First Draft Epiphanies & Fears

I finished the first draft of my novel on Monday. At least I think it was Monday. The days tend to run together for me, especially after a holiday visiting friends up north. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I'm done with the first draft! I'm finished! Time to pop a cork and celebrate with cake and high-fives!

...Except not. Because the first draft is just that: the first draft. I mean, okay. I knew that, and I knew what I'd written needed a lot of beefing up, a lot of editing, a lot of reworking and rewriting and dramatizing. But I think I secretly imagined that as soon as I finished the first draft of my first ever novel, the skies would open and a chorus of angels would emerge from above and serenade me with trumpets, and Barack Obama would roll up in a carriage with a bottle of champagne and tell me I'd done America good. It's always disappointing when you expect fanfare and don't get any, even if your expectations were subconscious and delusional.

In reality, I met with my supervisor and he said, "Good first draft! Really. Now go home and make it better." Then I ate a cheese roll from Tesco, sat in the shade for a while, and took the tube home to Walthamstow. 

I guess I didn't realize how overwhelming it would feel when I'd finished the first draft, but was still faced with all of this work I had yet to do. And it's not just a bunch of useless busy work, like searching for grammar and continuity errors. It's adding flesh to the bones of a story. It's dislocating the limbs so I can reset them again, so they'll work properly this time. It's building a story from beginning to end, one that makes the reader feel something, one that happens from the start, one that creates drama and conflict and romance and excitement. It scares me.

I'm scared because I'm worried I don't have the skills to inject my story with these things. What if I do it wrong? What if I don't know how? I worry that it'll never be up to my standards. These are silly things to worry. I've never done this before; why should I know how to do it from the start? I have to figure it out as I go, just as I did with writing the first draft. And I'm sure it will be fine. In fact I know it will. But it's so scary!

I'm scared of going back in and upsetting things, for fear I'll make them even worse. I'm scared of changing the characters beyond recognition until it's a completely different story. I know it won't happen -- these are my characters, this is my story, and everything I do to it will be my choice. I only want to make it better. 

But what if I do it wrong?

Writing is hard. Everyone keeps telling me the hardest part is over, but I can't believe that's true. How could it be? Editing and rewriting 86,000+ words sounds pretty damn difficult to me. It doesn't sound like much of a walk in the park. But, I guess, neither was writing those 86,000+ words to begin with.

I think I'd better just accept that this whole process, from start to finish, is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done, and will feel like being punched repeatedly in the gut most of the time. But it has been, and it will continue to be, one of the most enjoyable and utterly rewarding things I have ever done. If not the most rewarding thing I've ever done, in my whole life.

Hey, people who give other people shit for reading shit: STOP

Since when do we have the right to state a preference for what people read and what they don't read? People who mock others for reading books like Twilight, making the broad assumption that whoever reads it must be too stupid or confused to make a better choice about what they read, can shove it up their ass. Seriously. 


I'm an intelligent person who enjoys "classic literature" or whatever bullshit I'm supposed to read, I'm getting my goddamn masters degree in fucking WRITING for godsake, but I actually enjoyed reading the Twilight books. Oh shit, fuck, what does it mean??? SMART PEOPLE CAN READ STUPID BOOKS? Yes, they can. And so can non-smart people! And every person ever. Because they are allowed to make that choice. 


And, weirdly enough, they're allowed to read whatever trashy books they want, in addition to Twilight. When I see a woman reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I don't think, "Oh I wish she would read something better than that." Fuck, no. I think, "Oh I bet one of her friends recommended that, or she heard the buzz and thought she'd see what it was all about. I wonder if she likes it?" I've seen professional women reading it, teenage girls, women my age, everyone. Just because it seems cool to hate on something due to its popularity doesn't make it so. 


Yeah, from the snippets I've read online, the writing in Fifty Shades is terrible. It is horrible. It is so bad. But so what? Intelligent people are not REQUIRED by some law to read ONLY books that are well-written and high quality. Nor are people of average or low intelligence! Surprise! 


I mean what's the standard here? Are we only allowed to read classic literature like A Tale of Two Cities and Lady Chatterley's Lover? Oh, wait. Shit. Dickens wrote popular literature and Lady Chatterley was considered porn at the time. So... maybe we should only read books that express a high standard of style? Like prose poems? Yeah, let's just read artsy books that don't tell a story but are just written really well from now on. No more stories, no more enjoying yourself, just quality writing OKAY? Otherwise PEOPLE WILL JUDGE YOU.


Give me a goddamn break. 

Yeah, it really annoys me when people claim, in all seriousness, "Stephanie Meyer is suuuuch a good writerrrr!" And it probably annoys me extra because I'm a writer and it's frustrating to see someone with such a poor grasp of the language becoming so successful as a writer. So yeah, that annoys me. But I don't assume that just because someone is reading a badly-written book that "OMG THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND BOOKS AND LITERATURE, I WISH I COULD SHOW THEM A REAL QUALITY BOOK INSTEAD OF THAT TRIPE." Who the fuck are you to assume what this person has or has not read? My goddamn dad has read the Twilight books. He liked Bella. He also reads a fuckton of nonfiction, philosophy, news sites, blogs, and other fictional works. He's written a series of essays on philosophy and the evolution of consciousness, and published them in his own book. So... are you gonna tell him that you're glad he's reading, but wish he'd just read something else, something better? No, because you now know that he does read other things, "better" things, and you'd sound like a condescending dick if you said that to him. So why is some stranger on the tube any better? Why is someone on the internet more worthy of your patronizing shit than someone who you know is well-read?

OH AND ALSO, guess what, even if somebody loves Stephanie Meyer and thinks she's the best writer in the land and wants her to write a million more Twilight books, you are STILL a dick if you belittle them for reading trash. Yeah you can be annoyed; it is annoying, I'll admit, when people genuinely don't realize how horrible some things are (e.g. Justin Bieber, Jeffrey Campbell Litas, Comic Sans). But that doesn't mean it's cool for you to make fun of them, feel sorry for them, or be condescending all over them for reading what they want to read. OKAY?

I mean for fuck's sake. I'm gonna read Fifty Shades of Grey as soon as I get a chance. I may not finish it due to the shitty writing, but I'm super curious about it, and I want to see what all the fuss is about, and shit, it's not like my life is ruined and I'm sullied forever and I can never wear white at my wedding because I've read glorified AU Twilight fanfic.

So SERIOUSLY people. Be elitist assholes in private all you want, but just shut up and let people read whatever they want. You don't know the whole story, and more often than not you'll make yourself look like a prick. So stop. Thank you.

Blah Blah Writing

There's a reason I haven't been blogging much lately. It's also the reason why I can't sleep at night, waking up in the wee hours with a cold sweat and fast-beating heart; it's why I can't speak to another human without muttering unintelligibly about fox hunts and clockwork, and it's the reason I don't do or think about anything anymore except this one thing. You probably already know -- it's this damn novel I'm writing. 

I always used to dream of getting so immersed in my writing that I became one of those irritable, unwashed, upsettingly eccentric people whose only drive in life was their art. I always wondered, "Why do I feel okay taking breaks from writing? Why aren't I obsessing over my characters 24/7 and waking up in the night, sobbing because I hate myself and everything I've ever written? Why can't I be one of those horrible anti-social people who does nothing but babble about their stupid novel that nobody cares about?" It sounded so exciting, so bohemian, so cool. I'd never have guessed that I would actually become the smelly, unhinged writer that I dreamed about. But now I have! And it's everything I wanted and more! More self-loathing, lost sleep, and malnourishment, anyway. (For instance, today I'm eating a Mars Bar for dinner because I don't have the time or energy to boil water for pasta. I already made coffee; what more do you want from me?)

It's actually kind of stupid how much I enjoy doing nothing but eating terribly and staying up until the sun rises, writing and hating what I've written and then liking it again, and then writing some more. Making up worlds and characters and ball gowns and cheese-eating viscounts is like crack to me. It's like eating a stack of chocolate chip pancakes covered in whipped cream and strawberries without throwing up afterwards. It's like a hundred pug puppies, rolling all over me in a field of daisies. It's like Tom Hiddleston reading me a story every night before bed. It's pretty much the best. The only things that would make it better were if my room was fully catered, and if Greg were in the corner somewhere playing video games, so I could occasionally throw things at him or demand kisses. Even so, it's pretty great.

People have asked me about the novel itself, and I'm hesitant to talk about it in great detail, because it's my beautiful child and I don't want anyone on the internet to steal it. I've already talked about it on here, but in case you can't be bothered to scroll back and find that post (who has the energy?), here's the run-down: It's about a girl who plays the harp and lives in a fantasy land that's in a state of perpetual winter. There are clockwork things. There is a fox hunt in the snow. There is an anti-social duke who can't tie a cravat to save his soul. There are ball gowns. Tea. Hummingbirds! The end. 

Suffice it to say, I'm busy writing a piece of literary genius so if I don't update here very often THAT'S WHY. Busy living the dream and all that. I'll let you know when I'm the next Stephanie Meyer.

Haircut Yay

SO I GOT A HAIRCUT. I was gonna wait until I could get some not-godawful photos to post here, but it's almost been a week and clearly I'm not making any kind of effort to take better ones, so here you go. If you follow me on twitter, instagram, facebook, or really anywhere else in addition to this blog, you'll already know I cut my hair. So this post is really boring for you. 

I got it cut last Monday, a day after Greg flew back home to the States. I'd been growing out my hair partly because I missed my long hair, but mostly because Greg is super into long hair. So I kept it long for him while he visited, and as soon as he was in the air, I chopped it the hell off! I'd been fantasizing about a long bob for months, something like Kimbra's, but according to Marco at Headmasters Victoria, above the shoulder was better. He also poo-pooed my Zooey bangs and said that a straight-across fringe would open up my face more. I basically just let Marco do whatever he wanted, since clearly I don't understand hair or how different haircuts look good on different people, so I said, "You're the expert," and let him do his thang. 

Luckily Marco really is an expert, because I love what he did with my hair! Absolutely fucking ridiculously love it. I don't think I've ever been this excited or pleased with a haircut, even after I got that mod pixie/bob hybrid years ago. This one is just perfect. I think it has something to do with the fact that I've been lusting after this hairstyle since I was but a youth. The protagonist in one of my first attempted novels, Silver City (worst novel ever), had this haircut. Most of my blood elf and human 'toons in WoW have it. I just always wanted a black bob with blunt bangs and other alliterated Bs! Pulp Fiction style! I'm so glad I went ahead with it and let Marco have his way with my locks, because I'm in complete and utter love with my own hair. 

For those wondering how I style it (nobody), I NEED to give a shout-out to Aussie products right now. I'm kind of overwhelmed by how soft, smooth, and un-frizzy my hair is, even after blow-drying and straightening it. In the shower I use some random Dove shampoo for dyed hair, and 3 Minute Miracle Frizz Remedy. Then when I'm styling my hair, I use Anti-Frizz Conditioning Milk. You only use a tiny dollop of it but christ, it works so well! And finally I spray in some Heat Protection Leave-in Spray, before wreaking all sorts of havoc on my poor hair with a blow dryer and flatiron. It should be illegal how soft and shiny my hair is afterwards, though. Illegal. Aussie, stop being so amazing and... like, okay actually keep being so amazing because my hair needs you. 

Anyway wow, this post got a BIT out of hand, considering I was just gonna be like "Wow I cut my hair okay yay," but I figure it's important to share hair tips with one another because I'm always at a complete loss and need as much help from people as I can get when it comes to ~beauty regimes~, whatever that means. Thanks to everyone on twitter who recommended Aussie, you guys are stars!

Again, sorry for these horrendous photos in which I look angry and yellow.

This Is Mostly For My Mom I Guess

Sorry I've been absent of late. It's due to a combination of things, but in the past week and a half at least, I've been busy spending as much time as possible with Greg, who came to visit me in London (finally)! He got here on the 9th, and we spent most of the time hanging out, watching The Apprentice UK, eating takeaway, and walking to the ice cream shop down the road for late-night cones. 

We also spent my birthday weekend in the countryside, exploring Chatsworth House and eating pasties and tarts in the Peak District. It was so awesome to spend my 26th birthday with my favorite boy. I can't believe I'm already 26. How has this happened?! Aren't I still 23? Ugh, aging is the worst! I'm pushing 30 now! At least I still get carded on a regular basis. It's becoming a good thing in my wizened years, especially here in the UK, where if you look over 25 or if you're ordering food they don't really seem to bother.

Photos of touristy things soon to come, especially Hampton Court Palace, home of sex god Henry VIII, but first I wanted to make a (SUPER LONG, SORRY) post about my ~future~ or whatever, since I have a hard time putting things into words when I'm talking to people one on one, and it's much easier for me to form coherent thoughts in a blog-type setting. So if you don't really care about this sort of thing, the future plans of an expat writer with a boyfriend in Salt Lake, then read no further. 

Mostly I want to say, to everyone who's asked and with whom I've been super wishy-washy: I'm not going to be staying in London permanently, or even indefinitely. I'm not moving back to Portland (sadface). I'll be moving back to be with Greg, in Salt Lake City, for now. I know some of you (you know who you are!) are probably cringing now, and that's partly why I'm writing this here, to avoid having to "face" you over the internet and be subjected to your judgment. 

But wait, I'm not done. I'm not just throwing myself headlong into the world of Mormons, 3% beer, and conservative blandness (SLC hipsters? do you exist?). Greg and I talked about it over the course of his stay, and what we stumbled upon was this: What I really want to pursue, right now, is my writing. Perhaps I found my 9-5 Monday-Friday career calling in publishing, but what I really want to do, ideally, right now, is to write novels. That's what I want to focus on in my old-ass 26-year-old life. 

Greg, amazing man that he is, has offered to basically support my artist butt in Salt Lake for a while (6 months to a year, tentatively), while I do that. We did the math and it's feasible for me to work part-time, while writing the rest of the time. Greg is willing to do this so I can pursue my dream, and so he can stay in Salt Lake a little longer to look for a better job and hopefully build up his resume a bit before we move somewhere else. 

And we will move somewhere else. Greg knows I don't want to put down any roots in Salt Lake, and neither does he. So we won't be there forever, and when we do move, it will be beneficial to both of us, and hopefully I'll have a finished novel or even an agent, or a published novel if I'm super lucky, who knows; and Greg will have more professional experience under his belt. I'll be doing what I love to do, and Greg will be kicking ass and taking names in the professional world. I don't feel like I'll be stagnating, or waiting, or putting off my dream this way. I'll have enough time to write, and Greg will be getting super valuable work experience. 

I was afraid of Salt Lake because I didn't want to get apathetic, to get stuck, and because it sounds like a boring as hell city. But, that said, I'm really happy with this compromise. It means I can focus on writing, stay with Greg, and know that pretty soon we'll be getting out of Salt Lake and going somewhere more exciting with more opportunities for us. It's like a pit-stop on the road to Awesome. Let's see if this post can be more cliche and cheesy!! 

Seriously though, I'm happy about this. I'm really happy that Greg is so willing to support me while I focus on writing for a while. I always used to think it would be amazing if Greg could just work and I could sit at home and write, but it was just a fantasy, so obviously I never brought it up. But Greg brought it up himself, and I'm just so blown away by his ridiculous support and generosity. I feel like I fell in love with Greg all over again while he was here in London, and I can't wait to continue our life together! But first I'm gonna enjoy the hell out of the UK while I still can. So watch out. 'Cause... Meg is comin' atcha, UK. To drink your tea. Actually mostly just to continue drinking coffee. And eating Mars Bars.

Team Loki

Since The Avengers (Avengers Assemble in the UK) hasn't come out yet in the States (el oh el), and I'm still on a fangirl high after seeing it twice, I thought now might be a good time to express my feels about one of my favorite fictional characters ever, Loki Laufeyson. If you haven't seen Thor and you want to do so at some point without getting spoiled, maybe now is the time to turn away. But seriously why haven't you see Thor; I'm not sure we can be friends.

I realize that my blog has become a sort of dumping-ground for my fangirling lately, and for that I apologize. (Not that it was really ever anything else.) But let's get past that, because you're about to be taken on a wild ride of shameless fangirling. 

Almost two weeks ago, Shaun and I went to the European premiere of Avengers Assemble, in London. To clarify, by "went to the premiere" I mean we stood along the red carpet waving cameras in the air and screaming, "Tom! Tom! Tom! Tom! TOM! TOM!" while snapping "accidental" photos of his ass. We didn't actually see the film that day; only cool people were allowed to do that. But here, let me show you the Hiddlebum.


Dat ass. My camera knew what it wanted even if I was far too short to see over anyone's head. People are really annoying when they're at events like these, by the way. Celebs make bitches crazy. To my right was a guy who'd brought his DVD covers for Ghost World and Lost in Translation, clearly hoping to get ScarJo's autograph on them. Sigh. And then to my left, always edging in front of me, was some dude who did nothing but stand there. He just stood there, you guys. He wasn't taking pictures, had nothing for anyone to sign; he was just standing there with his arms at his sides, watching. WHY WERE YOU THERE, dude? I wanted to be like, "Buddy, if you're not gonna scream like an asshole and take a billion blurry photos of the tops of people's heads, then you can fuck right off." But I didn't, because I pretend to be a nice person on the outside. Either way I wouldn't have been able to see anybody. I am really short. 

Wait, so what was I talking about? I totally lost my train of thought while recalling how traumatic the premiere was. Oh, yes. So basically we just screamed people's names and the best photo I got was of Tom Hiddleston's ass. We did have a ton of fun with the other fans before the premiere started, though! I took a billion photos of the hilarious/amazing cosplayers that were in our section, but this is the best of the bunch:


The point of this post is Loki, though. Loki. Loki Loki. Let's get back to Loki, Meg! Okay! So all of us (Loki's Army) were sitting there a little past noon, five hours before the whole thing started, putting together a sign to show our love for Tom Hiddleston/Loki. Then a woman sitting near me tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Why do you guys love Loki so much? He's evil." To which I said something like, BUT HE IS SO ADORBS HOW CAN YOU HATE HIM TOM HIDDLESTON LOOK AT HIS FACE. I meant to be articulate and persuasive, but I vomited fangirlisms instead. Oh well; now I have the chance to explain in my very own blog why I, and probably so many other people, love Loki so much. 1. He's so very tortured. You would be too if you'd grown up all your life in the shadow of your cocky, loudmouth, d-bag older brother who probably gave you wedgies. And also if you found out that you were actually adopted (more like stolen) from a race of evil monsters who everyone hates. And if then your adopted father told you that he only took you away because he planned to basically put you on the throne of Jotunheim later on, not that he was gonna tell you any of this until you cried and had a fit in the hallway, after having pretty much figured it out yourself already. Not to mention the fact that your little ploy to delay your d-bag brother's coronation ended up in his being exiled from your home world. There's probably a lot of guilt going on, a lot of self-loathing, questioning whether your entire life is a lie, wondering whether everyone will loathe you now that your identity has come out. I think we would all be just a little tortured inside if this had all gone down in our lives. Loki just wanted to please his father, to feel himself an equal to his brother, and yet he finds himself feeling even further separated from them upon learning of his true birthright. He never wanted the throne, guys. He just wanted to be Thor's equal. :'( 2. He's so very weepy. I really, really love a villain who angry-weeps. I just find it so endearing and oddly sexy. Basically every scene with Loki, it looks like he's about to cry, or he's actually shedding tears. He's not a villain you immediately hate, nor does he ever really become that villain. He's always sympathetic; he's always Thor's little brother, trying to prove himself, trying to become the kind of man he thinks his father would be proud of, but it comes out all wrong. Unlike most baddies, when I first watched Thor I found myself enjoying the scenes with Loki just as much as, if not more so, than Thor's scenes on Earth. That doesn't happen often while watching superhero movies, not for me. Every time Loki sheds a tear, a little part of me dies inside. 3. He's so very pretty. I'll admit. The first time I saw Thor, I wasn't focused on Loki's ridiculously attractive face. In fact I thought he was kind of weird looking. I liked the vampiric hue of his skin, though. And his pretty gold horn helmet. After watching the film again and being gradually converted into a raving Tom Hiddleston fangirl, I realized that Loki is just a really, really attractive adopted Frost Giant. Look at his eyes, guys. Look at his weirdly slicked-back hair. He's like if an elf and a vampire mated, and created a demigod of Asgard. Yes good. 4. He's so very tragic. It might be that I just have way too many Fangirl Feels pent up inside me and they like to come streaming out all at once in intense droves, but I can't get over how sad Loki's story makes me. The last few moments you see him in Thor, he tells his adopted father Odin, "I could have done it, father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us." Odin could have forgiven his son; he could have said, "Yes, Loki, but you didn't, and it's okay, so come up here and get a big ol' hug from Dad." Instead he said, "No, Loki." And Loki let go. He'd been lied to, betrayed, and now dismissed by his own father. Odin was the only person he wanted to prove himself to, and here Odin was, telling him he couldn't. He never could. It's pretty much the most upsetting character arc of my life right now, and that's why I love Loki so much. What other superhero villain makes me weep shamelessly into my jelly beans at night, while simultaneously giving me a constant ladyboner? What other baddie could look so beautiful while crying and wearing a giant gold cow-horn helmet? Only Loki. Only Loki. 

And that's why I am on Team Loki. So shut up, random lady at the Avengers Assemble premiere! You don't know what you're talking about.

The Olivier Awards, or: How I Met Harry Lloyd (Again)

Okay! Let's talk about the Olivier Awards! I wasn't sure what I was going to write about for this post at first -- would I describe the performances? Recap the winners in each category? Review the red carpet gowns? But finally I've decided I'm just going to write like a crazy fangirl and try to share my favorite moments of the night, so you get my experience of it all instead of the same thing you could read at any news site. So yeah. Here we go. (Also please excuse some of these photos; most were taken on my awful phone, but the better ones were jacked from Shaun.)

As perhaps some of you know (again, I've been on and on about this on twitter), Shaun won two tickets to the 2012 Laurence Olivier Awards, which took place last night at the Royal Opera House. She won them on Friday, and when she sent me an email about it I was in a total state of shock. The email basically went, "Oh so I won these tickets on twitter for the Olivier Awards, it's a fancy theatre awards show, are you busy this Sunday? Sorry this email is ridiculous." I said, "UM YES PLEASE, NO I AM NOT BUSY ON SUNDAY, WHY IS THIS EMAIL SO CALM." After that we proceeded to panic about what to wear, what celebs would be there, etc. I bought a new dress and shoes for the event, since I destroyed my only heels at the office Christmas party by somehow caking them in mud. It was a very stressful weekend trying to put an outfit together, let me tell you.




At the end of it all, though, I think it turned out okay! Not the fanciest ever, but the dress was on sale for £15 at River Island so what are you gonna do. I fell in love at first sight with the shoes (from New Look), but by the end of the night I wanted to kill myself my feet were in so much pain. People who wear 6-inch heels every day: HOW.

Skip ahead to Sunday afternoon. The red carpet was supposed to open at 4:30pm, but we didn't want to be ridiculously early so Shaun and I went for a drink at the Nag's Head in Covent Garden to calm our frazzled nerves. We saw a couple other dressed up people there, probably having the same thought as us! What's an awards show without a drink beforehand?

My painful-as-hell shoes and our pre-show drinks: pint of Foster's for me and a rum & coke for Shaun.

After enduring a brief downpour and a bunch of contradictory instructions from people in reflective vests, we finally found the entrance to the red carpet. By this time our feet were killing us, so we hobbled onto the carpet... and lo and behold, it was super squishy! The red carpet is a legitimate carpet, you guys! It was like a cloud under my feet, and we didn't fall or trip while walking along it. There were fans gathered along the sides, and I felt bad that we weren't anyone famous, but it was so early that nobody cool was arriving yet anyway. Once we reached the end of the carpet we took a few cheeky photos, hovered for a moment hoping somebody hot would appear on the carpet (they didn't), and finally headed into the Opera House.

Looking like a goob on the red carpet, and free bubbly during the interval!

The red carpet, too early to be interesting to anyone.

Before the crowd really started gathering in the commoners' bar.

Once inside we were directed upstairs to a fancy bar area, at which point we immediately found a place to sit down. From there we could quite easily people-watch, but the real excitement was outside on the red carpet. Behind us were windows looking out on the red carpet, and every once in a while we'd crane our necks around to see if anyone interesting had arrived yet. I had my mind on one thing and one thing only, as expected: Harry Lloyd. I'd read earlier in the week that he was going to be presenting an award that night, so when I found out we were actually going to be there I about had a Harry Lloyd-induced coronary. Needless to say I had my beady eyes on the lookout for his creepy Duchess of Malfi facial hair, and what do you know, I peered over my shoulder at one point to see a faraway face on the red carpet... was that...? Yes it was! I said something articulate to Shaun like, "OHMYGOD IT'S HIM I THINK THAT'S HARRY IS THAT HIM? OHMYGOD YES IT IIISSSS," so we stood up and shuffled painfully to the window. It was indeed Harry Lloyd, being interviewed and looking very tall on the red carpet. We murmured fangirlisms to one another as we watched, but soon enough he was ushered inside by his PA.

After that there was a bit of a lull. We continued to stare eagerly out the window, while I glanced intermittently at the stairs leading up to the room in which we stood, hoping that somehow Harry Lloyd would make his way up to us so I could stand around feeling bad that I was too chicken to talk to him. We figured there must be a super cool, separate celebrity bar downstairs, and that we commoners weren't important enough to be allowed to mingle with them, so we were herded up here to the Olivier Awards equivalent of the third class decks on the Titanic. Soon, though, more famous people started showing up. We were way up on the 1st or 2nd floor, so it was rather hard to pick them out, but whenever somebody was being interviewed or photographed we knew it was someone we might recognize. I spotted Zach Braff first, and later we caught site of Dan Stevens (cousin Matthew from Downton Abbey!). I got so excited I took the shittiest phone photo known to man:

IT'S DAN STEVENS U GUIZE

Of course the whole time I kept a keen eye on the stairs, hoping against hope that Harry would get lost amongst the milling crowds and confusedly wander up to the lowly commoners' area and then be drawn to me like a moth to a flame, and ask, "Why are you staring at me?" I'd given up hope though, and reminded myself that I'd already met him outside the Old Vic after The Duchess of Malfi, so it wasn't a tragedy if I never spoke to him again. It didn't matter that I'd been reliving that moment in my head every night as I went to sleep, coming up with more interesting banter, remembering all the things I wish I'd said to him the first time, kicking myself for not thinking of them sooner. (I'd apologize for my insane fangirl behavior, but come on guys, who hasn't obsessively dwelt on this kind of thing before? Who? Yeah, nobody.) And then suddenly, as though I possessed a Harry Lloyd radar at full power, I turned to the stairs and there he was.

I poked Shaun and scream-whispered: "There he is ohmygod he's coming up the stairs!" Shaun, not really caring as much as me and probably tired by now of my constant Harry Lloyd ravings, indulged me by pretending to be super interested. She soon turned back to the window and the red carpet, but I stalker-watched Harry as he made his way through the crowd. He was clearly looking for someone, at one point pulling out his phone and making a call while standing all confused and alone in the middle of the now crowded room, so I stood my ground and stared like a sexual predator. A terrified, frozen sexual predator.

I was still gawking at him over my shoulder when Shaun punched me in the face. Okay fine, the arm; she hit me really hard on the arm. It would've been more badass if it was the face, though. Anyway, Shaun slapped my arm with the force of a thousand Spartans and said, pointing out the window, "IT'S JAMES MCAVOY!" And it was. That tiny Scottish actor with so much manly allure, pausing for photos and being generally Really Famous and Cool As Fuck. We each shed a single tear in the face of his overwhelming beauty.

Once that was over with, I jerked back around to look for Harry, only to find that he'd disappeared into the crowd. No! Then a bell sounded, and a woman's voice over the sound system told us all to fuck off to our seats because the ceremony was about to begin. Shaun and I stood unmoving, and I scanned the crowd in a panic. No sign of Harry. We weren't quite sure where we were meant to go in order to find our seats, so at last I led Shaun off through the now thinning crowd in the direction which I thought Harry had gone. We paused again near the bar on the other end of the room, and then I saw him. He was in conversation with two other people who were clearly Awesome and probably Actors, so I poked Shaun and started saying stupid things like, "There he is," "Should I go...?" "Will I regret it if I..." and "UGH OMG." Then a woman came up and tried to make us leave, so I said something like, "WE HAVE NO IDEA WHO WE ARE OR WHERE WE'RE GOING OR WHAT'S HAPPENING" and she showed us where to find our seats. We didn't move; we just kept standing there and I wrung my hands and tried to still my heart that was beating like a hummingbird's.

IT'S HARRY LLOYD Y'ALL. Look at that gross facial hair. (via)

I knew I'd regret it if I didn't go talk to him, though. I knew I'd forever be living that moment in my head as well, and not in a good way. So when the usher went up to Harry and his friends to tell them to get out of there and find their seats, I took the opportunity to hobble over to them. All I remember at that point is reaching out to touch his arm, because he'd turned back to the bar, and I noticed he had what looked like dog or cat hair on the elbow of his tux, and I thought, "Boy, you need a lint roller." When he turned around I kind of just went into autopilot. I said something like, "Excuse me, hi, I just wanted to let you know I'm a huge fan of your work!" I expected him to be a little annoyed that some random was accosting him at this safe zone of an awards show, but he broke into this bright grin and said, "Oh, thank you so much!" Encouraged, I proceeded to tell him everything I'd seen him in and how much I loved him in everything, which was probably super neurotic and weird of me, but whatever! He made a cute comment about how his character in Game of Thrones was "another creepy git" or something after I mentioned seeing him in Duchess of Malfi. I also told him that I'm writing a novel and that he's my ideal casting for the movie version of one of the characters. DORKIEST THING TO SAY EVER, but I'm really glad I did, because I told him this in my stupid fantasies and I had to do it. I had to. He was probably super weirded out but I don't care, he was so gracious and happy to talk to me, some random fangirl! Then he shook my hand and shook Shaun's hand, and we probably said something like, "Have fun tonight" or whatever you say in these situations, and then he walked off into the crowd again. And then I peed myself a little.

The rest of the night was incredible. It was funny, entertaining, overwhelming, and ridiculous (because they could not seem to get the tv screens on stage to work properly). There was free champagne at the interval, and a ton of musical performances from various London shows throughout. We were in literally the last row of audience members, but it hardly mattered! We saw Patrick Stewart present an award, for godsake! I breathed the same air as Captain Jean-Luc Picard! I was in heaven. The whole thing was like a dream; really, one of the most memorable events of my life. And needless to say I was basking in post-Harry Lloyd euphoria the entire time.

After the show I peed for about five minutes straight (pint + champagne + small bladder = so much peeing), we plodded down roughly one billion flights of stairs in our heels, and emerged into the freezing night air of London. There was a small crowd of fans outside waiting for celebs to emerge, and it reminded us just how lucky we were to have been able to attend. We may not have gotten up close and personal with James McAvoy or anything, but we saw him from afar, and being able to see so many people in person and to experience the event live was just... beyond words.

I'm so grateful that Shaun invited me along as her date, and I'm so grateful to live in a city that gives us these incredible opportunities, again and again! People keep telling us we're lucky, or that we lead "charmed" lives, but we did all of it ourselves. (Although Shaun does win tickets to awards shows occasionally.) We applied and were accepted to graduate programs in London, we bought plane tickets, we packed up all our stuff and we crossed an entire ocean to accomplish what we truly wanted to do in life. We may do a lot of really cool things, but that's because we're always on the lookout, and always making new experiences a priority. Anyone out there who wants to do something that makes them truly happy, something amazing and grand, just do it! Awesome things don't come to those who wait. You have to make life happen. And I'm just so happy that I've made all of this happen for myself. Thanks forever to Shaun for initially inspiring me. ♥