new querying music (this week’s queries are brought to you by The Killers’ Battle Born and the Friends’ Soundtrack), and sent out a whole additional batch.

So once again, fingers crossed, somebody wants my book!

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Who’s The Name of That Song?

10 Sep

Oh…I guess I should introduce everyone to my book.

Short Synopsis – WHO’S THE NAME OF THAT SONG? by Jessamyn Foster

“Good morning music fans — Nick Farber’s new song ‘One Who Got Away’ is gathering a lot of attention especially with the discovery of a quick thanks to a mysterious Emma Luna. Could this Emma Luna be the name of ‘one who got away’? We all know Nick, who rocketed into the hearts of millions of fans beginning with his first movie. He channeled his stardom into an incredible movie career and has released dozens of chart-topping songs. He is engaged to the beautiful and talented Oscar award winning actress Victoria Lazarus and their wedding, planned for December, is already on its way to becoming the Wedding of the Decade! Will this Emma Luna give Victoria a run for her money?”

“Emma Luna is nobody. She graduated from Boston Arts in the same class as Nick but their lives have taken two very different paths. Emma married her college sweetheart. She lives in a small town and works at a small town theatre. From everything we can see, Emma Luna Clark is certainly no match for Victoria Lazarus. Surely our favorite couple, Nictoria, is in no real danger here.”

Emma Clark is happy. She has a job she adores as Company Manager at A Night Theatre. She loves her friends. She, for the most part, loves her husband. She was perfectly content with her life before Nick Farber picked up her world and shook it like a snow globe with the release of his new song. To add insult to injury, his entire motivation seems to be based on something a fortune teller told Emma years ago. That she would marry her true love and live happily ever after. Nick has decided that he is her true love. Emma is skeptical, after all, Nick could have chosen Emma when they were in school together but he didn’t and she went on with her life. Now everyone is waiting to see what Emma will do. Will she jump into the unknown or will she fight to maintain the life she has built for herself?

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Fingers crossed please!

10 Sep

 So today was the day that the first of the Query letters went out. Popping up in Agents’ inboxes all over the country is my novel. Or at least my query letter and synopsis and pages as requested.  Fingers crossed that someone likes what I’ve written enough to (at the very least) read more.

So now I wait…and draft more query letters…and start return to OUTSIDE THE TENT.

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A New School Year

7 Sep

I always used to love the beginning of a new school year. I loved buying school supplies and seeing my friends and the excitement of a new year. In college a new year meant returning to Boston and setting up a new room and starting a new show. After graduation it was tough because there wasn’t a momentous thing linked to September. I would get restless and want something new or different. A new tattoo, hair color, something crazy. Then I had kids and a new school year meant freedom. I was done having to fill the majority of my children’s free time with stuff. Now I just had to make sure they made it to school every morning and I was good. Yes, there are the extracurricular things now but it is much easier to plan for a couple of hours after school then to face months of empty blocks on the calendar.

Once again I am giddy with the sense of excitement that comes with the first day of school. Luckily my kids like school and are excited to go so I am not as evil and awful as the parents who adore their summers with their children would like to think.

So a  toast to the new school year!

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The Next Step

2 Sep

After weeks of critiques from classmates in my last class through UCLA Extension and copious notes and restructuring help from the amazingly wonderful Caroline Leavitt (visit Caroline’s blog here) and long rambling conversations about character development and motivation with my best friends, my debut novel WHO’S THE NAME OF THAT SONG? is done!  Bring on the fireworks.

But now I come to the next step. Finding an agent. Eek!

After years of dutifully saving up all of the lectures and tips on this topic I have begun my quest. But a quest implies that I can do something to effect the outcome. Back in my acting days, I could rehearse and stage and perfect my audition. If it was a big test, I could study and study and study. But this, all I can do is write a letter that I hope makes it out of the masses and catches the eye of the person who can make my dreams come true. The one phrase that came up over and over again as I was researching who to query was prepare for the rejection letters and in the world of email, you might not even get a rejection letter. All of my teachers from the Writer’s Program at UCLA Extension offered their advice to the class on the subject but nearly all of the their versions differed in some way or other. The other crazy part is figuring out who to query. The websites all seem to blend together. The ones that I think “Wow! I want that person” after reading their blog or bio or interview might not even make it past the first paragraph of my letter.

So I guess all I can do, at least in this first round, is be myself and hope for the best. A difficult thing to stomach after years of preparing and rehearsing and studying. So cross your fingers everyone. Away we go.

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Camp Nanowrimo

1 Sep

I recently got home from Camp Nanowrimo. Camp Nanowrimo is the summer version of the ever popular Nanowrimo. I went to Camp in August. I found Camp to be terribly exciting as it gave me an opportunity to finish the novel I started during the original Nanowrimo.

Nanowrimo, for those uninitiated, is National Novel Writing Month and takes place in the month of November. The object of Nanowrimo is to write 50K words in a month. You can find more information from their website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

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Snail Mail Rocks!

22 Apr

Hello world!

22 Apr

Hello world! Welcome to the BRAND NEW, HIGHLY ANTICIPATED, ECSTATICALLY EXCITING website about me! Jessamyn Foster. And you dear, dear reader, have been here since the beginning!