Monday, October 24, 2011

New Work in Progress!


For the first time in a VERY long time, I am writing something totally new! It's an idea I toyed around with for a follow up to Rivers Underneath, but I could never get it moving. When it occurred to me to try it as a totally separate story, it immediately fell into place. With a day, I had a main character, three supporting characters, a love interest and a rough plot outline. I know her conflict, I know her stakes, I know where her story begins and where it end. I even have a title (or at least part of a title...)

I, like a lot of creative kids in high school, was a drama geek. Not on the stage, but behind the scenes. I even wrote a one act that was produced at the local community college. I still love theatre culture, especially theatre myths. Like the one about the scottish play. Even during a production of MacBeth, it is bad luck to say that word until opening night. Punishment for uttering the name of the scottish play range from running laps around the house to elaborately worded pleas for mercy from the theatre gods.

My favorite myth is the ghostlight. Theatres should never be left dark. It invites ghosts. So a single light is left on the stage, known within the theatre as the ghostlight. So what happens when the stage goes dark? When theatres are abandoned? Oh, the creepy, beautiful possibilities!

I'm thrilled to have a new idea after almost three years of editing - and I have a feeling that this new enthusiasm will infuse my editing with new blood too. Now if only my little guy will start napping again, I have a story to write...

4 comments:

  1. I was a drama geek too! I never heard about the ghost light (though maybe that was why the theatre I did a lot of productions in was haunted), or the "Scottish Play", but I love it. I was more of a musical theatre girl than a Shakespeare one. Don't you find a lot of crossover between theatre and writing- like blocking, characterization, character sketches...

    Is this new WIP a ghost story? Can't wait to hear more about it :)

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  2. Yay! I loved drama but didn't like my teacher so I stopped. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. @ Kaleen - it certainly has some ghostly elements! There is a lot of crossover - I still think in acts! Unfortunately, I also picked up some bad habits from script writing. For example, my script writing profs always taught me that if it's not in dialogue it doesn't exist. Any director will scratch out your stage directions and make up his or her own. Now I'm terrible at writing "beats" between dialogue lines!

    @ Ladonna - I dropped an art minor in college because of a bad professor. Good teachers make all the difference, don't they?

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  4. Yes, they do. I love the stage by the way.

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