So I finally finished the rewrite of the play and e-mailed it to the director early this morning. Let me tell you, there is no better feeling than getting to the point where it is all just touching up and light editing. It allows a deep cleansing breath.

Aaahhh….

The director has already gotten back to me with what I’ll call minor details. I call them minor because they should take no more than a few minutes to fix. No big deal. Our only concern is to make it a bit longer. At 48 pages, it will run less than an hour and ideally we’d like it to be over an hour somewhat so that the audience feels that they’ve gotten their money’s worth.

Pretty sure the screenwriter whose work this is based on isn’t going to like it at all. Not with the major changes I’ve done to it. And as much as I would like to keep as much of his stuff as I can (and did), this new version has a more complete story arc. This is good for the play, not good for the ego.

I’m also glad this is almost in the bag because I have reached out to a friend of mine to collaborate on a project. Can’t give any details yet, but judging from her response to my query, this could very well be a really cool thing.

I’m meeting with her on Wednesday so I might have details then.

100 words updated.

Will post something more interesting in a day or so. I have to do more work on the play.

It’s Saturday. So that means that 100 words has been updated.

Enjoy.

The director of the play and I had a lunch meeting yesterday. (Well, Monday, actually.) It was really productive. Since we have been given carte blanche, we’re making a shitload of changes to the play. Combining characters, getting rid of characters, story changes; we’re going all out.

Will the producer and actual writer be happy? Highly doubtful. In fact, they’re probably gonna hate it. Well, the producer might like the idea of less characters because it’ll save him money. But the writer, he’s not gonna like it at all. He doesn’t understand that there has to be a story arc. His writing sounded too much like a bunch of guys hanging out in a bar, not a complete story. What the director and I came up with is a complete story. With surprises and a couple of twists.

Should be an interesting script when all is said and done.

In other news….

I think I’m going to start work on another graphic novel. Have the first few pages in my head and I need to get them down before I forget them. It’s gonna be different from Uke´ in that it’s not going to be about a superhero. Or even in manga style. This will be a darker storyline. More dealing with the underbelly of society perhaps. Not exactly sure which way I’m gonna head with it yet, but dark it will be.

What I’ve noticed from working with Sara*, or to be more precise, looking at all of the sites for the conventions she’s a part of, and on the panels they have either artist or writer/artist. There aren’t many, if any, just plain writers. At all. I understand that it’s the art that makes the story graphic, and the better the art the better the book. Sara* has a convention later this month and under photo on the website it says that she is the artist of a particular story. The writer is not listed on the page at all.

Just a curious little tidbit I’ve noticed….

*names have been changed so that they can’t be googled.

New 100 words up.

Just found out that the director of the play and I have full creative control over the play adaptation. This means we can actually have a plot, some conflict, and a resolution.

We are going to meet up soon and to take the script apart line by line and build it back up.

This is going to be fun. And long. Though we don’t have much time to do it. We’re going to have to have it done within, I going to say, the next two weeks, tops, so that we can stay on schedule to have the play up in September.

Let the chaos unfold….

Good news about the table reading; I didn’t get whacked. It looked like a bunch of good fellas when we were hanging outside of the office. With the loud voices and cursing, I swear I as in Little Italy in the 70s.

The reading itself, not so good. But at least we got an idea of what works and what doesn’t. A lot of the dialogue isn’t flowing. It seems to get jumbled in the mouths of the readers. And, as I’ve said many times, too many repetitions of lines and ideas.

Before the reading, the producer said to me that he finally read the ‘revised script’ and it needs work. I told him that I left the script as it was from the last time the writer sent it to me. He then told me that he is going to give the director and me more control over the story and script. This is what we’ve been waiting to hear since this little thing started. And he’s going to keep the writer out of it as much as possible. So the plan is for the director and me to go line by line, tearing the script down and building it back up. Hopefully, if we get it right, we’ll have a really good script to work from.

And we need a finalized version soon because the play is supposed to go up in three months. Otherwise, we can fuhgeddaboudit.