December 2005 Archives

I wish everyone a great holiday season. See you in the New Year.

I finished the revisions on The Forbidden Phoenix. The second act turned out to be in fairly decent shape, mainly because there weren't as many songs. There is a weird dynamic to this play. There are certainly more formal songs in the first act than in the second act, while there are more fight sequences in the second act than in the first. I don't think I can have the actors singing while they are fighting, but I don't want to turn this into an all out musical or an all out Chinese opera. The ratio of songs in the first act versus the second act will just have to be uneven. My hope is that my composer will underscore the dialogue throughout the play, so if there is a perceived imbalance, no one will notice because of the wall to wall sound. Anyway, I'm pleased with this pass on the script, but I'll sit on it for a few days before reviewing the changes. If I'm still happy with it, I'll send it out for notes. Now I can relax for Christmas.

An old drama exercise is helping me revise a tough scene in The Forbidden Phoenix. For many drafts, I've been banging my head against the wall with the Wukong/Horne meeting. Everything I tried turned out to be flat and uninteresting, because it was all exposition. The scene even when sung was all about "I am this" and "I want that" and "this is what the audience needs to know." There was no dramatic tension.

Yesterday, I remembered an old exercise where random nouns and verbs are shouted out while I person writes a scene. As soon as the person hears the word, she has to incorporate it into the scene. The scenes usually turned out to be silly, but they were much more active as a result. So, taking the spirit of the exercise, I decided that Horne wouldn't talk about himself, but about an object that meant a lot to him. This uncoupled the scene from the exposition boxcar and let it roll down the tracks freely. I'm still revising, and I hope the scene doesn't fly off the rails. Off to work.

We've settled on the names for our new cats. The one that's more social likes to head butt people he meets, so we're going to call him Buddy, because he seems to be everyone's "buddy." The shyer cat we're calling Max in the hopes that he'll live up to his name and be great. Both cats are still getting used to the smells and sounds in our house. They're pretty skittish whenever the furnace kicks on or when someone flushes the toilet upstairs, but they're cute and not "bitey" (like Jake was).

As I write this blog entry I realise that my work on Forbidden Phoenix has been completely sidetracked again. I'm wondering if I agreed to the adoption because I didn't like the house to be empty or if I really wanted to procrastinate. Ah well, it's nearly Christmas. And the truth is, I'll probably work on the play over the Christmas break anyway.

Today, my wife and I adopted two black and white kittens. They're about 5 months old and from the same litter. They're just starting to get used to our home, and we have yet to rename them. Their SPCA-given names were Basket and Weaver. We're giving the kitties some time to show us their personalities and then we'll name them. One is very shy, but likes to eat treats. The other is destined to be a lap cat.

I'm starting to crawl out from under the weight of the revisions. My biggest challenge was revising the lyrics of the opening song. Now I think I have something that incorporates what I need to say about the play's theme, what I need to do to introduce the main characters, and what I need to communicate to the audience so they know what to expect. The other challenge was the reconception of the Horne character (the play's villain). I initially made him this passive aggressive character, but it didn't work when I pictured an actor with a painted face speaking. I've thrown out the old character and I am now building a new character for Horne. I have to remind myself that these are characters in full painted masks, and if they talk like real people, the play won't work. I have to strike a balance between the real emotion and the presentational style of the play. Sometimes I feel like I'm stacking a house of cards. I'm going to need a steady hand for this next revision. Here we go.

I read Avi's award winning novel, Crispin: The Cross of Lead. Wow! It's a great historical fiction. I loved the character of Crispin and Bear. The relationship between the two is quite touching. At first, I suspected the story was going to go one way, but then it took a decidedly different direction, and I was surprised in a good way. It's an honest story with great characters.

I've been toying with the idea of writing a novel series about two boys who are fairy tale detectives. The sleuths would tackle cases like Rumplestiltskin only to find out that the gnome is the victim and the Queen is a femme fatale. I thought it would make a very good series, but it turned out that someone else had the same idea. I noticed on the Internet a new book series called the Sisters Grimm: Fairy Tale Detectives. I'm going to have to pick up a copy of the book to see what the author does and if my idea is different enough, but I suspect that I'm going to have to say goodbye to my idea. That's the reality of creative writing. Sometimes, writers will arrive at the same idea from two completely different paths. I just wished I had beaten the other writer to the punch. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to be a fan of his series.

She was the meanest cat that ever clamped on to your hand and bit, but she purred while she did it. She hid from almost everyone except when she needed to be fed. She was an anti-social beast who never had the time for anyone but herself. Still, she was my cat and I'll miss her very much. Jake.

I re-read my latest draft of The Forbidden Phoenix, and I absolutely hate the draft. The script is trying hard to be a musical, a text play, and a theatre movement piece, but there is nothing unifying it. It just doesn't have any spark at all, and it plods along with the grace of a three-legged elephant. I just want to burn the script and start over again. But I'll calm down. No sense in revising the script today when I'm in this bad of a mood. I'll take the time today to think through why I think the script doesn't work and what I can do to make it work.

I have to admit that sometimes I do get influenced by outside forces. Today, I have to put down my cat and I just received a rejection letter for a grant application, so I'm feeling pretty negative today. The script may benefit from me walking away from it today. Argghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I've been putting off the revisions long enough. Today, I'm going to reread the script and get cracking on the next draft. It's been so long since I've looked at the script that this will almost be like I'm editing someone else's work. The good news is that I'll be objective. The bad news is that I'll cringe at every flaw in the script. Sometimes I feel like I'm painting a white wall with white paint. On first glance everything seems to be the same, but closer up I can see the spots I missed. But I have to step back and see the big picture before I start reworking the script. I need to have the context of the whole story and how it works before I can start rearranging scenes and cutting lines of dialogue. Or else, I may paint over sections that didn't need anything more than just a touch up.

Thanks to all the students for their feedback on the book cover. I'm going to sum up your comments and pass them on to the publisher. Thank you! I owe you one.

I paid a visit to Rossyln School yesterday to introduce some of the grade seven students to The Mystery of the Frozen Brains. The teacher uses the book in her novel study. The students were keen, and I was glad to see that the first chapter worked for junior high kids. I've yet to read the book to older students. I suspect that grade seven is probably the high end for the reading level of the book. The one thing that I have to do for the New Year is find new stories to tell. When I tour with the next book I'm likely going to see the same people again, so I'd better have fresh (and funny stories) to tell.

I'm almost finished. Today, I just have to polish the dialogue and clean up some clunky bits of the script where I'm repeating myself too much. I feel much better about this draft. I hope to finish it today. Then tomorrow, I'm going to ugh start work on the revisions to The Forbidden Phoenix. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the TV producers will call me this week and give me notes so that I can avoid working on the play. I don't know why I hate working on The Forbidden Phoenix so much right now. I think I have the objectives down as well as the obstacles. Maybe the motivation is still not clearly defined. I think I have to really dig deep and find out why the original Bachelor Men came to Canada (and it can't just because of the money they made).

Yesterday, I had a brutal day. I hated the script, but I kept pushing through with my revisions until I reached the end of the script. Normally, I feel a sense of relief and joy when I get to the end of the script, but yesterday I felt dread. Something was wrong with the script and I couldn't figure out what. I felt like I had revised the heart and humour out of the play. I asked my wife to read the script and she confirmed my worst fears. The script had lost its spark.

Today, I'm going back and wiping out most of the revisions I had made over the last two days. I had initially merged 3 teacher characters into one, but I think the gym teacher, Mr. Laraque, created a lot of humour and tension for Norman. Losing him meant I lost a lot of the humour in the middle of the play as well as the momentum. I had been so focussed on telling the story of a boy who is trying to help his father recover from a stroke that I forgot to give the boy a life of his own at school that wasn't always connected to his dad's medical problem. In short, I took a cool, fully developed character and turned him into a one-note melodramatic creature.

This is a good reminder that story and character have equal weight. If I focus too much on one, I shift the balance and come up with a weaker script at the end of the day. Back to the drawing board, but at least I feel like the next pass will be stronger. I'd be more depressed if I took the heart out of the script and didn't know how to get it back.

Okay, so yesterday I followed my own advice and I revised 15 pages of Nearly Normal. It was a real grind, even going from one line of dialogue to the next, but when I looked up at the page count I had reached 15 pages. And they were a pretty solid 15 pages. I'm very pleased with the progress. Let's see if I can repeat the page out put today.

I have to be careful now with the script because I'm making a huge change. Originally, I had three teacher characters in the play, but I'm merging them all into one teacher, so that I can develop a real relationship between Norman and the teacher. At first, I resisted the idea, but now that I've started making the changes, I think it's the right decision. The story is getting clearer, but more importantly, I can see some sparks between Norman and Mrs. Singer. They butt heads a lot and it's fun to see how he gets in and out of trouble with her. At some point, however, I have to redeem her nastiness or else she'll be one-dimensional as a character.

I tried to work this weekend on Nearly Normal, but I couldn't get any traction at all. I kept spinning my wheels, looking for any excuse to avoid opening the script. I might be starting to feel the weight of all my commitments and it's making it hard for me to see any real progress. I suspect that's why I've been obsessing over getting e-mails and letters done (because I can finish those).

I have to remind myself of the tried and true formula for slumps. Break the tasks into bite-sized pieces. Instead of targeting the revision of an entire script, I will now shoot to get a few pages done each day on one project. I'll do that for a couple of weeks until I get my confidence and rhythm back.

And the big reminder... don't take on any more new projects until one of the big ones is off my plate.

I paid a visit to Hazeldean School yesterday to hear the students read their stories aloud to one another in the gym. I was so pleased to hear some of the stories, and I was glad to see a few parents attend the gathering. I was very touched by all the kind "Marty Cards" and thank you letters. I even received a life-sized drawing of the grade six student's idea of Trina. I've read all the letters, and I have to say I'm very honoured to have worked with all of you. Thank you for sharing your words, and to the grade four class, thanks for showing me Belly Kick Ball. I'll definitely keep it in mind for the third book.

I have to admit that I didn't get a lot of work done this week. I brainstormed the Sprouts pitches, and I'm happy for that because I beat the deadline by a couple of weeks. However, I didn't get any notes on the TV project. The producer said she'd get a hold of me by the middle of next week. With the free time, I had hoped to revise Nearly Normal or Forbidden Phoenix, but I was sidetracked by some marketing work on The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul. The first draft version of the cover came in! Also, I had to talk to my agent about another television project that I'm writing with a friend. Oh, and I had a reading in Sylvan Lake and a dentist appointment. Plus, I found out that my Fringe application didn't make the cut. And it snowed. Hmm, this is sounding like I'm making up a whole lot of excuses to make myself feel better about not putting in some writing time hours.

Reminder to myself. It's easy to let a bunch of little things distract me from what I need to do. Next week, I have to put writing time ahead of everything else. And as for this weekend, I'm probably going to revise Nearly Normal and get that play out of my hair for a while. I applied to the Banff Centre with it, and if I get in, I'll have time to workshop and revise the play. If not, then I'm pretty much on my own to develop the play. Still no word on if the Citadel wants to produce it or not. All I can do is work the script until it's the best it can be.

Yesterday, I had the wonderful opportunity to read to some kids at the Sylvan Lake Library. They were a great audience, and I even made some of the grown-ups laugh. And a reading just isn't a reading until someone asks me if I'm related to Jackie Chan. Anyway, my thanks to the Sylvan Lake Municipal Library for inviting me out to read and for being such awesome hosts.