I've got those Second Draft Rewrite Blues

Sigh. It's been over three months since I had the reading of my play. It was the first draft; the reading was purely for the purpose of helping point out things that need to be fixed. And believe me there are plenty. But happily (very VERY happily) it's structurally sound. The basic plot framework is in good shape. The story as a whole works. The characters are basically sound.

The actors gave me lots of great feedback. They even found things in the characters I didn't know was there. How cool is that! That's what I love about theater. It's alive, it really is. You create these (hopefully) fully-formed characters and set them loose in a world and there's no telling what they'll do. They can surprise you. Seriously! There are times when I've tried to make a character do something and they absolutely did not want to. They'd resist and resist and I'd finally have to give up. Often I feel like I'm just following them around, eavesdropping. But anyway...

I've got my first draft. I've got lots and lots of notes. And I haven't been able to get started. Part of it has just been me digesting it. Letting it percolate. But then of course there's the whole thing of how overwhelming and daunting it is when I think about how much work there is to do. It took me five years to wrestle this thing to the page the first time around! I don't think it will take me nearly that long for this go-round. But even so, I look at it and I kind of, well, deflate. I know once I get started, how I look at it will change. (see my previous post about writing)

But then there's this goddam working for a living thing! When o when will the government realize it needs to subsidize its artists? Plenty of youse know exactly what I'm talking about. But in the meanwhile, we are forced to put our primary purpose on the back burner and spend all those precious hours at some other labor. And what is the result? The result it....

I've got those Second Draft Rewrite Blues!!!!!!!