Hi, guys! You might have noticed that we haven’t updated in a long while. We said we’d finish reviewing our Stratford shows… and then we didn’t. Please forgive me.
Obviously, there are issues in the world of Cactus. I feel like we’re too much in a holding pattern with Mercutio right now to really chat about anything. And there was a miscommunication between us as to who was going to post the next reviews because of how the schedule up in Stratford and rushing shows worked out, which stretched into a month (and more) of no updates. Basically, we never solved that issue even though we thought we had, and then days turned into weeks, and… well, you know. Unfortunately, the world we live in is one in which paying bills must come first, and the blog is not going to do that for us. It’s an enjoyable thing, of course, and we love talking to you guys about books and Shakespeare and writing, but needs must.
I am going to post reviews on Coriolanus and Julius Caesar early next week. Yes, even a month later, I still have plenty to say about them, and–for Coriolanus at least–I still have a TON OF HYPE. I begged A so hard, we ended up rushing this incredibly intense–INTENSE–play rather than seeing The Music Man again. She is truly a wonderful and patient friend. And once I get those done, I should be able to poke her to do the other two plays we saw: To Kill a Mockingbird and An Ideal Husband. (She’s going to have things to say about accents in BOTH of them. The former made me bawl, though. And I was going to fight a bitch if Scout didn’t come out dressed as ham. She did. There was no fighting that evening.)
On a personal front, I have finished the first round of edits on Liar! YAY ME.
It’s completely covered in red ink, to the point that I think I used up the pen. I don’t know if y’all remember the red ink all over Killing Mercutio, but this draft was 60k words shorter than that one, and I used up just as much ink. Weirdly enough, this draft was cleaner than Mercutio. I mostly just thought up funnier jokes as I was editing. That’s not to say there weren’t sections I decided to change because I came up with something more satisfying, but the draft was really good as it stood. I’m just really hard on my drafts.
No news on the Mercutio front, by the way. We’re waiting on word back from a full request and continuing to create a list of agents to query should we need to keep going. I feel like we’ve finally hit on the story/genre designation that works best and gives agents the best idea of what to expect, so that should help. The constant tinkering and making things better is all we can do, right?
Also, if anyone is doing NaNo next month, I’m The Lady C.
I’ll see y’all early next week!
–C
Nerd Cactus 