Lucky You

The scene was a Chinese restaurant. I, along with several others, were patrons.

During the two thirteen-or-so hour days I was there, I only worked about an hour and a half on the set. But I did see Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana.

Eric is hot. Yum… I was wishing I could stare at him rather than my menu. Oddly enough, I think the menus were real and some of the food sounded pretty tasty so I might have to drag Jason back to that restaurant and see.

Drew Barrymore was wearing heels and was about as tall as I am. I never really got near her except walking by in the herd of extras.

Mostly, this shoot was about sitting in holding under a nice shady tree while talking to fellow extras or reading books. I finished one book and got half way through another! That’s pretty rare for me in that short of a time period…

Anyhow, our little group had a very interesting mix of people–all of whom were open-minded, intelligent and entertaining in one way or another. The stories we told about our lives were lots of fun. I swear I’m going to use one guy’s boyfriend experience as backstory in a book somewhere. And then there was the Italian guy who grew up in Switzerland and is living in Beverly Hills… Lots of fun people on this shoot. So much so that I really didn’t care I was on set for less than two hours. Holding was tons more fun.

I might’ve gotten a split second of camera time…or perhaps my arm will be prominently seen above Drew Barrymore’s shoulder. Yeah…one of those deep background kind of shoots for me. I’ll see the movie eventually, I’m sure. Sometimes I wish I had more opportunities to be seen, but on the day of filming, I just do what I’m told, no matter how much I know no one’s going to see me.

UPDATE: I actually made it into the finished product!

This next one is more like what I expected.

I did set a personal record on that first day, though…

In a dark green short sleeved shirt and long mauve/purple skirt, I went to wardrobe. At first they said I looked fine–and I tried to grab my stuff and run away before they changed their mind!–but then they asked to see everything else I’d brought. They didn’t like any of it so the lady went onto the wardrobe trailer and came back with 4 skirts. I went to the changing room and picked out a beige skirt. It fit, so I left it on.

I went back to her and she didn’t like it. I kinda agreed, but really none of the skirts matched my shirt. She wanted to see me in one of the other skirts, so I went back to the tent and changed into a plum one.

That skirt didn’t go with the shirt, so she went on the trailer and looked for another shirt. She came back with four–none of which looked all that great with the skirt, but hey, I’m just an extra. It’s not my job to even care about what I’m wearing.

I changed into the shirt that I liked the best. It was purple and magenta and flowery striped.

But it didn’t go with the skirt…

So, fed up with making me change, the woman gave me a pair of jeans because there was no way the jeans weren’t going to work!

When all was said and done, I’d shattered my record of two changes and I have to admit that trying on clothes can be fun!

On the second day of shooting–the day I didn’t work at all–I got my clothes from wardrobe and headed toward the tent. There was a transpo guy talking to someone. I wasn’t really paying attention except that I was about to walk through the middle of their conversation. I excused myself as I passed through, then realized that I recongnized the voice of the woman the transpo guy was talking to. Yep…Drew Barrymore. The shoot’s record was about ten feet for how close I got to any of the principle actors. Jen always likes to know how close I got and well…there you have it. Drew seemed pretty nice, too.

And while us extras were waiting to go through the lunch line, she picked her food out of the buffet just like the rest of us. I think she ate in her trailer, though. I don’t blame her. The lunch room was kinda hot and stuffy.

No time to celebrate

No time to really write this out, but I’m doing it anyway, gol’darn it.

I finished the first draft of CR today.

But rather than celebrate, I get to work on Ashleigh Raine stuff as well as copywriting for Centric. Not that I’m complaining, but I sure hope I end up with an ounce of time to take myself back to Peet’s for a hot cocoa at least.

There’s nothing like the joy of being busy… But finishing a book is at least cause to drink some good cocoa… What’s the point of being busy if there’s no time to stop and celebrate every time a task is complete?

By the way. I started the first draft on March 7. That means draft one took me 14 weeks and 4 days… Or 3 months and 10 days.

Wow. That’s my record so far. BR took 4 months and 10 days and it was 10K shorter than CR. 7 months and 14 days for OR–but I took a month off while Jen and I were re-editing LT.

No wonder CR seemed to fly by…It did! I can’t wait to go back through and polish it, but I’ll be good and take a month off so I can have fresh eyes on it when I do open it back up.

I just noticed that all my books’ second word in their titles start with R. All 3 books are totally unrelated and they’re all in different genres, too. Strange.

Brian Littrell

So, Jason and I went out to dinner with a friend of ours who’s visiting LA for a few days. Our friend suggested a restaurant on the Sunset Strip because he was staying near there and at dinner time, it’s easier for us to drive south to West Hollywood than for him to drive north up to where we are.

We get to the place and it was closed for renovation, but we were at Sunset Plaza and there’s whole bunch of restaurants to choose from. About four doors down was Cravings Cafe and…well I was craving food, so we got ourselves a table on the sidewalk. No big deal, we’re having fun catching up and talking about stuff that mostly went over my head, so I did a lot of smiling and nodding, pretending I had a clue while camoflaging my people-watching.

Then, as I look up from my snooty pizza, I think I see someone I might recognize. But who is this guy? He’s with a blonde princess who must be his wife, her sister (aside from matching, potentially-fake noses, they looked related) and his 2-or-so-year-old son (complete with Hotwheel car). My brain dismisses everyone but the guy and I’m trying not to stare, but the man’s good looking, so it’s really hard not to. He and his clan sit at the next table and it finally dawns on me.

I was eating dinner one table away from Brian Littrell of the Backstreet Boys.

Made sense…being there on the Sunset Strip and all. Most of the people in the place were dripping with designer clothes. But what was really strange is that the dinner wasn’t expensive. I mean, my pizza was $11.95 and I’m in the company of people who drove up in brand new Lamborghinis (we saw a total of three–two parked at the curb while we were eating). The addition of a celebrity sighting to the already surreal evening just made it into an adventure. ‘Course by this point, I was really wishing I’d changed out of my scruffy jeans and t-shirt into something at least a little more hip, but oh well.

Jason was, of course, oblivious…even when a gaggle of teeny-boppers interrupted Brian for photos and autographs. I dunno. I don’t think Jason would even recognize Julia Roberts if she were walking down the street, so whatever. Later, when Jason and I drove past in our Viper, I felt a little less out of place. And when I told him about Brian and how many designer labels I’d recognized, Jason shrugged, also wondering why the food was so damn good and not hardly expensive. If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend Cravings Cafe. The food’s great and so is the people-watching!

Catching up…kinda

I’m back from the short, whirlwind wonderful time I had a BEA. I hung out mostly in the Ellora’s Cave booth, but did my fair share of walking the aisles. I was mostly looking to see what other publishers I can/should write for.

Lots!

I’m really excited about it all, too.

And while I was there, I finally came up with a real title for F. From here on out, F is hereby known as CR. Yaaaaaay!

Gearing up for RWA National has proven interesting so far. I’m trying to beef up my odd clothing wardrobe a little because people have seen most of the stuff I have…and I just can’t wear the same old weird stuff over and over, can I? Hell no. Not me. I gotta keep it all new weird, all the time. And it’s not like I don’t already have an enormous inventory of projects that need to be finished…or started.

So, today, I hacked the legs off a funky pair of jeans and a boring pair of jeans. The funky ones didn’t fit in the waist, the boring ones were too short. BUT–that means together, they’re perfect. I just have to add a ribbon to hide the seams and voila! Done.

Now I just have to do the rest of the skirts and pants and shirts and la-ti-da. My sewing goes in cycles. I go like gangbusters for awhile, then back far, far away. Something about being trapped in a room full of fabric and crafty stuff makes me go insane after awhile.

I’m almost done with my next book. ‘Course I’ll probably be saying that for the next month, but it’s still nice to say it now anyway. It sounds good…almost done. It’s got a nice ring to it.

I guess I should go work on finishing something…

Looking back…

I just reread my first post… Wow! A lot has happened since then. OR is done and BR has been submitted. The new one’s called F for now. I really gotta change it, though.

Aside from all that, I forgot to mention in the previous post that I’ll be attending BEA (Book Expo America) in New York, June3-4 for me. I should be at the Ellora’s Cave booth signing books at some point. I will also drop by the Writer’s Of the Future booth because Jason Stoddard (my dear hubby) won 1st place for 1st quarter 2003 and for some reason they have taken a liking to me as well as Jason. I don’t know why, but it’s really nifty to be welcomed the same as Jason. He’s not gonna be there, so I guess they’re kinda settling for me, but that’s quite all right by me! I’m looking forward to seeing them again.

I’m also gonna go to RWA National in Reno at the end of July and I’ll probably spend a few days at Comic Con which is mid-July.

I dunno why, but I’ve really started to take a liking to conventions. Does this make me completely deranged? I recall the old days, selling lighting filters, where going to conventions meant pure, boring hell and hard work. Then again, I was chained to the booth. And I won’t let any of that happen ever again!!!!!

Okay, now I’m just procrastinating… It’s time to write… Really… I swear it…