To Tell A Story

I've been feeling in a reflective mood the past few days. I decided to write a letter to a friend reminiscing about a nice event last fall. It was going to be about a one page letter — in fact, I thought I might handwrite the final draft (I'm convinced handwritten notes are still preferable to typed in many respects). Well, that ain't happ'n. I said I was in a reflective mood, right? Well, I was really in that mood — the one page letter turned into a five an a half single-spaced page story (4,100 words). As is my usual mode of editing, each attempt to pare it down makes it longer. At times, my words can be like Tribbles (good thing I'm not a Klingon).

In other words, I'm wordy. Very wordy. It is at times like these, I wonder how I ever manage to meet the 600 word requirements for an op-ed… It is also at times like these I wonder if maybe I really should get into politics. Seriously, I have been known to win a debate solely on the fact that I can keep churning out words until everyone has grown tired of debating with me (of course, I'm right, which helps).

It is (Almost) Finished

Well, it has taken far more time than I originally planned to spend on it (especially since I have work to do), but for a combination of reasons, I pressed ahead and have pretty much finished my play, now christened Deafening Silence. The play itself weighs in at five acts spanning 23 pages, not counting the preface or post-play analysis pieces I've been working on. It isn't perfect, but it turned out better than I expected.

The big question is what to do with it now that it is mostly finished. And, I cannot say I'm exactly sure. I can say this much: I plan to give a nicely printed copy to the person to whom it is dedicated and that may be as far as Deafening Silence goes for now.

I'd still be more than happy to gain some more “beta testers” for the script, should anyone have failed to comment in my last post on the subject but is still interested.

Byte Wasting Project

I've been working on a small project over the summer moths: creating a tragedy (as in a play, not trying to cause something bad to happen). Whether it will fulfill the Shakespearian-Jonsonian-Senecan five act mold is still up in the air, but it does follow Aristotle's guidelines for tragedy fairly closely. I don't expect that Aristotle will put my play in place of Oedipus Rex in the next edition of Poetics, but at least it wouldn't risk becoming an example of a non-unified, episodic plot lacking catharsis, hopefully.

I have not decided what to do with the play yet, perhaps it'll just rot in my bit bucket, but in the mean time, I thought I'd see if anyone would be interested in taking a look at a draft of it. There are much better things you can do with your time, but if you're a glutton for punishment, let me know. Depending on how Melpomene assists, it may be done later this week, or it may be a few more weeks before I get it to you.