Done and did

Well, finally I have some good news to report. Remain in your seats and breathe in a regular rhythm because I didn't score a Broadway contract or anything like that. I didn't even get a production, although they are coming. I feel it in my bones. BUT, the good news is that I can cross something else off my list.


53. Write a short play.

And I say, Fine I will. So I did. It's called So Much Harm and it takes places on a mountain. Or a very large hill. You make the choice. I do so like my plays being interactive.

Now, I'm working on a new short play, a full-length, a radio play and keeping my sanity in check. Fun times people. Fun times.

April

Well, let's just admit it.

I've been slack.

Worse than that, I've not only been slack, I've been lazy. Which is probably the same thing but in my mind, slack is not being able to keep up with all the tasks one sets themselves or the tasks that have been set by others. Lazy is just not even bothering to set oneself tasks. In all honesty, there has been more lazy than slack, although both have played their part.

The last couple of weeks, maybe longer, alright the whole of March and perhaps part of February, have been attacked by the lazy fly. He sits on my shoulder and his sheer weight keeps me from ever getting up off the couch.

On the other shoulder lies the procrastination fly that likes to be entertained with mindless internet sites, TV shows, and anything else that requires only a minimal attention span.

But with Easter just passed and 4 whole days off which is awesome and kudos to the bloke that made it all happen, it was time to get the Flyspray and get to work. Which I did, even though I woke up with some sort of deathly plague cold flu thing which still hasn't left me.

So, things are back on track. Somewhat. What I did manage to do in March inbetween checking Facebook 75,000 times a day was get my submissions up to date and it's only the first week of April and I'm already half way through the ones I need to get done for April. Hoorah for me.

I also completed a first draft of a new ten minute play called So Much Harm which is just the best title anyone has ever come up with, ever, and you all know it, so shut up.

Then, if that wasn't good enough, and it really really was, I dived headfirst into writing the first draft of my new full-length The Reading Group which is now up to Page 20. Awesome behaviour.

March also saw a trip back to the homeland (aka Brisbane) for my nephew's first birthday and it seems that the play a day reading cycle got way behind. But, as the good girl that I am, Easter saw me read 10 (yes, count them, 10!) plays and so we are all up to date on that one. I still have to play catchup with the screenplays/watching movies and short stories. But I'm getting there.

I even (almost) bounced out of bed this morning at 4.00am and wrote for nearly three hours.

I have a feeling that April is going to be a good month.

Weekly Update

Again, it didn't seem as if I was doing much last week but for a girl that has a full-time job I managed to do a lot of things that weren't photocopying and, uh, more photocopying. And trust me, there was a lot of that.

But the main thing I did this week was submissions. Although I didn't actually submit a lot (only 3) I did get all the bits and pieces for my brand spanking new full-length play New Light Shine. And there are a lot of bits and pieces. A lot of printing and a lot of thinking about how to write a freaking synopsis for it. So there was that.

I'm still having a lot of problems in balancing things, or how do you get enough time and motivation to do everything you want to do? Answers in 25 words or less please. I did read something on the internet quite a while ago about the top 50 (or something) habits of highly successful people. These were things they all seemed to share in common which astounded me straight off that they had that many things in common but one of them was that no matter what their mood, they always showed up and did the job. This has stuck with me and this is what I am going to try and do this week. No matter the mood, turn up and do the job.
Also, it seems that I tend to lose a lot of time in small increments. A lot of five minute slabs of time go down the drain because what can you do in 5 minutes? I don't know but I think I will have to try and find out. There are so many things that I want to do and accomplish and other people seem to be able to fit a lot more ino their life than I do which leads me to the idea that, uh, perhaps it is me.

I think this week, in an effort to combat the desire to do not much at all I am going to try a few experiments to see if I can get the workrate up.

My first experiment is to use my idle work hours to get submission information for various theatres that I want to send my play New Light Shine to. Because, really, how many times should you look at Facebook every day.

My second experiment is to write in 10 minute slots. I don't have enough time to write for much longer than that and I need to kind of look like I'm working even though I'm not. So ten minutes is a good time.

These are the missions for this week. Procrastination. Consider yourself at war.

Weekly Update

I thought I would do an update on last week, but last week was a sham! A sham, I tell you. I don't know what happened but would bet a fair amount of money on the fact that I was lazy, lazy, lazy.

I have started two new plays. Started, being the operative word. And then it rained. Like a lot. And the weekend seemed to slip away from me. And it was a long weekend and I know I should have done more, but more was just not going to happen. I don't know why. I never know why, but ...

I move on. A new week, which is now half gone but I'd rather see the cup as half-full, as they say. No. Scratch that. I hate the people that say that.

What I DID do on the weekend is submit plays. Submit, submit, submit. This felt good. This was good. Unfortunately, it wasn't an entire blitz and I am still way behind on the submissions front. In order to get to 210 submissions this year I have to do 17.5 submissions per month. Which means by the end of this month that is not that far away, I have to have 52.5. I think I have about half of that at the moment. HALF! Not good enough. Nowhere near good enough.

So that is about the extent of it. What a depressing update. I don't even have any last words of hope for myself ... large, dramatic sigh.

Busy

Have been slightly remiss in blogging lately ... Therefore not doing very well with Number 19 Blog every day but I have been working.

And, in exciting news, I can cross a big thing off the list:

11. Finish a full-length play.

Yeah for me. It's called New Light Shine and I have been working on this play for too long! But it's done. I really think it is done.

So now it's time to get stuck into Number 6 and get me some productions.

I'll do another post to sum up February and all the things I didn't think I did but did actually do ... Anyone follow that?

Weekend

Late on Saturday night when normal people were out getting drunk, hooking up, eating nasty kebabs at 2.00am, I was at my laptop finishing my play. What? I hear you say. What did you just say?

Yes. That's right Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I got to write The End, although what I actually wrote was End of Play. And while it is The End, it's still not finished. It's a draft and it's not too shabby but it still has some holes, some big enough to fit an tram through, if fitting trams through metaphorical holes is your things.

No judgement.

Weekly Update

For last week, and I know, I'm a little slack on the posting but you know, no judgement and all that. Well, judge if you feel like it. It's entirely up to you. If you want to be that person then you've got your own issues to figure out and perhaps you should start your own blog about it all. But anyway, back to me.

Last week saw a magnificent event take place, otherwise known as THE WRITING OF THE PLAY. Which I will come back to.

Because you see, I dawdled through most of the week or at least that's how it looked even though I was doing things, I was planning and rearranging and working on stuff. I was trying to live my life better which, after all, is the purpose of all of this. For example:

36. Eat vegetables at least 3 times a week.

I don't thinkI've mentioned this one yet and while it sounds a bit naff because I am a grown woman and I really should know this by now, it is so easy to eat potatoes and fool myself into thinking that I have my vegetable intake sorted. Well, no more. Let the green and red and other colours of vegetables run free through my body. And they have, and they will continue to do so. Not only am I eating them three times a week, I'm eating them at least twice a day. I know. VICTORY!

64. Use my lunch hours for something other than wandering around aimlessly.

This has been easier than I thought. Mainly because I'm only taking half an hour for lunch instead of an hour. I'm using this half hour daily to eat my vegetables and catch up on some reading.

98. Stop biting my nails.

This seems to go in a cycle. One week I won't even look at my nails, the next I can't keep my teeth away from them. And I don't think it has anything to do with nervousness or stress. I think it's just a habit.

And now to the writing:

11. Finish a full-length play.

There are three on of these on the list and there could be 12 more but again, a girl has to sleep. The play I'm trying to finish now is called New Ligh Shine and I think this is about draft seven. Well, it could be more than that and it could be less than that because I don't think I've ever finished a draft of this little play that became a monster play and is now back to being a little play. But this one is definitely going to be finished. In fact, I'm close to finishing. Like, really close. Like, three scenes to go which is way further along than I was last Friday afternoon when I had 3 scenes and 20-something pages. Now I have 75 pages and three scenes left. Yes, The Sandy Method does work and life is very, very good. I can see myself retiring in the Bahamas as I speak.

That was the main writing task of the week but I also managed to do another draft of a short play which will need one more read-through and edit and then I can cross that off the list, and I started thinking about my Mastodon play and I think i have the story for it.

I also rewrote the ending of a one-act play which had been annoying me for about a month and now looks and sounds much better.

I also had a great idea for a new play that I can't work on yet but hopefully will soon because it is ace and I can't believe I was the one to come up with it.

And that was pretty much my week. I also scrubbed my kitchen floor which I know doesn't sound like much but trust me that thing was gross and now it is pretty and I feel good walking on it unlike before when I had to think of pretty things so I didn't have to think what I was walking on.

Weekly Report

Well, last week seemed to fly past in a cyclonic rush of hours. And, if truth must be told, I was slack. I wasted a lot of those hours and yes, I feel bad about it so you can just keep your judgment to yourself about all that.

But I had a stern talking to myself yesterday morning and got back on the horse. So to speak. There were no actual horses, but you knew that already ... didn't you? Can you see how easy I find procrastination. You give me a tangent and I am riding that thing until it is quite literally dead.

However, the highlight of last week was writing THE Scene. If you don't know what THE Scene is, then you are obviously not a writer, because all writers, regardless of what they write know about THE Scene. It's the one that is going to nail the project and bring it all together. If you gave it time it would also end world hunger, come up with a cheap alternative to the use of fossil fuels and know instinctively how to make your life better in three easy, painfree steps. Last week, I wrote the scene for New Light Shine and it made me happier than, well, think of the happiest thing you know. Got it? Yeah, happier than that. I know. Ridiculous.

This, I know, doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me, when you get that scene and it works, the whole play that sits around it starts to do its business. By this, I mean that it starts to find ways of linking itself together and becoming A PLAY instead of a HUGE BIG FREAKING MESS. And this what we want.

Week Three

Weekly update

Well, this week was tough. Tough with a capital T. In fact, TOUGH will all capitals. There, I said it. But I survived and I did everything on my dailly lists and weekly lists EXCEPT take photos. I'm reallly struggling with taking a photo every day.

The 'take a photo a day' thing came from the fact that I never owned a camera, HATED having my photo taken and generally broke out into hives whenever one came near me. I also developed this weird theory that if you spent all the time capturing the memory on film, then you wouldn't actully experience the memory. Or something like that. It sounded good when I was drunk. Then I went to New York last year and decided that I had to have a camera if I went to New York. What? I was going to come home and talk about how good Times Square was? I don't think so. Talk is cheap. A picture tells a thousand words. Pick your metaphor. Pictures are good. So I bought a camera and I took like a gazillion photos. I've barely looked at them since I got back but I like the fact that they are there. And more importantly, I liked taking photos. So I thought I would get back in the habit of taking photos. Maybe one a day was a bit ambitious. Are there really that many things I want to capture for posteriety? Maybe I need to change it to keep my camera with me at all times so that I can take a photo when I want to. A need to take photos would probably develop into an obsession and I really don't need another one of them. I remember thinking it was a really good idea when I put it on the list. Turns out it is not a good idea, and for the first couple of weeks, all I have done is take pictures of the birds in my backyard. BORING!

I'm going to have to rethink this one.

In brighter news, and trust me, there wasn't much of that this week, I did cross off my "get a play produced in another country" and I started a new day job which mean I will actually have money coming in while trying to pursue this dream of mine but the writing front hasn't exactly been lit by the muses so to speak. I played around with different times to work (early in the morning, at night) even though I know, I KNOW, that writing at night is a fool's errand and if I'm going to do this then I am going to have to get up at 4.00am every morning. EVERY MORNING! Except Sunday, because Dude, even God knew the effects of all work and no play.

I also started a short story which I thought would be a lot further on at this point than it is. But I started it. I wanted to stick it in a drawer and forget about it but I kept going. I'm experimenting with it. I'm putting words on paper. I coudl probably have put more words on the paper but there are words, and they are on paper. Are you getting my message about words and paper? I surely hope so.

So there was that.

I also started brainstorming a new short play that is due next Monday. It's on the theme of "Inns & Outs: Hotel Lobby" which gave me about 25,000 ideas of what to do with such an open theme and none of them came to anything. But I think I'm on the money now. I'm seem to be writing a lot of things where people aren't actually talking to each other. I don't know what that means.

I also 'finished' Act One of New Light Shine and when I say 'finished' I mean that I have put words on paper and they kind of, if you squint a lot and have no judgement, look like Act One of a play. It's going to need a lot of work when I put it together next month into something resembling a play. However, in the grand scheme of things, it actually is sounding a lot better than it did in any of the previous drafts, and there were a lot of previous drafts.

What else for this week?

I seemed to be constantly reading this week. I finished Shutter Island by Denis Lehane, who is surely the greatest crime writer we have. Surely! I don't even like crime fiction and I dig Denis Lehane. I also dig the movies made from his books and I'm sure I am going to love Shutter Island when it hits the big screen. I also read 7 plays and the highlight was rereading The Homecoming by Harold Pinter yesterday. I never used to like Pinter. He always seemed to leave me cold. HOW WRONG WAS I? The man was a genius. GENIUS. There is going to be a lot more Pinter on the menu this year. A lot more. I also read a great screenplay, Mixtape that is from this great website that talks about screenplays that are in development or in production or should be. I can't wait to see Mixtape. It's the kind of screenplay I am hoping to write this year.

That just about sums it up for this week just gone. It wasn't great but it wasn't terrible either. Baby steps, baby steps.

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.