A little bit more...

So I got another 17 pages done, which is the bulk of one of my primary climax-type scenes, a very complicated sequence which has proven to be a real challenge today. The scene isn't done, but i did map out how the rest of the scene will work. Up to 86 now.

I'm finding it quite difficult to write scenes with this many people in them. I realized a couple of days ago that I haven't actually written a play with more than 4 characters total, much less a scene where 8 people are all trying to talk. Almost as confusing as the fact that almost every single person in this play is pretending to be at least one other person, if not more.

I will also say that, as someone who almost always writes to music, I'm having a great time listening to all the Tango music that I've chosen to inspire the writing - a LOT of Astor Piazzolla. It's a fun kind of energy that is beautiful, takes itself quite seriously, and is bouncy and fun at the same time.

As the New Year is approaching, I am also realizing that if I finish this first draft - no matter how badly it is written - I will have kept my New Year Resolution for 2010, to write at least the first drafts of two new full length plays. I might just be able to sneak it in under the wire...

A beginning!

It has begun. I have started to write script pages for The Mayfair Affair.

On December 21, I pounded out the first 20 pages of script, another 24 pages on the 28th, and today, I have about 25 (That's a total of about 69 for the math-deprived). This is all some really terrible first draft writing, but I continue to make discoveries, as my pre-conceived ideas seem to take a back seat to whatever the characters start to say while I type - though I am hitting all of the major plot points (a necessity in a farce comedy - which needs to have a highly structured plot). I have reached some moments which should hit right around the end of Part One (pre-intermission), and a big scene that I think should go in part two. Though I do think there might be more setup necessary before I could call part one 'done' even for a first draft.

I'm actually just glad that all of the characters finally have names now - which really helps when trying to flesh them out as full characters and not just 'the maid' or 'the male thief'. Obviously, there will be a lot of cleaning up to do - including re-establishing some of those initial ideas, but a start is a start.

The goal is to have a full first draft (which I'm guesstimating will have about 100 pages, maybe a little more) sometime over the weekend. That's long for a play, but inevitably there will be some trimming. With a pending trip next week, I'd like to have at least this first pass done before I leave. Perhaps putting it in the drawer for a week while I'm gone will let it settle before charging ahead with another draft.

Kind of funny, the idea first came to me in early January, while making the long drive back from visiting family - roughly the same trip I'll be taking next week...

So much to do - but glad to finally be at a beginning - a whole year later!

My Daughter, the Playwright!

So, my ten year old daughter 'surprised' us on Christmas Day by presenting her brother, her mother and I each with a 10 page part of a play she's been writing. (I say 'surprised' because we all knew she had been hiding away to write something as a present, but we didn't know exactly what.)

Part One: The School Problem, she gave to her brother.

Part Two: The Report was for me.

Part Three: Moving Day she gave to her mom.

The play is about the adventures of a girl named Jane and her little brother J.J. as they navigate a school bully, J.J.'s major oral report on an animal, and her neighbor friend's impending move to San Diego. All three parts seem to involve the family's watching one of the Star Wars movies every Friday night (which we had been doing when she was writing - she instinctively knew to 'write what you know'!).

I took her hand written pages and typed them into Final Draft today, and used the Voice feature so it would read it out loud to her (as robotic as the people sounded). She got a big kick out of that, and we did a tiny bit of rewriting to fix some of the misspellings and typos.

At the end of part three, the story is far from over, so I'm really hoping she keeps writing. I'm very proud of what she's been able to do so far.