All Eyes on Me

For the fifteenth year in a row, I have completed the 31 Plays in 31 Days challenge, where I write a scene of drama for every day of the month of August.

This was certainly a rough one, kids— possibly the roughest one in recent memory. While I try to write pretty consistently, I get in periods where my head is more into it and less into it. These last several weeks I’ve been much more interested in making things with my hands, like knitting a shawl or making a new custom doll. I also yet again managed to forget that August was coming up, so didn’t do any planning or prep that might have made the challenge easier, and frankly more useful. So I really felt like I was dragging myself through this time, and I’m afraid my quality kind of matched.

My biggest disappointment is with what I wrote for Skin Deep, my feminist aging horror screenplay idea. I would really have liked to fix/finish it up this month. But I just couldn’t get my head into it, and never felt like I could spend the time structuring out the plot, which meant drafting new scenes was just too hard. And I feel like I didn’t really execute on the ideas of the few scenes I did feel able to write. I’m annoyed with myself, since I think this could be a really good piece if I can actually make it work. But everything just came out either too obvious or not hard-hitting enough.

The thing I’m most pleased with is the progress I made on adapting the Wodehouse story The Purity of the Turf. It’s something I’d been thinking a far bit about but hadn’t actually done much drafting for, so it proved to be a good direction for the challenge. It’s an adaptation, but it requires a fair bit of restructuring, so the fact that I was able to figure out how to reconceive of the story while also coming up with some good jokes. That one was fun, because I enjoyed imagining Richie and Alex reprising their roles as Bertie and Jeeves. I always find it inspiring when I can hear the actors in my head.

( Here are the characters I wrote about this time: )

( And here are the projects I worked on: )

These spreads of numbers are pretty usual for me. I maxed out at five characters in a scene, which isn’t extreme, but I did have more five-plus scenes than I usually do. I also notice that is the first year ever I didn’t write any scenes for Mrs. Hawking. I have the mainline series completely written at this point, so there’s currently no press, but I do plan on dabbling in the world further at some point. So that’s a bit of a strange feeling.

Favorite scenes? That’s a bit tough, since I don’t think my output this year was fabulous. I liked many of the IDEAS in the Skin Deep scenes, such as #27 - Mother Wound and #17 - Nothing Else to You, but I was disappointed with my execution of them. Similarly with some of the Lacuna scenes, like #23 - Discord.

As I said, I think my Purity of the Turf stuff was my best work, so I’m pretty happy with #8 - Operational Security and #9 - A Beautiful Egg. But I think my very favorite was #14 - Unprepossessing Ovoid, as I managed to nail both the structure and the humor. I actually think The King’s Ankus adaptation was coming out nicely, but I felt weirdly guilty because it didn’t need a lot of restructuring work, so it kind of felt like cheating.

Favorite lines? Again, don’t think I dropped a lot of bangers this time around. But I got a few funny ones in Purity. “I shall tell you what I told Lord Kitchener— just doing my duty, sir,” from #14 - Unprepossessing Ovoid. The title line of #9 - A Beautiful Egg, plus “There is still the looming threat of Mrs. Goodthrift, whom rumor asserts packs her gloves with pie weights.” I wish I could take credit for “I spoke to them in the dark, and then they lay still,” from #30 - Dried Up, but that’s Kipling’s art, not mine.

So, there it is. The challenge served it purpose in that it got me to draft, to make progress on projects that I wouldn’t have otherwise made. I am reflexively a bit disappointed in myself that the quality of my work wasn’t better, but as I am continually reminding myself, it’s all part of the process. Once it exists, it can be fixed, and that’s the first step on the path to making something good.

Still wish my focus hadn’t been so shot, though. :-P

More of "The King's Ankus"! Thank God I felt like doing this, or else I'd never have managed to catch up.

This picks up immediately after the previous scene, #29 - The White Hood. It contains (*Ren Hoek voice*) SNAKE MADNESS.

( Day #30 - Dried Up )

Okay, the origin of this one is odd!

The other night, I was reading something that I thought was going in the direction of where an object is considered cursed because its value makes people keep killing each other in order to steal it from each other. It didn't end up going that way, but it reminded me of my favorite story in that vein, Rudyard Kipling's "The King's Ankus." This is a great, haunting little story that makes up a later part of The Jungle Book. So today I found myself reading it, and when Bernie asked me what I was doing, I ended up reading it aloud to him. It's a really good story, beautifully written in Kiping's unique poetical voice, and it struck me that since I desperately need to fill out this challenge, it might work well as an audio adaptation.

So, what the hell! Here's a stab at radio-ifying "The King's Ankus!"

( Day #28 - Shed Skin )

Really need to buckle down if I'm going to finish by the end of the month. Here's a bit of Skin Deep that occurs sometimes after #17 - Nothing Else to You when Allie figures out what's going on with Juliana and resolves to look into exposing Resurgemus.

( Day #26 - Nobody Knows Anything )

Damn, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I wrote a Text from Avengers Tower. It's far and away the most read thing I've ever written, so I was quite into it for a while. I might push on a few more, since they tend to be quick and cute, and I still need to catch the hell up before the month ends.

This one comes from Thunderbolts*, and was inspired by a joke made at dinner with Naomi and Pieter.

( Day #24 - Family Game Night )

Another Little Monsters idea, though not a very good one. I'm also not sure how I'd shoot it, as it would require a fair bit in the way of "special effects." But it's something as I'm trying to catch up.

( Day #22 - Not For the Eyes of Man )

Ugghhhhhh, I am SO behind. Many days behind. A combination of family obligations and health issue relapse killed my productivity for the last several days... almost a week. UGH. I have had a hard enough time writing during this year's challenge so far; catching back up is going to be a nightmare.

Whatever. Suck it up and work, buttercup. Here's another scene from Lacuna. Don't like it, don't think it does enough, but whatever. GOT TO WRITE.

( Day #20 - Found )

A bit of connective logical tissue for "The Purity of the Turf." It falls between #14 - Unprepossessing Ovoid and #12 - Nobbling. This sort of thing is always awkward to draft, because it has to be functional for the plot, but also you have to find some way to make it interesting, and in this case, funny.

ALSO I LOVE THE NAME "STEGGLES" AND WANT TO MAKE PEOPLE SAY IT A LOT. One of the great pleasures of being a writer is choosing hilarious names for your characters and making your actors say them out loud.

( Day #18 - Collecting Donations )

NOT FEELING IT, BLEH. But here's some more Jeeves and Wooster mess, following #15 - "Choirboy". WILL FIX LATER. FOR NOW, POST.

( Day #16 - Mustard Gas )

Okay, I confess I kind of like this one. Another for the Jeeves and Wooster adaptation "The Purity of the Turf", immediately following #9 - A Beautiful Egg. I feel like this one makes functional, structural sense as well as being actually funny.

It's nice to feel like a scene actually came out okay for once this month.

( Day #14 - Unprepossessing Ovoid )