Monday, September 12, 2011

Summer Recap and a Super Awesome Plan!


 I’m baaaaaack!

Yes, I might have made a decision this summer, and the decision might have been to take a break from blogging.  Which is what I did.  And I’m glad I did.  I’ve recharged my batteries, and come up with what I consider to be a truly brilliant plan, at least for a little while until I realize actualizing said plan is totally unfeasible. 

Still, I did miss you guys, and it’s nice to be back in the blogosphere!  What's new?  And how you doin'?

So.

My plan.

I am going to create a blogging schedule that I hopefully will stick with for a while.  That schedule is as follows:


Monday: one of my usual insightful, witty and thought provoking essay style blog entries.

Tuesday: your weekly Steampunk fix

Wednesday: sharing a bit of what my insanely talented friends in many different fields are doing that you ought to check out

Thursday: Adrienne’s Tips.  On what?  No idea.  But they will be mighty useful. (I was also thinking that this could be where I could answer your questions on stuff, but of course I’ll need the questions from you guys, so please feel free to post them in the comments section)

Friday: roundup of links of note. 


So, that’s my plan!  Pretty straightforward, not nearly as complex as my world domination one which is going quite nicely I should add, but delightful all the same.

And, as such, and seeing as it’s Monday . . .

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I thought I’d catch everyone up on what I’d been up to this summer.  Because, you know, stuff happened and stuff.

The first thing you should know is I celebrated my birthday and it was awesome.  Awesomest moment?  I was in rehearsals for a Fringe show, and after rehearsal we were all going to go hang out to celebrate.  Well I went into the washroom to change out of my costume and upon reappearing the cast started singing and presented me with some Red Velvet cupcakes made by one of the cast members.  I swear, I wish every time I came out of the washroom I was so greeted.  Though . . . what would I do with so many cupcakes . . .

And that’s the other thing, I performed in a show this year at the Toronto Fringe Festival.  It was called SWOON! (the exclamation mark makes it extra swoontastic), and was a great success.  It won Patron’s Pick for the Factory Mainspace (which means it was the most popular show in that venue) as well as Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Ensemble and Outstanding Production.  The cast was wonderful, and we really got along well.  So well that we make a point of still getting together en masse as much as possible (I can tell you, this doesn’t happen with every show).  And we had T-Shirts made!:



And here is the cast/director/stage manager of SWOON!




This summer I also managed to get in a reading at the Gravenhurst Library which was tons of fun (thank you again so much for the hospitality, you guys rocked!) and which also meant that I got to hang out at my aunt’s cottage with my family and stuff.  


My friend Katie got married, and I was one of her bridesmaids.  In fact all four bridesmaids and bride have known each other since grade 8.  So that was just a little bit special. 

L to R - Gillian, Liz, Katie, Me, Ana 


Here we are in Grade 8


Speaking of bridesmaids, it was also an amazing summer for movies, including a certain comedy starring an ensemble cast of women that managed to break down so many barriers to the point where men were going to see it on their own, not just because they were going with a girl.  Of course the big comic book movies happened also, and were pretty darn good.  I’ve reviewed almost all of them over at HardcoreNerdity.com:  THOR, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (my fav of the superhero films), CAPTAIN AMERICAN and the one dud in my estimation, GREEN LANTERN.  And we had the surprise hits of the summer:  SUPER 8 (not so much a surprise, it was assumed it would do good business, but the film itself in its nostalgic throwback was truly magical) and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (surprisingly good, and a surprising box office hit).

I did a lot of reading this summer, and made a conscious choice to take a break from anything genre.  So I finally read BARNEY’S VERSION, which is the kind of book that makes you realize you have so much further to go as an author.  It also makes you ask yourself, “How the heck did he write this?”  Also read one of the SHOPAHOLIC books at my aunt’s cottage which took as much time to read as the ARCHIE comics I was also reading.  Some Jane Austen:  NORTHANGER ABBEY (which had very little plot wise – and yes, I get it was a parody of Gothic literature, but still, you can’t sustain a book on an idea alone) and MANSFIELD PARK (to be honest, I couldn’t finish this one and I could see why it took them so long to make a quality film of it.  But the movie version was augmented with letters by Jane Austen to her sister etc, so yeah).  Both these books demonstrated to me just how wonderful her more popular works are, and why her more popular works are more popular.  Sometimes there’s a reason. 

I got my ears pierced for the first time too.  Yeah.  I'm totally bad-a**.  I put holes through my ears, take that society!



The summer ended with FanExpo, which is the Canadian Comic Con.  In the past I’ve attended as a member of HardcoreNerdity, but this year I was there as an author guest.  I have to thank Adam Smith and the Toronto Steampunk Society for inviting me as one of their own.  I got to sit on two panels:  Steampunk 101 and a panel about Steampunk lit.  Both were standing room only, and so much fun was had with my fellow extraordinarily talented panelists (especially the Lit one – for some reason we all had a great chemistry together:  J.M. Frey, Ed Greenwood and Rob St-Martin).

I also sold out of books and gave away some lovely buttons based on the cover design. 

Here are some pictures of me with a giant bike.  I really liked the bike:

Adam Smith, Me, Lee Ann Farruga








Here I am with fellow author J.M. Frey:


And here is an interview I did with YouTube personality, Shakespearean actress, and delightful friend, Cecily Jenkins:




I also did a tiny interview for InnerSPACE for the SPACE channel - Canada's version of SyFy - but as it is about Steampunk I'll share that with you tomorrow - here's a pic of it though, to keep you in suspense:

Don't I just look so full of wide-eyed wonder!



With the start of fall comes the Toronto International Film Festival and our city is now buzzing with celebs and fans and all that goodness.  Once more I participated in Bask-It-Style’s media day.  Bask-It-Style is a swag bag that is sent to celebs’ hotel rooms, and the organisers, JSquared, host one day as a media event to show off what the celebs will be getting.  This time I represented THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE.  Here I am (it's a bit fuzzy, but note the Mockingjay pin???  I got that at FanExpo, I was SO excited to get one!):



And here I am between two Toronto Argonauts (uh, that would be Toronto's football team . . .).  I wish I could take them everywhere with me, they make me feel so petite and delicate.  Note how they are wearing my book buttons! (apologies for the brightness of the pic . . .):






And . . . that was last week, and we now come to this week.  What adventures await this writer/actress?  Who knows!  Edits on THE FRIDAY SOCIETY, to be sure (got those a couple weeks ago), Halloween as well (yay!), but there are likely to be surprises around the corner.  I look forward to them!

That’s all for now!  Come back tomorrow for your first of many Steampunk Tuesday Fixes!


Also Atticus says hi:







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