[podcast title=”This is a thing: 22 June 2015″]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thisisathing/thing-06-22-2015.mp3[/podcast]
Shiny thing part 2. So, it happened. I said I was only going to have three projects on the go, but I started a fourth this weekend. Its like I’m cheating on my other writing projects.
[podcast title=”This is a thing: 17 June 2015″]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thisisathing/thing-06-17-2015.mp3[/podcast]
Episode 4: That shiny new thing. I usually have 2 or 3 writing projets on the go at any one time. That’s how I procrastinate. One gets difficult to write and so I move on to the next. I’m not sure if this is a good thing to do or a bad thing.
An experiment in podcasting. I’m walking to work, and during the walk, I record a podcast episode. This is the first episode.
Episode 1: Let’s talk about writing, specifically, my writing. And let’s talk about a play I wrote called The Parliamentarians.
[podcast title=”This is a thing: June 9 2015″]http://traffic.libsyn.com/thisisathing/Thing-06-09-2015.mp3[/podcast]
Note: the podcast isn’t on itunes yet. I hear that its a good idea to have three published episodes before submitting to itunes, so I’m going to do that. I’ll let you know when its available on itunes. In case, you know, you wanted to subscribe to listen to my rambling.
There’s this moment. It happens when I’m writing, and it happens when I’m getting close to the end of a story, when I can feel the story is closer to the end than to the beginning. In the time leading up to this point, I have started out with the enthusiasm that comes from working on a new story, to slogging through the middle, and then when I get to the middle, it happens: I’m rushing. After the slog, I just want to be finished. I wanted to stop, to just be done. But there’s a story to tell and I need to tell the story. But the slog is miserable, and its when I hate writing. Its like Dorothy Parker said: I hate writing, I love having written. That feeling when the work is finished is like nothing else. So of course, it makes sense that when I start to get a sense of being near the end, I start to race towards it.
I justify this racing to myself. Its just a first draft. I’ll fix it in the next draft. Both of these are true statements, but in the end, I’ll know that I didn’t really finish. The story wasn’t completely told, and I cheated myself out of the actual ending. And I won’t be as satisfied as I would be had I slowed down and actually finished.
So, I’m learning to take a deep breath and slow down. Its not easy, but I think its important for me to learn.
Anyone else have find themselves rushing when they get to the end? How do you keep yourself from doing it?
When we left off, the character of Vera had been introduced, and her culminative monologue was deemed not right for the character. So, I went back to it, trying to find the best way to make Vera understood. Which is what I believed she needed. And so, I set about outlining the history of her relationship with Ruben. And so, that’s what I laid out in her monologue.
Now to lead in, Lola says: “what gives her the right to be such a miserable bitch? She just waltzes in here, insults everybody and then waltzes out and we’re just supposed to let her?”
Vera tells her:Â “You think that I am a heartless bitch, who always gets what I want. You think I’m unfair in the way that I speak to my husband, that I am dismissive and unfairly cruel to him. And yet, you know so very little of him. Perhaps if you knew what I know, you would see things differently.
“Look at him. Look at this man who you are so concerned about. What do you know of him? Would it surprise you to know that he is singularly self interested, with adolescent tendencies? That he is unreliable, and emotionally immature? I suppose none of those things would surprise anyone here.
“And how did a man like this become Prime Minister? Or even leader of a party? Simple. Family connections. My father was Nelson MacDonald, and was very influential in the party. Outside the Conservative party, there are few who have even heard of him. Some might have called him a king maker, and that wasn’t entirely an incorrect description. Ruben’s family was well known. Everyone knows the Holloway name. His family gave generous donations to museums and art galleries and opera companies. Gerald Holloway, Ruben’s father was a good friend of my father’s and was appropriately well regarded in conservative party circles. It was they who first thought that Ruben and I might be a good match.
“I was against it, of course, on principle. I accused my father of living in the dark ages, and refused to even consider it. And then I met Ruben. He was very charming. And he was uncomplicated. I saw so much potential in him. Since that time, I have wondered if these were things that I saw in him myself, or if they were things I saw because my father wanted me to see them. Both our fathers wanted so desperately for them to be true.
“And the way was made clear for him by our fathers. Leadership of the party was practically handed to him. But did he take it seriously? No. Did he hunker down and plan his way to Prime Minister. No, because he had people do that for him. He could be completely disinterested in it, and still it would happen. Because my father found good people to work for him. Competent people. People who could make things happen.
“And yet, was Ruben interested? No. He stayed out at all hours, claiming that he was working. I suspected that he was having an affair, but that relieved me more than anything, since I had long since tired of having him in my bed, and as long as he was discrete about the whole thing, and didn’t embarrass me, I could live with it. But I still believed that if he became Prime Minister, he might live up to the potential that our fathers saw in him, that I saw in him.
“But he didn’t. He squandered that too. And when his infidelity was revealed, when he was exposed with you in all the papers, when my shame was made public, when I was humiliated like that in all the papers, I finally realized that this man would never be anything other than he was. A clown, a fool, a bumbler. A bore. Yes, he bores me. And that is something I can never forgive.”
So, what’s wrong with this speech? I didn’t notice what was wrong, until I heard it read out loud. That’s when I heard that it was almost entirely expository. All exposition with nothing about the character in it (also, she says “hunker down” which really sounded completely wrong when spoken in her voice).  There are things in the speech that taught me a lot about Vera’s history, but very little about her. I think the most important thing was that last line: “Yes, he bores me. And that is something I can never forgive.” That became a key piece of information for Vera on examining the monologue. Her need to be around interesting people. That being bored is the worst thing you can do to her, the crime she cannot forgive, which is an interesting thought, considering her husband’s infidelity. Does that mean that she can forgive that, but not being bored by him? An interesting thought.