Last Week To Enter Kindle Contest & The Hokey Pokey (A Day Late): Broadway Shows ARE Worth the Price of Admission

Greetings!

This is the last week of my contest to win a Kindle! Please share your miracles! (Complete contest details are at the bottome of this post.)

Yesterday was Hokey Pokey Wednesday, but I was too busy actually doing The Hokey Hokey to post (I DID write it, LOL.)

Here it is:

             I mentioned to my son Michael that I was thinking of taking his brother to see the Broadway show Rent. I brought Michael to so many productions when he was younger. We started compiling a list once, and jotted down at least twenty-five, but both of us felt some were missing.

             Money got tighter, and as a result, Casey hasn’t seen many shows. Truth be told, I started resenting the price of admission. Shows are expensive! (Kind of like gluten-free cookies, but at least the shows are good.) I stopped making shows a priority. But the other day, during a school visit, I spotted some vouchers for Rent in the office, and decided to give Casey a treat.

            “I’ll go again,” Michael said. “I loved that show.”

            “Oh, great. More money,” I said, but I was laughing. Because Michael really did love that show. He even wanted a stuffed cow wearing the Rent logo on a t-shirt as a souvenir (you have to see the show to get the joke.) It’s funny – we just stored that cow in a box in our attic. “Okay, three tickets it is.”

            Then he said something that shocked me: “Broadway shows made me who I am.”

            “How so?” I asked.

            He said, “They made me believe that anything was possible.”

            Wow.

            Looking back, I can see that. The way he marched up and down the aisle when the band played “Seventy-Six Trombones” at the end of The Music Man.

The way he marveled at Peter Pan flying above his head,

and on a different occasion in the same theatre, the way he marveled over Annie getting her gun.

Hell, he even loved Tom Sawyer, The Musical (probably the only person who ever did.)

            He didn’t love Cats, but thought it was so cool to go on stage and see the sleeping cat up close at intermission. He was tickled over Suessical the Musical, which I thought was much better than it had the right to be. He and his cousin Ashleigh went wild over Footloose and asked to see the movie – which they panned. 

            He danced all the way back to the car after Forty-Second Street.

            There were only two shows he disliked: Beauty and the Beast (He was about five and terrified. No, he was not scared of the beast. He never made it that far. The wolves attacking Belle in the woods freaked him out, and he willed himself to sleep) and Jesus Christ Superstar (which I only took him to because the commercial proclaimed it “a family musical,” but it bored him so much that he begged me to let him sleep - so I did. It got better in the second act, but he’ll never know.)

            So many shows! The list goes on. I, too, was influenced by Broadway when I was little – but I thought it was because my aunt played violin in the orchestra pits (before she built her barge.) I got to go backstage and meet the actors. I especially remember No, No, Nanette and all the cool people I met there.

At home, I sang the songs with and without the record: “I Want to be Happy,” “Take a Little One Step, Two Step, Three Step” and of course the very woe-is-me “Where Has My Hubby Gone Blues.”

            But maybe it wasn’t just because I went backstage. Maybe it was the magic of musicals.

            I also loved The Music man. Over and over I sang “Goodnight My Someone” and “’Til There Was You.” And I adored Oklahoma.

            As an adult I became a “Jekkie” and saw Jekyll and Hyde at least two dozen times.

            Turns out Broadway shows are worth the price of admission. They do make you feel different about your prospects. They’re uplifting.

            Michael has grown into a fine, young man who indeed believes that anything is possible.

And because he believes this - it is.

            I’ll have to start bringing Casey to shows. I think he’ll enjoy Rent,

though he is a tough customer, as Aunt Olga would say. He should be happy as long as I keep my mouth shut and don’t sing along with the cast.

            And I already have a stuffed cow waiting for him at home.

Here are the contest details:

Got a story about a miracle? Share it with me, and you could win yourself or someone you love a Kindle.

There are other ways to win:

1. Follow this blog. (There is a space at the bottom of the post to enter your e-mail. I know it's hard to figure out - but I can't figure out how to make it clearer. Sorry!!!)
2. Post this contest in your status on any social media.
3. E-mail your favorite quote on "miracles" to Ldymcbeth@aol.com.
4. Review one of my books (there are four) on your blog, Goodreads or Amazon.
5. I'm open to other creative ideas for entries. Try me!
You will receive one entry for each thing you do. I will select ONE winner out of all the entries on Thursday, December 15.

Method to my Madness Monday: Build Your Story/Build Your Barge

Building your story is like building a floating concert hall: neither one comes finished.

This is kind of what Aunt Olga's barge looked like when she bought it.

                This is the beginning of Saved by the Music, chapter two – when Willow (aka me) sees the interior of the barge her aunt wants to convert into a concert hall:

 

                Maybe the inside looked better.

                Aunt Agatha yanked open the thick metal door of the cabin.

                Any hopes I had were swept away in an explosion of dirt and dust. Particles went up my nose and down my throat, sending me into a coughing and sneezing fit.  “Sorry, Love. I’ll have to remember to clean up around this door,” Aunt Agatha said.

                Once the cloud and I cleared, I saw a cavern, big and dark and spooky. That’s all it was — one huge, bleak steel room, about the size of my school gym, with a regular sized door at either end, and gigantic sliding doors on each side. The walls, floor and ceiling were covered with grime. Piles of wood cluttered the room, plus other construction-type junk.

                “What do you think?” Aunt Agatha chirped, propping the door open with a crowbar. “Isn’t she a beaut?”

                I cleared my throat. “It’s not what I pictured.”

                She laughed. “What is?” She tweaked my nose. “You didn’t think the place came all finished, did you?”

            Your story doesn’t come all finished, either.

            Just as my aunt saw the potential in the dreary cavern, so must the writer see his completed work through the jumbled mess in his mind.

            Aunt Olga enjoyed restoring each piece of wood for the walls and the floor. She reveled in painting the roof. The whole project was a labor of love. And she was no spring chicken.

            So here’s a clue: If you don’t love the writing process – maybe you’re not a writer.

            Sure, there’s frustrating moments. Many.

            Soooooo many.

            “Oh my god,” you may scream, “I have to revise that #?!@!?# scene again?”

            But once you sit down and work on it, you’re happy. This is what you were meant to do! The fun is in the revision. In finding “le mot juste,” as Flaubert called it: The perfect word.

            If you don’t enjoy going over the same sentence seventeen times (bare minimum) to make sure it sings, you might want to reconsider your path.

            Go find something else that makes you heart sing – life is too short.

            But if you identify with these words, then go forth and write! Build your scenes, bird by bird (once again, I urge you to read Anne Lamott’s beautiful book.)

             You are the pig who built his house out of bricks, not straw or sticks.

You are taking the time to build the strongest story ever!!!

           

             Remember my aunt and her dark cavern.

            She believed she could build it into a concert hall.

             See the metaphor?

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”

-Henry Ford

If you'd like to read my novel Saved by the Music, here's the link for Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Saved-Music-Selene-Castrovilla/dp/1934813141/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322498010&sr=1-2

There's a lot going on in this cover, if you look closely. See the face, the music strings, the skyline, the water...and the barge?