State of my writing, summer 2020

Despite having some depression flare ups, I’ve been making good use of my time spent mostly alone in my house. I’ve been making a point of working out, reading, and drawing every day. And I’ve been doing a lot of writing, making good progress on a lot of projects. I’ve taken on an ambitious slate, but it’s worth it to me to make the most of this time.

I’ve been turning to staged readings of scripts over Zoom to have both some performance going on, as well as a fun social outlet. My new project geared specifically for this has been Dream Machine, a half-hour sitcom about the team making a TV show of which I’ve already done two episodes. I’m currently close to having the script for episode three done, and I find knowing I’ve got the reading on the books is motivating and helps me stay positive.

I also wrote a new TV pilot in hopes of shopping it around to literary managers. The title is currently “From Dust” and it uses the legend of the golem to tell a story about artificial intelligence, with two detectives solving a murder mystery as they deal with issues of control and autonomy in their personal lives. While I was unfortunately not able to cook a large meal for the people kind enough to read it and give me feedback, those lovely folks were willing to get on Zoom to go over it, for which I’m incredibly grateful. It came out pretty good, though it still needs a little fixing up before we’ll be sending it along. Still, it wasn’t bad for a serious project we got together in basically six weeks.

In the collaboration department, I am working with Jeremy Holstein on an audio adaptation of a Jeeves and Wooster story, Pearls Mean Tears. I'm a big Wodehouse fan and I've always wanted to do something with Jeeves and Wooster, so I'm very excited he invited me. I love the way they talk in those stories, so I'm looking forward to capturing it. 

And of course, since it is summer, that means it’s time to work on the next Mrs. Hawking project. Usually we rehearse the new Hawking show through the fall to perform in the winter at Arisia, but with coronavirus in person theater may be put off for a long time yet. Still, I don’t want to be caught unprepared if it does turn out to be possible— and even if not, I don’t want to let Mrs. Hawking fade from consciousness by not having any kind of presentation. To that end, we’re trying to plan the most polished way to do a socially distanced performance, and to have a script ready to do that with.

We’re not very far in the process, which means we’re a bit late. But it occurred to us that instead of going straight to Mrs. Hawking part 7, continuing our main storyline, perhaps the likely unusual presentation circumstances mean it would be a better idea to do a spinoff idea. Specifically, this might be the time to break out the light, funny idea we have for a romantic door-slamming comedy starring Justin Hawking. I’ve missed that character for a long time. It would matter less if it were not done onstage, and its comedic nature might be welcome at this kind of dark and dour point. We’ve got to decide fast, so we can get on it.

It’s a lot. But the creativity is helping keep me together. And making these things means a lot to me.