Hallowe'en

It was hallowe'en yesterday, and, I'm told, for the good folk of Wales, it was the hottest Hallowe'en ever. I'm not sure I was particularly aware of it having been mega hot in London, or even hot for October, but then again, I was indoors most of the day.

I worked in the village in the morning, finishing another pass on Em, which I'm ready to call Draft One. It now has flow and is formatted properly and I won't feel embarrassed to hear it read out loud, but I know it's not there yet and will need to keep developing. It's definitely ten minutes too long. What's good is that I can now put the script away for a while and focus on writing songs. This will enable me to revisit the script with fresh eyes at some point later down the line.

I spent the rest of the day working on an application. I'm applying for a somewhat humble grant which will mean I'm able to focus on Em for a few months next year without having to worry about the rent. The grant body are apparently making musical theatre a top priority, after realising they haven't funded enough of it in the past. Good news for musical theatre writers. Great news for musical theatre writers from minority backgrounds.

When Nathan got back from work, we took ourselves off to Muswell Hill where we made our annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin shop on the Broadway which was literally teaming with the little orange things. This time last year, there was next to nothing left, and that's obviously something they'd decided to address, but over-compensated. I felt rather sorry for them, because, in the UK, pumpkins are next to useless after Hallowe'en. They're going to have to throw an awful lot away. We don't really use them for soups over here, and because everyone this side of the Atlantic is aware that pumpkin pie tastes like fart flan, it's not really taken off. The Americans, I think, have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, so the little critters have a longer shelf life. If the Gilmore Girls is anything to go by, they decorate their "ye olde worlde" streets with pumpkins for weeks on end!