A good writing weekend

I got some work done on two fronts this weekend: the hillbilly-absurd-environmental-disaster-comedy and the new solo piece. In the former I got caught up with the new stuff, typing it in from long-hand to computer; with Letter of Resignation progress on a couple of fronts, including a major breakthrough.

LOR had started as a comedy about a guy with an employment agency and the weirdos who come to see him. There was a dog-whisperer type and a deranged vet . . . it had its moments but I wasn't sure what it added up to and it sort of was all over the place. Then I did a lot of cutting (out with the dog-whisperer and the deranged vet) and started getting to a more focused story about the guy and how he got where he is and his dealings with a problematic mother and women in general.

But it wasn't really kicking it for me . . . it was a character I liked and the story was humorous . . . but there wasn't a real arc to it, sort of ambled along . . . and in the rewrites I started to get somewhere, in that it wasn't a story about how to deal with his mother . . . but specifically what happened to make him want to tell this story now/today.

Then something of an ah-ha moment this weekend. I was getting close when I came up with the Letter of Resignation conseit, but this weekend I sort of closed the deal. For now. I think. Instead of starting all light an general and autobiographical (of the character that is) I started with a hint of what is to come, that maybe this guy is saying what he is saying in the form of a 'letter of resignation' rather than getting to it on the last page or so. And the mother is less of a character and more of a problem, if that makes sense.

We'll see. I still have to type it in and do the reconstructive surgery, as it were, but it was a huge relief to get there. The reading is coming on up . . .