All systems go with Foul Play in Dapto.

The final script has been issued, the music is being composed, the set is being designed, and -- most importantly -- the kids have done the first full reading and are still enthusiastic. They're happy with their characters, and with the funnier lines, the music, and the fight scenes. One kid even told me, "You rock!" (That was very heartwarming indeed.) Another said he's added the world premier of this work to his acting resume.

Me, I'm rapt. The kids are already throwing themselves into the roles, and I'm sure they'll do a great job. More selfishly, I'm thrilled that I don't suck as a playwright. They get a fun play to premier, and I get an ego boost. Win-win!

The play is finished -- consummatum est!

Last night at 11:30 I emailed the script for Foul Play in Dapto off to the producer/director for one last look. Yes, the whole script is written. Done. Ready for the final brushing-away of the eraser crumbs (so to speak) and binding into rehearsal copies.

I'm sure we -- the kids, the director, me -- will all be heartily sick of it well before performance night. The jokes will sound increasingly lame each time they're rehashed and rehearsed. The blocking will become wooden, the dialogue rote. The music (which sounds absolutely fantastic) will become way, way too familiar and we'll all find ourselves humming it at odd moments and desperately flounder for another tune to give us a break. (Unfortunately, when I need to find a new tune to displace one that's haunting me, what I usually come up with is the theme to "Gilligan's Island".)

However, I'm trusting that it will all magically kindle once performance night comes around. ("How will it???" "I don't know. It's a mystery." -- Shakespeare in Love)

Manuscript assessment -- overall, a positive experience

Hmm. Out of a sort of masochistic curiosity (along with a profound anxiety that I'm deluding myself about my writing talent), I sent the first 12 chapters of my novel to a professional manuscript assessor. Luckily, she was quite encouraging, and enclosed several pages of very helpful comments that I need to digest for a few days before deciding how, and indeed whether, to incorporate each one.

I'm comforted. The assessor did not tell me, "This needs a complete rewrite," or "You should go back and study grammar and spelling." (One of the advantages of spending a couple of decades tightening up and cleaning up other people's writing is that it has made my own writing fairly close to technically flawless, if I do say it myself. Problem is, technique is only one aspect of good writing.)

So: once I finish the play and the poems I've committed myself to, perhaps I'll get back to the novel....

You need to know about the Turkey City Lexicon.

If you don't know about the Turkey City Lexicon, you should. It's absolutely the most useful site on good writing (in the guise of talking about bad writing) I've ever seen, and I've learned more from it than from just about any other source. (It's also highly useful if you want to be a better reader; that is, if you want to know why a particular piece of writing strikes you as good, bad, or ugly.)

Avast!

I'm not the only one to draw attention to International Talk Like a Pirate Day (my friend Chard, over at Metaplasmus, is another), but I just can't let it go by without a mention.

Self-imposed deadlines and questions of honor

I have committed myself to delivering Foul Play in Dapto performance-ready by the end of September. Because I have promised, I can't let it slip, because now people are counting on me. It may not be the calmest way to live my life, but it certainly does force me to get things done. (I have a hyper-developed need to be dependable.)

Meanwhile, I'm getting more keyed up by the day about going to Clarion. The info pack should arrive any time now. And I'm redoubling my efforts to save up the tuition, travel, and food money.

In other news, we have friends in from America -- friends I hadn't seen in person for about 15 years until the moment they tracked me down at Sydney Airport International Arrivals (they saw me before I saw them). They're coming back from Cairns at the moment, and will be spending some time in Sydney before returning to Thirroul. We've been having a really great visit, including a drive up to the spectacular Blue Mountains. These friends are from Arizona, Home of the Grand Canyon and Many Other Truly Impressive Natural Features, so I was afraid they'd scoff (inwardly at least; I know they're way too polite to scoff out loud). But the Blue Mountains have a character all their own, and are thrilling in their own way. And it's nice to have friends who are generous enough to appreciate that.

I'm going to Clarion South!!!!

I just got the email -- I'm in! I'm going! Woo-hoo!!!!!!

Details about the program here.

The Salad of Success

That's the title of the 10-minute play I've just entered in the Sydney Short and Sweet play competition. It's based rather alarmingly closely on the evil boss and surreal work situation I mentioned a few posts ago (the one that Tyce and I suffered through together, although our friendship did result, so that's all right).

I'm surprisingly pleased with the play. As is customary for my stuff, it is NOT depressing, as I hate both reading and writing depressing stuff. (I'm too prone to melancholy as it is.)

I find out whether I've made the short list by mid-October. After that, apparently, the directors look at the short list to see which one they want to produce. Wouldn't that be cool....

More play-related stuff

1. Houston has written the main thematic material for the incidental music he's composing for the murder play (current working title is Foul Play in Dapto, although I'm also considering The Fiend of Dapto). It's absolutely perfect, just the right atmosphere.

2. I handed Act II, Sc ii over to the kids this past weekend. That means I only have the last scene to write (albeit it's a major one), and any polishing that we discover needs doing during the workshopping process. So far they've been very kind....

3. I stumbled on an extremely helpful article on playwriting: click here to read it. I found it via the International Centre for Women Playwrights.

Progress? Or distraction?

I'm freelance-editing at the moment. I've got one nearly full-time gig (at the coal-mining company) and several clients who give me work more or less sporadically. Each of these clients needs the work done as if they were my only client. So from time to time I work fairly long weeks. This is one of those weeks.

This is the Midnight Question: is taking all these gigs a necessary step to gain the resources that will help me reach my goal of writing full time? Or is it a hindrance, a distraction from actually settling down and writing?