Week Two Update

I had somewhat of a free pass as this week was nine days long. HOW WONDERFUL, I hear you all say. Where do we sign up for this marvellous invention that is a nine day week? Well, if I could figure that out, I’d be in the Bahamas by now with a young, virile man that didn’t speak a lot of English. But I digress. As the new year started on a Friday, the first week was Friday to Friday. But it’s easier for all concerned, namely me, to have the week run from Monday to Sunday, hence this week was nine days long. Lucky me.

However, I didn’t get much achieved on either Monday or Tuesday as there was a heatwave here in Melbourne and brain turned to mush, only computing things like ‘We need more icy poles’ and ‘God, I don’t think I have ever been hotter in my ENTIRE LIFE’. So there wasn’t much in the way of work achieved in those two days.
But here are some of the things that I achieved, or am working towards achieving:

11. Finish a full-length play
I have been hard, hard, hard at work on rewriting a full-length play of mine New Light Shine. This is about draft 948 but who’s counting? But I think this is the money draft, as we say in the playwriting business. Well, we don’t actually, or some might, but I do think I’m on the money with this. The copious drafts had only served to completely complicate what is actually a very simple story. So I’ve stripped it back as much as I can and begun from that point.

I’m trying to write and finish six full-length plays this year. I know. CRAZY. But that means that I need to finish a play every two months. January and February is New Light Shine.

25. Write a short story
Would you like to know how long it has been since I have written a short story? A LONG TIME! But this year I am going to write 5. CRAZY CRAZY! I started my first one last night. It’s about a young woman that mistakes sex for love and is trying to learn the meaning of both. It’s a first draft, so it’s best just to keep going with it and not talk too much about it until I actually get something onto a page.

80. Find a new day job
Because if I have to deal with many more lawyers I’m going to go postal on all of them. Seriously. Kickstarted the search on Friday with an application to work as a writer of sorts at state parliament.

2. Read 100 novels
I’m not quite sure when this became a good idea and made it’s way onto the list, even though it is a great idea. 100 novels. How wonderful. That means 2 novels a week, and while I’m a voracious reader, 2 novels a week on top of everything else is a huge ask. Anyway, as mentioned before, I started with Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel which was not only long, but very, very dense. Don’t let that put you off though. It is quite marvellous. But I’m now onto number 4 and so catching up, catching up.

I get the feeling that a lot of this year is going to be catching up.