31 Plays in 31 Days, #8 - "Mrs. Nathaniel Hawking"

I am drafting away on Mrs. Hawking part V: Mrs. Frost, trying to make progress. To be honest, I am very much not happy with this first draft so far. I don't feel like I'm really conveying what I want to convey and it's troubling. I am trying not to stress about it, as I very much believe that the first step is just to get some garbage on the page, because you can fix what writing exists, and your only initial drafting goal is to have a technically complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. Still, I can't shake the feeling that last year's piece, Gilded Cages, was stronger at this early stage (that is, about three-quarters of the way drafted) than Mrs. Frost is now.

Bernie tells me I say that every single time— that last year when I was writing Gilded Cages I was complaining about how weak it was even for a version one, that the previous piece Base Instruments had come out much better in the initial draft, and that I basically hate everything I write when it isn't coming out perfectly the first try. He's probably right, although it doesn't help me feel any differently.

Still, it does mean I need to put my money where my mouth is and practice what I preach. I teach all my students that getting some technically finished garbage on the page is the first step to making it good, and just because it's garbage then doesn't mean it can't be fixed up into something great. I need to truly embrace that if I'm going to get the piece I want out of this.

All this is to say I have a lot of scenes of Frost that I'm not happy about. Like this one. It has a cool idea— Clara beginning to execute her part of the plan — but it just comes across with a vagueness that I don't like. It may TECHNICALLY fill the brief of what it needs to function as narratively... but it's missing something.



Ah, well. These are explicitly first drafts. That's what the edit is for. I do like the idea behind the bit at the end, though.

( Day #8 - Mrs. Nathaniel Hawking )