A visit from my parents

My parental units visited this week and I got to play tourguide here around LA.

And I had no idea where to take them, but they had a few ideas of where they wanted to go. We hit up Chinatown and the garment district so we could get some beads. I’ve got a bunch of clothes that I wanna embellish and my mom wants to make some bracelets. We came home and my mom asked if I had some beads that’d be good for bracelets. I calmly reminded her that I’ve been collecting beads since I was in 4th grade.

We went into my craft room and I started pulling out tray after tray after tray of more beads than she’d ever seen outside of a bead store. I had fun and designed a couple bracelets for her. I’m real quick at beadwork. I’ve been doing it since I was in grade school. I used to take apart all the old jewelry she and my grandma had given to me. Some of those old beads are still in my collection ready to be reused for the fifteenth time in some new creation.

When my mom left the craft room, she was overwhelmed, but quite pleased. I can’t wait to hear how adventures in bracelet making go.

The other day, my mom had suggested touring a Hollywood studio, but my dad vetoed for reasons I can’t remember. Anyhow, they got a taste of Hollywood anyway because when we went to Santa Monica, Alias happened to be shooting at the end of the pier. We watched a few takes and then continued on after my mom snapped pictures.

As we approached the set, I thought it’d be nifty to be there as a tourist rather than an extra, but that changed when I got up close. I felt like such a dork. I might as well have been in a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, white socks pulled to the knee and a camera around my neck. Oh well. It was still fun and the first time I was on a set while not on the clock.

Now, I’m back to the old grind and life is very, very good.

My first movie premiere

So, while during a signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank, I was offered tickets to go to the premiere of Doom. The other half of Ashleigh Raine can’t make it and neither can my hubby Jason, so I’m relegated to go with his best friend Eddie.

That much I’m excited about.

The torrential rain attacking LA right now…

Not so excited about it.

Then again, when I’m involved, anything is possible. I’m still gonna go and do my best to have a great time.

But I know that for the most part because of the rain this adventure’s going to be one of those stories that starts with, “Yeah, well the first premiere I ever went to–it was raining cats and dogs so I wore vinyl pants, tall vinyl boots and…”

Who knows? Could be better. Could be worse. I’ll bet there’ll definitely be a story in it, though.

My First Walk On The Red Carpet!

Last weekend, Jen and I did a booksigning at a gothic book shop called Dark Delicacies. I highly recommend going there if you’re ever in or near Burbank, CA. The shop is wonderful (And my opinion isn’t biased because of the thank you gifts they handed out to the authors. The shop really is fantastic and I’ll be doing a lot of Christmas shopping there.)

Anyhow, one of the gifts was tickets to the premiere of ‘Doom’ with The Rock.

Oh hell yeah, I was wanting to go. I’d never been to a premiere before. Jason balked citing too much work to do, but his best friend Eddie agreed to go with me…even though it rained all day.

Once at Universal City Walk, we had some time to kill. Eddie hadn’t realized what I’d meant by ‘premiere’ and ‘red carpet’ until we walked by the front of the theater and saw all the hullabaloo set up. He turned to me, “Is that where we’re going?” I thought, “duh”, but said, “Yup!” and then we grabbed dinner at a crepe shop.

We still didn’t now exactly how this whole premiere thing worked. I mean, there were fences and stuff around the red carpet and because of all the plastic to keep out the rain, it was hard to figure out where we were supposed to go. But we did have tickets, so we walked up to one of the security guards.

I came dressed for rain. I didn’t want to mess around with an umbrella so I wore my knee-high silver vinyl boots, violet snakeskin vinyl pants, green sweater and metallic blue vinyl jacket…oh, and a metallic brown vinyl hat. I really didn’t care what I looked like. The rain had seriously been coming down all day and the last thing I wanted to do was go see a movie while being wet and freezing. Due to my vinyl outfit–and the rain tapering to a drizzle–I weathered quite nicely.

The security guard looked the two of us up and down and was ready to tell us to get lost. (I don’t blame him one bit!) When the guard asked if we needed to go to will call for tickets, he had that ‘get lost’ edge in his voice still. But then Eddie whipped out our tickets and the guard’s song changed to, “Yes, sir. Right this way,” essentially. It was actually pretty funny. We had orange tickets while just about everyone else had blue tickets. I never did figure out what the difference in colors meant.

Anyhow, that guard pointed us toward another 5 or so guards who succintly stated, “Go to your left,” when we got to the infamous red carpet. To the right were all the photographers and at some point the important people. To the left, there was a crowd of tourists and gawkers held back behind the fences. Eddie suggested he hold up his jacket while shouting, “No pictures!” and running me in. I reminded him that it was already too late. They’d seen us and knew we were nobody…unless someone mistook me for Jennifer Beals–which does happen sometimes–but I doubt Jennifer Beals would go to a movie premiere while wearing as much vinyl as I was. She’s got class. I, however…

Anyway, after our stroll along the soggy red carpet (which, BTW I loved just for the sake of getting to walk on THE red carpet no matter how water-logged it was) we got into the theater lobby where we met about fourteen more guards and were given the cavity search. They pointed us up a set of stairs.

Then another guard yelled at us, telling us to stop and wanting to see our tickets again. (Judging by the looks we kept getting, I think the guards thought we were vagrants or something. We didn’t really fit in with the people who were already in the theater. As more arrived, everything normalized, but still, at that point, we were too odd-looking to be there.)

We got sent to two theaters before getting to sit down. If I’d chosen to dilly-dally, I could’ve waited to see The Rock and the rest of the cast, but there’s a weird feeling on the other side of the red carpet.

Yeah, I’d already seen The Rock when I was on Be Cool, but there’s also a sort of different feeling that I hadn’t expected once I’d walked the red carpet and entered the theater lobby. Like the fans and gawkers were all outside and everyone inside shouldn’t gush or drool or whatever over the cast.

I’d assumed once I’d gotten into the building that I’d hang around and watch the stars arrive, but the whole feeling changed once I got my free popcorn. It was like I was supposed to be blase about being in the midst of stars.

Well, as blase as I could be while wearing that much bizarre vinyl.

The energy in the building was nifty because it was the premiere and we were all seeing the movie before the general public. I never did figure out what the orange vs. blue tickets were about.

The movie wasn’t bad, wasn’t good. I’ll admit that it’s been years since last I’d watched someone play ‘Doom’ the video game upon which the movie is based, so perhaps I was a little removed from the movie, but in general the entire experience was absolutely fantastic. I really had a great time. Unfortunately, I didn’t have tickets to the afterparty, but oh well. Maybe next time.

Prize positioning

So, tonight I’ll be going to a rather snooty wine pairing dinner for which the dress code is formal. No biggie. Jason’s got the tux he got married in and I’ve persuaded him to buy me some gowns.

Well, the gown I was gonna wear tonight was too long so I had to have it shortened. Once again, no big deal.

My chuckle came in when I went to pick up the dress.

Y’know how when you go to a snooty restaurant, there’s always nice cars laying around the entrance. I’ve had this happen with my Prowler, Viper, even one of my old classic Mustangs. I still chuckle, but whatever.

When I went to pick up my dress, it was ever-so-prominently displayed in the front.

I guess dry cleaners like to keep the nice stuff up front, too…makes the clientele look snootier. I dunno. It could’ve been a coincidence, but still. I was amused.

My website is coming rather well. I still have a welt on my forehead from banging against my laptop, but the site ain’t half bad. I might be able to upload in a week or so. Hopefully sooner, but all in all, not bad. For a little while there, I was beginning to wonder.

I must start thinking

I gotta figure out what I’m gonna wear to the World Fantasy Convention.

For most people [or at least Jason] packing for a conference is simply open the suitcase and toss a bunch of clothes in it.

But for me…well…it’s not that simple. The last time I tried the open-suitcase, toss-stuff-in method, I ended up with a bunch of clothes, but nary a single outfit. See, my wardrobe is huge and mostly full of weird clothes that barely go with themselves let alone with other pieces.

I have geese with stripes for goodness sake.

And fuzzy, bright blue flamed pants.

And a sci-fi swirl dress.

These are not bits that I’d want randomly tossed into a suitcase for an event where I have to look at least somewhat competent.

I realize there’ll be a certain quantity of time when I’m Jason’s second-fiddle-playing arm ornament. But there’s also going to be time when I’ll be Rina Slayter, author extraordinaire. I gotta come up with stuff that reflects both of those roles simultaneously. I don’t want to hide a spare hat in my bag and switch per role. It didn’t work in acting class, so why should it work in life?

So, once again, I’m in a quandary. How bizarre should I go?

For RWA, I painstakingly plotted out what I was going to wear when and I felt pretty good…like even if I wasn’t altogether with it, my clothes gave the impression that I was. That was good enough for me and I want to continue that tradition.

So here I am, holding up my $30 Armani and a metallic nylon Chinese top while shrugging my shoulders.

Guess I’ll need to wait until the deadline is closer and there’s more pressure.

Thus renewing faith in myself…

I just now figured out how to add links to my sidebar.

Not that I’d been trying and failing for eons. I’d simply never looked.

But mainly what that little endeavor has done is renew my own faith in my web-programming skills. (Not that I’m a programmer, nor want to be, but simply I have now confirmed that I truly do know enough to be dangerous.) To put the links there, I had to physically go into the code and add them. I’d assumed it’d be either a chore or I’d do what I’d thought was right and then refresh and my blog would be gone.

But I done good. Yaaaaay! Go me!

Now I get to figure out if any of that newfound knowledge will actually help me with the Rina Slayter site.

It’s coming along. I learned a ton yesterday–all by accident.

…Well, that is if I “accidentally” banged my head against my computer for three hours…

It all comes down to determination.

And getting smarter than the problem.

Sometimes a girl’s gotta vent

I’ll try not to let this be too much of a rant, but darn it all I think I’m justified. (Give me a minute or two, that feeling might pass.)

Anyhow, I’m already published as part of a team, but I also want to write some novels on my own. Okay, no biggie, right? Well, the oddities and antics have seriously begun now that I’m receiving lots of rejection letters.

Not that I’m bent over all the rejections. They don’t surprise me at all. I’ve been exposed to the actor’s life where the rejections are even higher and more scathing. I’ve also been privy to some of Jason’s letters and his trials and tribulations, too. So, getting rejection letters is not a big deal to me.

It’s their content or lack thereof, their politeness or lack thereof, etc. that’s causing this little rant.

I’ve gotten quite a range in different styles from different agents–some of which I won’t submit anything else to because I really did screw up in thinking my work might fit what they represent, others were just plain rude and even if I wrote what they represent, I wouldn’t want someone so rude representing my work.

But without naming names, etc. I need to get one particular irritation out in the open…

It’s mainly about the form letter, but a special breed of form letter–the partial page.

Okay, I send in a full page query and get back a half page form. That’s fine.

I send a full page and get back a third page form. That’s fine.

I send a full page and get back a quarter page form. Even that’s fine, too.

But when the agent’s listing requires the query to include a synopsis and first three chapters, how the hell is it okay to reply with a form rejection that is only about a twelfth of a page. Yes, a twelfth. It’s only slightly larger than my business card!

What’s worse is that I’ve received full page rejections with less written on them, but for some reason that was okay. The fact that I got the full page–without more than a “no, thanks”–honestly didn’t bother me. But if I send out about 40 pages and get a twelfth of a page back, why on earth would I want that person representing me?

I do find it bizarre that in a few instances all I sent was a query and I’ve received rejections with more than one paragraph on them–more than simply, “We’re not interested.”–and those made my day. Those are people whom I’d want representing me whether they’d sent a form letter or a personal response.

Even a form letter says a lot about an agent just by the way it was written. I don’t care that I was sent a form letter–if I didn’t write a unique piece of work in their eyes, why should they send me a unique reply–I care what the content is. I’ve always thought that being nice is good business practice. Being polite is even better.

Really, I’m the one who bled on the pages and dangled them out there like naughty laundry on a front yard clothes line. I should be prepared to suffer the consequences. But if a neighbor had come by, pulled down all the clothes, tossed them in the trash and left a note that simply read, “What were you thinking? Are you really that stupid?” isn’t that a bit harsh? Personally, if my neighbor were to be displaying the naughty wares, I’d knock up and say, “You might wanna put those in the backyard where you and your husband can enjoy them more.”

But hey, that’s me.

And I feel much better now!

I wish I knew when the mailman actually arrives because I can’t wait to see what rejections (or hopefully requests for partials) I’ve gotten today!

Good golly I’m back

I had a fantastic vacation. Came home sick with a cold, but happy as a clam.

I’ve been back a day and I’ve already managed to ruin a new skirt… This was a replacement for the one I ruined last month after RWA National. Perhaps this is the real reason I shop at thrift stores…every time ‘spend the money’ for something new, it’s never as good as it should be. And what’s the fun of shopping if the funky, unique blue shirt you like is available in fifteen sizes. Doesn’t that mean it’s not really unique and one-of-a-kind? There’s fifteen in the store–add up how many stores–that’s a lot of people wearing your unique shirt, huh?

Whoa, I digressed there, didn’t I? Let’s just attribute it to my head cold. I feel like my head is normal size, but somehow someone shoved a bowling ball into it. Good golly, I just want this cold to drain away!

So, I made a surprising discovery today. It should seem like a ‘well duh’ kind of thing for part of it, but I did find the rest of it fascinating to say the least.

My local and favorite coffee shop [where I drink snooty tea while writing my novels] is having a month-long promotion where they’re giving away free tea between the hours of 1 and 3.

I’m sick. I’m grumpy. I’m looney.

…But I’m not gonna pass up free tea and an environment that might help me clear the headgoo away and get a scene written so I figure all’s gonna be great.

I get there and I’m still miserable! I grimace at my laptop. I sip my snooty tea. Grimace again.

Maybe the novel wasn’t gonna get attention, but my journal…oh my journal needed to hear exactly how fed up I was with being sick. Oh yes.

My journal got an earful…er…screenful.

But that’s not the fascinating thing about all this. See, I’d happened to look at the clock when I started writing. (I rarely ever do.) It was 2:19. By the time I’d looked again, it was 3:11, just after I’d received a short phone call.

Yawn…get to the good stuff, right?

Well, I kept writing until 3:19 rolled around and I discovered that in an hour, I was capable of writing at least 2300 words.

2300 words.

All it required was passion.

2300 words. That’s a book in roughly 2 days if I didn’t stop to eat, sleep or take a wiz.

And all that was required was passion and my laptop? Wow! It was like I saw my life with a new set of eyes. I’d previously thought I wrote about a thousand words an hour, so sometimes, if I didn’t quite have an hour, I wasn’t quite motivated to write because when I write, I like to WRITE.

But now that I know what I can get done in an hour, I’m wondering why the hell I’d made any excuse ever. Sure, if the passion isn’t quite as high, my productivity will go down, but coming down from 2300 words in an hour, I’m sorry, that’s not enough to care about.

I’ve got another hour before Jason gets home…guess I should go write something, huh?

web woes and happy endings

I spent a large portion of my weekend grumbling at my computer. Sure, there’s a beautiful placeholder up at www.rinaslayter.com, but for some reason, the website I’m building behind it is aggravating me.

See, I’m not a programmer. I really don’t know how to build websites. I use ingenuity, patience and determination to figure stuff out and have mostly learned enough to be dangerous. When my other two websites were handed to me [www.fictionados.com and www.ashleighraine.com], the hardest stuff had already been done. Yeah, I went in and tweaked some code, but the rest has all been duplicating and modifying pages, not building them from a blank screen.

I’m adventurous. I love a little [or a lot] of challenge, but I’m experiencing frustration at the current creation of my website. The sad part is that I’ve got a ton of text formatted and ready to go. All I gotta do is drop it into a site, but if that site won’t come together…well…you understand my frustration.

I did get the homepage together. It’s mostly empty, but all the links work. I did get one subpage together. It’s got my bio on it and all the links work. But as for the aforementioned stack of content ready to drop in…Absolutely nada.

Yeah, I probably bit off more than I could chew in thinking I’d have the thing together enough to input text, but that has NEVER stopped me before. I always think big.

And I usually make my goals.

One of my prior employers was called as a reference. He said, “Rina often bites off more than she can chew, takes on huge projects and when they get into crunch time, she works her ass off to make sure they’re done on time.”

And that is so true about me even though up until that point, I’d never realized it. I don’t think I’ve EVER missed a deadline. If I did, it wasn’t a big enough infraction that I remember it right now.

My background is in theatre. The show must go on. That’s where I learned to be early on a deadline. My lighting designs were always turned in a week early, hung as soon after that as possible and my cues were always written and loaded into the light board before technical rehearsals. It made for a better show because the hard part was done and I could focus on editing, tweaking, making the show truly shine. [sorry about the bad lighting pun]

I’m just glad the only deadline for my website was my own personal goal. If there’d been an outside force asking for the site, I doubt I would’ve gotten any sleep at all last night!

Oh well. I’m happy with my progress and look forward to my next head-banging, hair-ripping-out, grumping, tea-drinking-marathon installment of work on my website because I can’t wait to toot my horn about it being up and running!!!!!

I gotta get used to this whole horn tooting thing. So I’m starting small.

…But after I go on a week’s vacation to stay in haunted California hotels…

See ya when I get back! Maybe I’ll have rinaslayter.com up shortly afterward. Or at least that’s my personal deadline.

Thankfully, “shortly afterward” is a vague amount of time!!!!!!

sewn, rejected, submitted, requested and started

I’ve managed to add about ten things to my wardrobe in the last week.

No, I didn’t go shopping again…

I mended stuff I already have: Purple jeans, checkerboard 70s shirt, fluorescent pink 80s dress…and some other stuff that was necessary, but not flamboyant.

EARTHQUAKE! Just a tiny one, though. I thought I’d imagined it until I noticed the chains dangling on my ceiling fan.

Anyhow, rejection letters are streaming in–some for me, some for Jason–and I’m enjoying comparing notes with Jason. That’s what makes it fun. We’ve submitted to some of the same people. So far, he’s gotten better responses than I have.

But I did get a request to see more of one of my novels. I’m pretty darn stoked about that. That was my first written request and I’ve framed it. Ironically, I’d opened a rejection just before opening the request, so I’d assumed it was going to be another. Hell, even if I get a rejection from it later, I’ll cherish it and the euphoria that I’ve floated on for three days now. Life is very, very good.

And today…(I’ve saved the best for last) …today I started my next novel. I will easily have it done by the end of the year. (And no, that statement will not jinx me–this book is really that easy to write…’course I’m only in chapter one right now, things could change.)

I recall some of my acting classes back when I was in college (I was a lighting/sound/set technician, but required to take acting classes, too). Us budding actors and begrudging technicians were assigned a series of scenes that we had to re-enact for the class. I say re-enact because we had to take moments of our life and present them as slice of life exercises.

In essence, our characters were ourselves.

I found it remarkably easy to be myself…

I still don’t know why it was considered ‘acting’.

I got A’s on all those assignments.

And what am I getting at with this tangent?

My new book essentially stars myself as the main character, is based on a conglomeration of events in my life–although funny-ed up a whole lot–and is written in first person.

So far, I’ve felt like I’ve been walking down memory lane and writing an autobiography which is much more interesting than the way stuff really happened. (The truly bizarre stuff won’t start until at least chapter five or so–those events won’t even need funny-ing–they’re already bizarre.)

I might end up shelving this before it’s done. I might end up writing it faster than SR. I might even get bored with myself or finally identify with those budding actors in my classes who thought it incredibly difficult to ‘act’ like themselves.

Maybe they just didn’t know who they were and what they wanted. That’s what my scenes were all about. I was X and I needed Y, but Z got in my way as I dealt with A, B and C. If you don’t know who you are or what you want, Z is going to devour you and A, B and C will only kick you while you’re down.

Hmmm…I just unintentionally inspired myself to go write another chapter…

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