It's Taken Two Years...But Let's Do The First Draft Done Dance!
After two years of developing and writing, I have FINALLY written THE END on the FIRST FULL DRAFT of my next play.
YAS! It’s time to do that dance you do when you’ve finally finished a first full draft of a script. It feels so good. I danced. I made myself a cup of tea and a cheese, ham and salsa toastie, and I put my feet up.
I write a lot, and work on a lot of scripts or projects at the same time, until one becomes more fully formed and puts on it’s running shoes to sprint to the finish line. This is one that started out as something very, very different a number of years ago, which I started from scratch two years ago. And now the first full, unedited draft is ready for people to read.
The new play is a dark comedy, and is the follow-up to my 2017 play, Fools On A Hill. It’s a stand-alone story, of course, but feels like a continuation of some of the themes that Fools On A Hill dealt in, and would act as a good companion piece to that one.
It's been simultaneously fun and terrifying write. It's definitely my most ambitious piece to date - I mean, it has more than 3 characters for a start, which for me is a BIG change. It’s a script that contains a lot of themes, ideas, characters, dialogue and topics that feel like were challenging in a number of ways; not least of which being adhering to my number one priority when writing - make it entertaining, funny and shot through with emotion. Above all; it has to be a good story, if not a great one.
I’m excited, and of course apprehensive about people reading it - but mainly excited.
And I very very much hope that it will see an audience some day in the not too distant future.
But as always, it’s a long road with any script and any creative project.
As much as it feels good to finish a script, I can’t linger on this feeling for too long. The rewrite will bring me back down to earth.
But in the words of the great President Bartlet, as written by Aaron Sorkin, made immortal by Martin Sheen.
What's next?