Reflections on 31 Plays in 31 Days 2024

[breakinglight11]

I am quite late with this, but as I have been absolutely slammed for the last two months, it’s been something of a theme for the whole challenge. Still, I wanted to make sure I do as I always do, and give an assessment of what I made over the course of the month’s writing.

This year’s challenge was easy in some ways and hard in others. I’ve consistently found the process most useful and productive when I had a project to work on, and so I used much of it for drafting pieces for Mrs. Hawking part 8, which Bernie and I have recently dug into. I made a fair bit of progress, though we still have enough questions about how it’s going to work that I expect the scenes I generated to need a ton of editing. Still, I’m happy for the forward movement on the project. I also returned to Dream Machine, which I haven’t touched in a while, and did a few more new Little Monsters and Texts from Avengers Towers bits, so there was a noticeable focus on comedy. Didn’t write as much other fanfic as I expected, or more than one or two bits of anything else.

I am disappointed to report, however, that for the first time in thirteen years, I failed to finish all thirty-one pieces before the end of the month. I’ve been dealing with some focus issues for a while now, but the real problem is the last handful of months have been totally slammed. Between work, chores, and family obligations involving travel, I lost a ton of time that led to me falling behind. I know it doesn’t really matter— this is a challenge I’ve arbitrarily set for myself, with rules that only I care about, and I ended up doing the same amount of writing in the end that I always do. But I feel kind of bad that my perfect streak of all that time is a little tarnished.

As I was drafting it, I felt like my quality varied a lot. I remember being very frustrated with some pieces, while others came very easily. Looking back through what I wrote with a few weeks’ distance, however, I’m actually pretty pleased with the general level of these pieces. The character voices seem on point, the jokes are strong where there are jokes, and I managed to give some meaningful character motion in the vast majority of the scenes. That’s actually not half bad, even though I know everything will need a lot of editing, both stylistic and functional. I really do strongly believe that you need to just get SOMETHING on the page, no matter how bad, as the first step to making something good.

The breakdown of projects I wrote for:

Hawking part 8 - 14
Texts from Avengers Tower - 3
Dream Machine - 4
Little Monsters - 6
Gentlemen Never Tell 2 - 1
Forever Captain - 1
Witchy - 1

And the breakdown of characters I wrote for:

1. Nathaniel Hawking - 9
2. Beatrice Hawking - 8
3. Clara Hawking - 7
4. Victoria Hawking - 6
5. Mary Stone - 6
6. Leah Lucchesi - 4
7. Twyla Boogieman - 3
8. Draculaura - 3
9. Venus McFlytrap - 3
10. Frankie Stein - 3
11. Ghoulia Yelps - 3
12. Heath Burns - 2
13. Josie Carraway - 2
14. Meryl Dresden - 2
15. Derek Kaplan - 2
16. Joanna Kerrigan - 2
17. Spectra Vondergeist - 2
18. Clawdeen Wolf - 2
19. Bucky Barnes - 1
20. Meredith Barry - 1
21. Clint Barton - 1
22. Lagoona Blue - 1
23. Abbey Bominable - 1
24. Peggy Carter - 1
25. Devon Chambers - 1
26. Zach Barry - 1
27. Cleo de Nile - 1
28. Ryan Dresden - 1
29. Gwen Galway - 1
30. Justin Hawking - 1
31. Reggie Hawking - 1
32. Logan - 1
33. Megan May - 1
34. Catty Noir - 1
35. Nate Reyes - 1
36. Barbie Roberts - 1
37. Steve Rogers - 1
38. Thor - 1
39. Toralei Stripe - 1
40. Arthur Swann - 1
41. Sam Wilson - 1
42. Wade Wilson - 1

Forty-two characters is a fairly large number, even for me. Last year I only wrote for thirty-six, thirty-seven the year before, and thirty-four the year before that. I averaged about three characters a scene, though most of them only had two while the largest maxed out at seven. I’ve always found it tougher to manage larger-cast scenes, so I’m surprised at how many there were this year to skew the average.

Favorite scenes? I thought I did pretty well this year, so I liked a lot. I enjoyed writing for Beatrice Hawking, with her enthusiasm for learning undercover work and managing her privileged background, such as in #23 - Just Powder and #25 - Tweenies.

#23 - Culture Not Costumes is a really funny Little Monsters bit, as is #19 - Relatable. I was also glad I was able to work out #14 - Special Ability, since I was chipping at that joke for most of the month. I’m fond of #26 - Two Sets of Tentacles if only because it’s a serious contender for weirdest thing I’ve ever written.

I also ended up really liking #31 - Derek in Hell, since it’s one of those scenes that I didn’t know where it was going to go until I wrote it. In fact, the only scene I don’t really like is #30 - In Murder’s Path, which doesn’t add anything to its larger piece and was the first of the two scenes I had to write past the end of the month.

Favorite lines? Lagoona’s weird, weird mini-monologue in #26 - Two Sets of Tentacles. Beatrice’s too-enthusiastic recitation of her melodramatic invented backstory in #25 - Tweenies. Nathaniel’s titular line in #24 - Got the Morbs. There’s some cute back and forth between Justin and Reggie in #17 - Let Me Tell You.

So, yeah, a lot of good came out of the exercise this month. Even if I was a little late getting it all done.