Rambles

I've been taking the Beulah piece into the Fringe this fall and it is being well received. This is always good but then the part that is perhaps hardest: going back to it and ruthlessly rewriting. That's what separates the hacks from the rest of us. I really like the characters in the piece and spending time with them is fun, so it actually might be fun! I also recently read my new solo piece, the one about posing for a painting and such, for Bette and she liked it with reservations; her reservations were actually insights that were very helpful regarding structure and focus . . . I knew it wasn't ready to roll, first drafts seldom are, but I am intrigued by the idea and what I can maybe do with it. Heck, the first draft of Old Hickory had our hero talking about how many women he had killed, he was a serial killer! There was some wonderful imagery at the end of it, but it lacked the impact that it eventually achieved by sticking with a more simple story of one guy and his problems dealing with one woman ...it's come a long way, and I can only assume that the new piece, as yet untitled, is at the initial step or two of a very long journey. Of my solo pieces I think Like a Sack of Potatoes had the shortest gestation period, with the fewest rewrites . . . would that they all just sprang into existance so readily! I also keep coming back to an idea for a suspence piece about people waiting out a storm (it tends to come to mind while I'm waiting out a storm). Don't know if I can or will pull it off or even attempt to, but I haven't written a Damage Control kind of thing for a while.