Forbidden Phoenix
My hands are shaking and my eyes are burning. I've been at the computer since early this morning hammering out the revisions to the second act of The Forbidden Phoenix... but it's done! I have something that is flowing really well. I'm going to take the rest of the day off and then take a good hard look at the revisions tomorrow to make sure I have the general shape of the story. It's pretty heart-rending now. I'm feeling pretty drained from the conflict between Laosan and Malau. Father-son stuff. I think the play is there. I just need to figure out there's a place to adjust dialogue into songs, but I leave that task for tomorrow when my brain is working a bit better.
What a relief this is. The workshop is about a month away, but I needed to know that I had something that was workable. I'm feeling good. There's still more work to do, but when the general structure is intact, it's way easier to revise scenes and add layers to characters than it is to have to rebuild a structure from scratch. The problem with the previous draft was that the focus shifted too much from Malau to Laosan. It was like two different plays competing with each other. Now the second act is cut down from 7 scenes to 4 and that's a good sign. Less complicated and more direct is what the play needed. Yay! Now I can celebrate Chinese New Years without a guilty conscience. I'm gorging on egg tarts and marinated squid tonight and then it's a family feast tomorrow. Phew! Signing off to celebrate.