I overslept! September's LONG over!

A lot has happened here in sleepy Tallahassee over the last month. Let me explain. No, there is too much - let me sum up. (Yes, that is a quote from The Princess Bride for those of you that caught it.)

I auditioned for the opera Serse (Xerxes in English), and have been cast as Arsamene. Woohoo! There goes my Christmas break, learning a role! ;-)

I have taught voice lessons now for a couple of months. Who knew that I would take to private teaching?

My truck has now been replaced with a green Honda Civic. Crazy! But SO MUCH BETTER in gas mileage. You have no idea.

Also, I have decided to plan my descent into the 9th Level of Hell by signing up to do National Novel Writing Month next month. There are a few people in my ward that are going to do it, and they explained the whole thing to me. The basics: I'm going to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. As in 30 days. That equals out to about 1,667 words a day!


When they (my "friends"...) first told me about this, I thought they were simply crazy and/or masochistic. A whole novel in 30 days? What are they thinking?! I mean, I considered doing it at the time...but along the lines of crazily considering what it must be like to get struck by lightning (sizzle/KABOOM!), get in a fight with a shark (poke it in the eye!!), or leap off the Empire State Building (it would be pretty windy). Those aren't exactly serious considerations here.

But then I thought, "Ben, you used to write all the time when you were younger! Why not search for that creative side of you again?" And I have to admit...I had a pretty creative and active imagination. Even now my id likes to play around with me, giving me intense dreams with Blu-ray detail and elegant plotlines. But to actually dredge that part of my brain out of the muck of mediocrity? It'd be difficult to do.

So I decided to do it on a whim. That's how these crazy decisions work, isn't it?