A sneak-Peek

I've decided, dear readers, that since you've been so tolerant of my delays between posts, I would share a sneak peek of the work I've been doing on the book I mentioned. The text and picture are both rough drafts from the book, in a section about forts. This particular fort is called the Pallet Palace. I'd love to hear any feedback you have, since this is a rough draft. Follow the break to read the page. Thanks for sticking with me, Readers!

My Latest Project (or, excuses excuses...)

     Hello readers, I know that you had probably given up on seeing any updates from this blog, but it's not true! I've been very distracted lately, and haven't felt that I had much to say to you, so rather than pester you with filler, I decided to let it go for awhile. I admit, after this post, I may go silent for another while. However, let me fill you in on what is currently taking up my time!

     So, you may not have heard of lulu.com, but it is a self-publishing website. I had an idea for a book a few months ago, and have finally decided to get my butt into gear and start writing. The title of the book is The Expert's Guide To Getting Into (And Sometimes Out Of) TROUBLE I know, it's a long winded title, but I like it. Anyway, it's a book about projects for kids, from building treehouses to fun pranks to pull, to stories to tell younger siblings to torment them for years. It's basically a guide to all of the things that kids used to do when it was okay to climb trees and skin knees.

     For now, that's all I can really tell you, but I have already wrapped out about twenty pages (sans illustrations) and wanted to let you know that I am not dead, but rather, happily busy. Look for more updates on the book as I get closer to publishing, and thank you for being supportive!

An exploded view of the doghouse project from the book!

     I've been thinking about playwrighting a lot lately, thanks to the 24-hour play project, as well as all of the analyzing I have been doing of the play I am directing. It's gotten me thinking about what's important in a play, and I've been batting around the idea of a small-cast musical in my head. So, in a shocking first, I have decided to do a poll of my readers, and find out what YOU think is important in a musical!
The Poll is over on the sidebar, probably about..... ----------------------------------------------->
There!
If you decide to select "Other" please post your answer in the comments section of this post. And even if you choose one of the other answers, I'd love to hear your thoughts on musicals!
Thanks, readers!

24 hour play project, Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the stress!

     This weekend, my theater company posed a challenge to it's members: Starting at seven PM on Friday night, and finishing at seven PM Saturday night, members were asked to write, cast rehearse, memorize, and finally perform three different plays. I'm proud to say, everyone rose to the challenge, and had an amazing mount of fun doing so!
     Here's how it went: at Six Pm Friday night, everyone met, then signed up for, and were assigned jobs. three people were given the job of writer, three directors, about 18 actors and about half a dozen technitions. At seven o'clock, the writers were given three parameters that each script had to include, that way, writiers couldn't bring in anything they had been working on. Our three parameters were:

1. The line "that's what she said"
2. A small wooden box (which was pulled from the props area)
3. The sounds of an alarm going off (which was also provided to them.

     From that moment until 4 am (9 hours), the writers were in a flurry, locked in a room with a 48-cup pot of coffee (which lasted us the 24-hours). Meanwhile, on the stage, the techies had begun their work. They faced two challenges, one of which are inherent to the 24-hour play project, and one that comes from our regular season. The challenge from the play-project was that they needed to prepare sets and hang lights for all of the shows, but they didn't know what the shows would be! So, they had to do lighting and scenery designed to be as open and versatile as possible, with only a few mumbled hints from the writers (who you just didn't talk to, don't you know how busy they are?!?!)
     What that really meant was developing brilliant repertory plots (that is, designs equipped to be adapted to multiple shows). We had a guy named Topher from way out of town, from about an hour away to do lights with us. It was really interesting for everyone to see how Topher handled lighting in a new space, and I'm sure other people learned a fair bit about design from him. (I had honestly never considered footlights in this space, but they were Fantastic!)
     Meanwhile the set team was trying to mask everything off, to keep the audience from seeing all of the backstage business. The set crew had to deal with all sorts of hassles like that, but they had another challenge, presented to them by our regular season. See, we're also putting up two shows this year, and both of those shows have their own sets. So, not only did they have some flats screwed to the stage, bolted in place and immobile, but they also had almost all of the other stock materials attached to each other and in storage as the other set. Basically, they had about four flats and a big bunch of curtains to make the theater into a useful space. They did. In fact, they (okay, I started it while nobody was looking) took a door frame off of one of the sets and clamped it into the set. (Don't worry, I put it back when we were done!)
     Eventually, at four AM, the directors arrived at the theatre. The writers handed over three brand-new scripts to the directors, who had about an hour and a half to read the scripts and cast them from the collection of actors we had. There were a lot of debates between the directors, bickering over who got who, and so forth. They decided their casts and sent emails to every cast member, with a copy of their script attached. The actors then printed out their scripts, and arrived at 6:45 Am to start rehearsals.
     Then for the next twelve hours, the shows were on a rotating rehearsal schedule, sharing the stage, cramming lines, studying, studying, studying, and rehearsing for hours on end. Oh my goodness, I didn't mention the countdown! Over our heads, all day, starting at seven PM, a gigantic countdown loomed over our heads, ticking down the time until the curtain opened.
     At seven Pm, the audience had all arrived, the countdown reached zero, and the curtain opened. Three shows performed, and did an amazing job. (okay, again, I totally flopped, after 24 hours without sleep, I completely forgot EVERY line I had. EMBARRASSING!) Anyway, Everyone (but me) did an amazing job, and the audiences loved it. Then, we struck the shows in a half an hour, and everyone ran home as fast as possible to immediately crash into bed and fall asleep.
     The next day, a few people met up, and there was not a single person who had anything else to talk about. There was even a movement to start another 24 hour play project that night. All in all, it was a huge success, everyone learned something, the world received three new plays, and everyone went home happy and tired. It was a huge success, and everyone really enjoyed it. Topher also brought in a very nice camera with a timer, and recorded a timelapse of the entire process. Hopefully, sometime in the next couple weeks, I'll be able to get my hands on the timelapse video, and I will post it here for you all to see!
     So, dear readers, what do you think of this project? Excited? Curious? Tell me in the comments section!

Fixing School Libraries.

     I've spent a couple of days now over the last couple of weeks working with my mother at the library where she works. It's an elementary school library, which means that at the end of the year, most of the work she is doing is handling, cataloging, and storing textbooks. What I've realized while I was helping her is that the entire textbook system is completely ridiculous, and needs to be re-vamped. My brother has written on the subject of the broken education subject HERE, and while I agree that incorporating games into the curriculum is a great way to encourage students to learn, I think that starting with the books they are learning from is the way to go about fixing education. So, here I go.
     Next week, Google is launching its Chromebook, a laptop based on the new Chrome OS. I've been using a Chromebook to update this blog since I started it, and today, it gave me an idea for a complete new infrastructure for books. The basic idea is that Chromebooks operate entirely in the cloud, using only the internet to do its work, rather than depending on built in storage space.
     Every year, the library spends more than $200 per student on textbooks. Now, let's imagine that rather than spending that money every year, the school invested it into Chromebooks, which cost about $200 each. The laptops would be bar coded, inventoried, and checked out, exactly the same as the textbooks, but the secret is that the books would be designed specifically for the purpose of education. Every Chromebook is designed to link to a central server on campus, and on that server is the entire curriculum, every textbook is digitized, the workbooks are webpages, the homework comes in emails, and multiple choice grades itself.  Students would keep their laptops through the course of the year, charging them in class, and if the teacher requires it, using their 8-hour battery overnight for homework time. The Chromebooks are designed with built-in 3G connectivity, which means that students who cannot afford internet at home could register for the 3G through the schools, so they could do homework.
     Two years ago, the elementary school upgraded it's math curriculum, to the latest standards. (I'll talk about the quality of the standards another time) The school had to buy entirely new books for every student they had. If, however, they were using Chromebooks, all the curriculum update would take is the installation of new software on the central server, saving literally tons of paper every time the curriculum is updated. On top of that, the next year, the publisher told the school district that the math they had used for the year wasn't the right set, and sent them an entirely new set of papers! That's another ton of paper wasted, as well as more trouble for librarians! With Chromebooks, if there was a mistake like that, The solution would waste, at most a case of CDs, and at least, nothing, because the update could come over the internet, just like updates on any program on your computer.
     A lot of people worry about students (especially elementary age) being on the internet. That's entirely reasonable, but the Chromebook can be developed to have network controls to keep students on a safe-network, so that the computer can only connect to the school's server. Or, pending parent sign-off, etc. the book could be allowed onto the full internet, or have various levels of parental control allowed.
     Another interesting aspect of the Chromebooks is the centralized login. To log on to Chrome OS, you enter in your Gmail address and password, and all of your information is linked to that. For this system, the students (and teachers, staff, etc.) would each have a login account, which would store grades, homework, bookmarks (literal bookmarks in the e-books, for example) it could have links to a student's favorite educational games attached to the account, or a list of reminders on the home page for upcoming events, or homework. The real advantage of this is that without having to have the student's actual laptop, the parents or teacher of that student can look it up from literally anywhere that there is internet, regardless of whether or not they were using a Chromebook. Students could also use their home computers to do their homework, if one is available. On the other side of that coin, since every laptop is identical, and can all use the same accounts, if a student forgets (or "forgets") their Chromebook at home, the teacher can simply have a few spare laptops in the class. The students can log in and do their work anyway.
     Now, I'm not saying that libraries should be abolished, or that all books should be burned, or anything silly like that. Rather, I'm suggesting that we ditch the business model of replacing books every two years, and only buy books that have a genuine lifespan. If we focused on a system that is built to last rather than being recycled (or sometimes thrown away) every two years, we can focus on the education, and not the money-making. The budget required for books would be cut in half (there would of course need to be some laptops replaced each year) and all of that money could be spent on other things, like after school programs, or art supplies. The Chromebook cloud computing system could make our schools more efficient, less expensive, and more fun for students, and who wouldn't want that?