If you could see me right now, you would see one very pleased with herself kind of person. First act of Good World – done! I want to add some more things to that but that’s really all I managed to get done. But that’s what I wanted to get done and so that’s what got done. I also made corrections to a new 10 minute play which I know was going to get renamed but then didn’t. It might still but then again maybe the first thing was the best thing. That is hardly ever true but you never know. It’s still too long, about a page, but it’s getting there. One more go around rewrite circle and I think we might just have it.
You know, I wish that I was a person that didn’t have to rewrite so much. I know, writing is rewriting, I GET THAT, but I seem to rewrite more than most. I think I could get my output higher if I can work on my rewriting skills. I’ve hard many different approaches on how to tackle rewrites, all of them good, all of them differing. It might be worth some time to think about how I rewrite and how I can make that better. Better in the way of being more efficient. Efficiency being the aim of all writers trying to get away from people like mid-life crisis man.
New thing to annoy me about mid-life crisis guy. He doesn’t make his own phone calls. ‘Hey you (because he STILL can’t remember my freaking name) can you get me so and so on the phone?’ I don’t mind finding phone numbers but getting people on the phone? No. No, I draw the line there. Idiot. I cannot WAIT until I am out of this job. Couple more weeks, maybe two, I think two would be enough and then I will have enough money in the bank to get away from this madness.
I digress.
Rewriting. What I usually do in order to pen to paper or finger to laptop is just see where things are going. I don’t usually have a plan for a first draft because it’s a first draft – it’s supposed to be crap. Crap/first drafts I do really well. I have hundreds of them. It’s what happens next that really starts to do my head in. I’m trying to remember what I actually do. I have a clean typed copy. That’s always number one. And a good and hardy pen. I start reading and then I stop, usually a couple of lines in and begin rewriting. As I’m typing this, I realise quite clearly just how wrong that is. A blind person setting out on an unchartered path. The complications seem ghastly. So then how to do it? The problem with first drafts is that they have so much wrong with them but of course it is the aesthetics that jump out of you singing and dancing and looking hideous as they go about it. That’s the thing that I dive in and try to fix – clunky lines, bad lines, filler lines, when all of that is the stuff that should be fixed last … right? Stay with me here people, we may be getting somewhere. It’s the other things that should be tackled first – the characters, the motivations, the tone and structure of the piece. THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO LEARN. It’s good that we are talking about this now. Okay, well, I’m the one talking about it and you great cyber ethereal you, is out there listening along. But it’s still great because what has to happen now … rewrites. Act One of Good World. Now. I had three weeks from yesterday to get this whole play into shape. So what first – characters, narrative, plot. One at a time? Which one first? These things are going to keep me up night after night after night … Character right? Character comes first. What are the characters doing? What do they want? What do they need? Why are they here? These are the questions, this perhaps is how to do it all, one at a time.
So we start with character. Each scene, what are they doing? Why are they there? What do they want from this scene? We will call this Step One. That is the job for tonight.
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