Tess Sharpe

Oh look, my journal. The thing I haven't posted in in ages. Bad me.

I do have some pretty good excuses. Involving four bouts of pneumonia and having a 6 week run of a play where I was required to wear a dress that was so tight that my cast-mates started calling it "The Jessica Rabbit Dress".

Luckily, I survived all bouts of pneumonia (though halfway through each bout, I was wishing someone would just kill me already) and the full run of the show. Which, considering I spent a total of 27.5 hours doing my hair and make up during the run, is pretty impressive in my view. My Jessica Rabbit dress is safely back in the costume shop, and I am back to writing my butt off.

A lot has happened while I was gone. Including the great Amazon Fail, Query Fail, and Agent Fail. Twitter certainly has brought out some interesting things in our little community. And in 150 characters or less!

The only thing I'm working on now is my Class B series. I (finally) have a (tentative) title for Book 1: The Other Side of Eden. I'm going to post a short summary this week and hopefully a teaser next week. I'm chugging along on the first draft. I'm about to hit the point where I can write everything in order, rather than half and half, which is encouraging.

I'm incredibly excited about this book and this series. I love the characters and I'm having so much fun building the world. I've destroyed 9 major cities in the USA and have come up with a (kind of) natural way to build a city of glass, thus fulfilling my childhood dream to live in the Emerald City. I forgot how much I enjoyed writing urban fantasy--I haven't written any type of fantasy since I was a teenager.

I'll close with a Jessica Rabbit quote, in honor of that dress that I never have to wear again: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

XOXO
Tess

So, my post about the Princess Diaries ending (which was on this blog and on my crit group blog, YA Edge) got a shout out from Meg Cabot on her blog.

Let me take a moment to squeal like a 13 year old girl.

Ten or so years ago, I picked up a bright pink book in the bookstore. It wasn't the kind of thing I normally would pick up--at 12 I was vehemently opposed to the color pink just for the sake of it. But I dunno, there was something about it that made me buy it.

I was awkward as 12. Hell, I was awkward through all my teen years, and I still have my many moments at 22. I spent a lot of time writing in notebooks and ignoring other people (still do, but I've gotten better about apologizing for it). I was gawky and unsure of myself and generally said the wrong thing at the wrong time and ended up agonizing over my mistakes for days. I felt like a freak.

I'm telling everyone this because when I say Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries books changed my life as well as my writing, I want to be clear that I am totally 100% serious.

I just finished Forever Princess, the last book in the series, and I fully admit that I cried through the last 100 pages. For me, this is an end of an era, practically the end of my teenagerdom in my mind. This is the finish of the books that I have faithfully read for 10 years, books I have read over and over again when I've had a bad day or a bad date or a bad anything at all. These are the books that, as a teenager, made me feel a little less freakish and awkward. Mia was like a friend--someone I could relate to on so many levels. I loved her adventures and I loved the way she saw the world, because it was so much like the way I saw it as a teen.

I bought the first book when it just came out--before the movie, before it the best-sellers lists. I loved it so much that I instantly started tracking down anything else that Meg Cabot had written (her historical romances are FAB). I also wrote Meg herself a letter and she ended up doing an interview for my teen e-zine, unladylike. She signed books for us and was such a wonderful, nice author and that's always really stuck with me.

What also has stuck with me is my sheer admiration for Meg Cabot as an author and a person. Not only is she wildly successful, but she has written several books and donated the proceeds to various charities. She's a wonderful, imaginative writer whose ability to cross over genres I envy.

Thank you, Meg, for letting all of us share Mia's world. The awkward 12 year old girl inside me thanks you from the bottom of my heart. You made my teenaged years much easier and your books inspired me to write YA. They made me think outside the children's book box--to think about characters who were going through real things and fantastical things at the same time. Characters who were like real teenagers.

I'm grateful, because I'm not sure I'd be here writing this if I hadn't, by chance, relinquished my hatred for the color pink and picked up that book 10 years ago.

Things I have Google in the last few hours...

how to pick a lock
basic martial arts
how to knock a person out
headbutting
blood types
lock picking kits
pregnancy (in weeks)
telepathy
weather patterns
hurricanes
ocean tides+weather
blood loss+side effects

I love writing about paranormal stuff again.

Here's the opening of my new paranormal/contemp fantasy which is untitled at the moment:


The graveyard was waterlogged; my boots sunk a good inch into the ground as I picked my way through the rows of headstones. The moon hanging fat in the sky provided enough light that I shut my flashlight off, sticking it in my bag as I squelched through the grass.
The three oak trees in a row were right where he said they'd be. I dumped my bag at the foot of the middle one and grabbed the collapsible shovel.
"OK," I muttered, mostly because silence in a graveyard in the middle of the night is just way too creepy. "Five steps forward," I stepped forward. "Three to the right," I stepped sideways and stabbed the shovel down into the sodden dirt, working as quickly as possible, throwing big clumps of grass and mud behind me as a dug.
"I see you're working hard," said a voice.
I looked up at the balding middle-aged guy who, five seconds ago, hadn't been there.
"I told you I'd meet you later," I said, throwing another shovelful over my shoulder. There was no use throwing it at him, which was my first instinct. Where was the trust?
He actually looked a little guilty. "Wanted to make sure you found it," he muttered.
"Pretty simple instructions, Frank," I said, turning my back to him and resuming my glamorous job of digging up long buried boxes of cash in cemeteries.
"Kennedy—" he started, sounding like he was about to apologize.
My shovel hit metal.
"Presto," I said, bending down and with some difficulty, wiggling a large rusty metal box out of the hole.
I turned back, beaming. My smile disappeared instantly.
Frank was still standing there.
He had company.
And that company had a gun pointed at me, firmly ignoring Frank, because of course, he couldn't see Frank.
This whole talking to the dead thing? So overrated.

My crush on Jack Black (and of course, the ever fabulous Margaret Cho and Neil Patrick Harris) just got way bigger:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones

No shrimp cocktails! :P

Hey everyone, hope everyone's November went well.

I am still knee-deep in kids at the theatre, working on a new paranormal book that's chugging along quite nicely. Not much else to report on this end, at least not for now.

Hey all,

A quick note for anyone wondering, I'm (meaning this blog) on hiatus at least until the end of November. Much business abounds. I shall return when my brain isn't so fried, what with the 22 kids that I am teaching and constantly informing them not to push each other or to pinch or interrupt or talk backstage or eat the sugar cubes that were out for the adult's coffee ::deep breath::.

My hat is off to all you parents out there. I have no idea how you do it.

Tess

Since I haven't posted anything about writing in forever (forgive me) here is a teaser from: ANATOMY OF A GOOD GIRL. GG is written in two POV's, this bit is from Darcy's POV. PS: Martha=Darcy's car.

“This is a bad idea,” Nell said nervously in the back of the car. She was fidgeting and looked guilty already. We were probably going to get caught the minute we got out of the car. Her expression was like a beacon flashing “CATCH ME!”
“Scared?” I asked her, grinning.
“Of course!” she squeaked back, her expression switching from guilty to indignant. “This is illegal.”
“All the fun things are,” Tink said, pulling down her black sweater and readjusting the black knit cap over her hair.
“How did I fail to notice that both of you are crazy?” Nell demanded. Despite her protests, she took the cap that I handed her with no hesitation, yanking it over her head and stuffing her hair into it.
“I’m just joking, Nell,” Tink assured her, winking at me, kicking her legs up to rest casually on the dashboard of the car. I had to restrain myself from pushing them back to the ground. Martha deserved better treatment than that. But we were going to be parking in just a second, anyway. “I’ve never committed a crime," Tink declared grandly.
“Why don’t I believe you?” Nell asked sarcastically.
I was starting to think that we were rubbing off on her.

Things that have happened today so far:

1.) I spent way too much time in bed under the covers because my 18 year old cat got all cuddle-happy. Baby decided that his purpose in life was to lick my face as much as possible, which I very kindly let him do for about 15 minutes before pushing him off me and running to the bathroom to scrub my face with boiling hot water and a lot of soap.

2.) My assistant stage manager (who I loved and adored and wanted to take home with me in my pocket) quit today. Suckiness. Now I'm stuck with a billion kids and just me. Eek!!!! Must find new assistant ASAP.

3.) Laundry. Because it seems all day all I ever do is laundry. How do I get this many dirty clothes? Seriously?


I'm off to make another pot of coffee and then I have a early night rehearsal. And I seriously need to stop by the Democratic Headquarters because I have this paranoid idea that I am in fact not registered to vote, even though I did submit the little form at the DMV.

YA Edge is the name of my lovely critique group, who are the best group a girl who writes what I write could have. They are understanding and thoughtful and always give me great insight.

We've spent the last few months working on making a community blog to talk about writing edgy YA, and we finally went live today.

http://yaedge.blogspot.com/

Mosey on over there, if you are so inclined.

So. Tired.

I don't know how you Mom's and Dad's do it. I had about 1.5 hours with the kids with a ton of theatre games and then a read through and I am about to conk out.

Of course, there were like, 20 of them or something. I haven't even got a solid count yet because our cast was finalized today! Awesome!

More detailed entry to follow tomorrow, or later this week.

Have a make-up designer, so now I can give my make-up student to her for a shadowing type experience. Awesome.

Delegation=the key to sanity.

I had a really great first read-through with my kids that I will post about AFTER tomorrow (or rather, today since it's after midnight). I have an entire acting and theatre workshop to teach tomorrow (with the help of many great people, including my ASM, AD, Director and hopefully at least one of my sound techs) and I have to get back to that ASAP.


P.S.- For the next few months, my posts might be theatre-heavy, rather than writing-heavy. This is because BASHED is out on submissions (with a few partial and a full requests, a few rejections and more than half unanswered still, but it's early) and I'm spending most of my writing time out-lining some projects that I am really looking forward to, and re-writing TEN THINGS. I'm experimenting with it and putting the first 50 pages in first person. I will try to post a teaser every Tuesday, however.


P.P.S.- I totally understand if my fabulous writerly friends will skip over my theatre posts. When they get really lengthy, I promise to put them behind a theatre tagged cut. I'll see those friends hopefully before the New Year!

Am super super busy right now with the Xmas show at the theatre. Have ten million little kids running around and I have somehow ended up teaching stage managing, basic acting, theatre games and theatrical make up in one version or the other. I am going to attempt to write SOMETHING in ANYTHING that I'm working on right now by Wednesday, but who knows how that goes.

Ah, balancing two highly creative careers, the joy it brings.

My back up lap top died early this morning. I have back ups for everything important, but it also means that I lost a few thousand words on my short romance (ack!) and I lost the beginning to ANATOMY OF A GOOD GIRL that I have been slaving over for the past few days.

Which might be a good thing, 'cause I think it kind of sucked. The beginning, I mean.

I am not good with beginnings until about the 3rd draft. They need time to evolve.

Now I am off to download all my back ups onto the hated desk top and work on an outline for another short romance story that I am totally digging.

I am in beginning-writing mode on ANATOMY OF A GOOD GIRL.

Thus, I am spending all my time tearing my hair out, crying at the ceiling "WHY ME?" and hugging my stuffed badger to my chest to quell the pain.

::snicker::

So today during my agent research, I found a book called "Empress of the World" by Sara Ryan about theatre camp.

When I went to the web-site for the book, I saw that the main character is called Nicola. And then I started reading more. And started getting really creeped out.

This character is named after Nikola Tesla, who I am also named after. And is a theatre tech. And plays the viola. And likes Archaeology. And gets along with her parents.

Um, all of these things are me (though I don't play Viola anymore). Not to mention MY NAME (funnily enough, I have Nikola as a middle name instead of a first). My name is weird and I've only met one other person who has had parents crazy enough to name their kid after the scientist who was Edison's opponent.

I am kind of worried about reading this book, because if it resembles my life any more, it's gonna get twilight zone-y.

Of course, that is not stopping me from buying it. Because I SO AM. And I totally want to write to Sara Ryan and be like "Um, so Hi, are you perhaps spying on my life with secret video cameras?" but that wouldn't be nice to accuse her of.

That was my little weirdness for the day. I can't wait to get the book and read it!

Things I am occasionally guilty of doing:

1. Applying a mint mud masque to my face and watching reruns of Beverly Hills 90210. Occasionally, my Dad and I watch it together. He refrains from the mud masque, though.

2. Eating way too much pie.

3. Obsessively watching whole seasons of random TV shows in the background while I revise.

4. Misspelling common words.

5. Being a little too strong-minded.