Shifting gears between the play and the novel. Getting a better grasp of what needs to be cut – and where – from the YA fiction. Still taking a step back on that one. If I get sucked in, I’ll just start writing scene after scene after scene. The imagination has no end, as long as I am still alive. But the novel has to have an end. And less of a beginning and middle right now, too. So I am equal parts writing and deleting. I’ll brainstorm 1000 words, then stop. “Do I really need this?” I ask myself. Then I delete 300 of them and work the piece in with the main document. Then I delete another 3000 words of the stuff I wrote last spring. Then I sigh and vow to learn my lesson: RESEARCH THE STANDARDS AND FORMATS OF THE BUSINESS, *BEFORE* YOU FINISH THE FIRST DRAFT. 90,000 words or less, dummy!
But I guess when you’ve never completed a novel before, how do you know if you’re even capable of it? Is it really worth sinking $250 into a Writing Pad workshop to find out about a business you may not want to be in? Just like all that sheet music I bought in college when I thought I might work in musical theater? Which I use absolutely zero of today? I guess it really depends on if you have the $250 to spare. My day jobs have supported absolutely all of my artistic endeavors. Don’t think you’re going to be an artist, kids, unless you already have a degree in something else.
On the playwrighting front, I am back to the development side of it. No word count to work towards there. I had a great research interview with a Investment Capitalist guy last week who gave me some great language insights. I am about to whip out some “follow-on investments” to add to my “fund of funds” as we due our “deep diligence” about “customer traction” and “package a strategy” to entice “value add investors” to buy in and feed our goal of becoming a “unicorn.” Oh yeah, my main character is about to get a vocabulary make-over.
Trying to get an interview with a neurobiologist, too, to fill out the speech pattern of the secondary character. Of course, since the play is set in the future, a lot of the technology the neurobiologist will describe doesn’t actually exist (yet). But I should start with something real and blend in the imaginary bits.
L.A. Kuemmel 