A Sign Of The Times; or What's next?

Writing is an odd beast. You spend a lot of time working on a project, and when you finally find some semblance of completion, you also find yourself out of work. The urge, of course, is to jump right into the next project. This seems to me a consistent trend, and like all consistencies, the project started right after another is completed is most likely not to get completed anytime soon. That's because writing is a relationship, and when a project gets finished, so does the relationship. Sure, it's an amicable parting, but there is still a space of time needed to detach and recover from the investment. This is surely why trying to work on something new immediately almost always fails. It's a rebound. You don't start it because you think it's a rebound, but time usually proves otherwise.
 
I say this, because that's where I am right now. I started doing research for a project (one that is proving more introspective than anything) and I already feel my interest waning. I know it's a piece I'm going to write, but as of the moment... it's too soon. Of course, when I pick up the next in line (probably right after I actually resolve to be done with the current one for a while) the process of discovery will have to begin all over again. It's hard to know which one to gravitate toward. Right now, I'm struggling because I want to work on something, even reformatting some older projects, but I seemingly don't have the patience for that right now, either. I actually sat down to do another read-through of one of my plays and get it ready for NPX, but as I sat down, I ended up deciding I'd rather write this blog instead.
 
I think part of my languor stems from the post-breakup detox. It's harder to motivate when you're in a down moment. They usually last until I'm fed up with them, so you know, a few days from now, or a few weeks. In theory, I'll be continuing research, and I'll continue scratching ideas down hoping to find the stroke that inspires the next piece, but who honestly knows. I actually have a list of projects to work on, it's just a question of how or when they'll get off their asses and do something.
 
How's that for an update? Right. Well, I'm going to poke dead things with sticks. Who knows? Maybe they're not dead after all.

Editing: What is this thing?

I really want to talk about editing. Editing is a fine beast, and a totally different state of mind than writing. It is not terribly infrequent to sit down with every intention of writing, and suddenly find oneself editing instead. I don't usually see this as a problem, if only because the process of the edit actually resolves itself into discovering the solution to whatever the current conundrum happens to be. There are other times where writing simple never happens, and I'll disappear into a different project and edit that instead. This isn't entirely the way I thought this post was going to start. I could edit, (and of course, I have) but I think I'll just jump around instead. (My webcam's off... you can't watch.)

It's All An Act

2-Act vs 5-Act

The way in which my writing has changed with the passing of time is evident in every facet of the process and the final product. I write in verse because that is simply the way I write. I wish I could say there was something purposeful about it, but the truth would remain unchanged. I like it. It's structure has become more sophisticated over time, and large part of that was intentional, but I think it would be more interesting to note one of the unintentional transitions.

My early play-in-verse structure, in both form and layout, drew from the heavy hitters of yore. My original emulation of Heroic Couplets strove after the flavor of Milton and Paradise Lost, while the structure itself pulled upon the Bard; William Shakespeare. I had read more Shakespeare than any other playwright, all those years ago, and I recall being somewhere in Hell, then, too, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that they influenced my beginning. Of course, I was certainly nowhere near capable of accomplishing so daunting of a task with any degree of success... which is not to say I didn't finish that first play, but that I slowly started to change my methodology in the second... and in every play since, too, for that matter.

Gaaah! Or, Post-Conference Mayham

As the title might suggest, Lordy, Lordy, have I been busy. There is a lot to be said for trying to assemble an infrastructure from the ground up, and it's definitely given me a new appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit that I never believed I had. Now, let's not get too crazy. I haven't gotten around to attempting to self-produce (not that there's anything against that). If you know me, you know that's the thing I fear most. I want to sit down opening night and see the show for the first time, having never met the cast, if at all possible. To me, that is when I know how well I did my job. But I'm not there yet, and I'm writing today to talk about the road I've been building to that end. So...

Where to start? That was one of the battles I had to face after attending the Dramatists Guild Conference #WriteChange a few weeks back. There was a lot of chicken-and-the-egg conversations I was having with myself. Honestly.  Here's my post-conference to-do list: