All Eyes on Me

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.

This needs a lot of refining, but I'm rushing to make the deadline. Was especially tricky because technically I've drafted a version of this scene before, a long time ago, but I basically threw all of it out because my conception of it shifted so much as I developed the story to this point. But at least it means it counts as a new scene under the rules of the challenge I've set for myself, as I did not refer back to the old draft.


Photo by Jacob La Rocca

( Day #29 - Not Prepared )

Fighting to catch up because I’m so behind. But this is from Mrs. Hawking 8 again, some time after #25 - “Tweenies” when Beatrice is undercover. The logic as to how the scene fits into the larger structure is still a bit off, but again, good raw material. A little something to raise the stakes of the case.



( Day #27 - Lord Love a Duck )

Argh, I've fallen behind again. Bernie and I went home this past weekend to help my dad around the house, packing up stuff, moving furniture, since he's planning on eventually downsizing. We ended up moving the beautiful library shelves and books up to our place yesterday, which while welcome, was not initially part of the plan! I'm happy since I wanted them for ages, but it meant I didn't have time to write my daily scenes.

So here's my effort to catch back up. This scene immediately follows #22 - "Just Powder" and is an effort to include the idea that since Mrs. Hawking accepted the physical end of her detective career in In the Bones, she's fallen into a bit of a depression. She's not been doing much work, and spends a lot of time hiding feeling sorry for herself. The events of this play will make her confront that and decide how she wants to move forward. I may need to change the specifics of the previous part of the scene to make that totally compatible with this, but I really like exploring this direction.

Also, I get to use the fabulous Victorian phrase "got the morbs".


Photo by Mark Edwards

( Day #24 - “Got the Morbs” )

Blargh, I'm a little behind. But I should be able to catch up today. Anyway, this is an early scene of Mrs. Hawking 8, where Clara approaches Mary upon her return to London, asking her to take on a case for a family she knows. I'm also trying to use the early part of the scene to subtly establish some things on Clara's mind early on, but no so obviously that it tips my hand as to where her story is going. Right now I'm not sure if I achieved that, so this scene is a little weak. Not to mention the fact that we still need to figure out a lot of the details of the case, which is always one of the hardest parts of writing a Hawking play.

This also kind of runs into the problem of Tory being about fives years old at this point. Wrangling a child onstage, particularly one so small, is no small order. But maybe this scene could work because we could make a little lump in the bed to believably represent a little girl.


Photo by Mazz Mazzacano

( Day #18 - One Mother to Another )

This continues directly where yesterday's #12 - “Scrubbing” left off. I feel like there is something to this interaction, but this version is too cursory and moves too quickly over the ideas. But I’m confident that with some editing, this could be a really meaningful moment.

I really like the idea that Mary is graduating into the mentor position after the whole big journey she's been on.


Photos by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #13 - A Fair Word )

Okay, this is pretty bare bones, but there’s a germ of a good idea in here. In Hawking 8, Nathaniel and Clara’s daughter Beatrice’s involvement in Mrs. Hawking’s work is going to be further explored. I like the idea of looking into what her integration into the team looks like, and how that affects Mrs. Hawking and Mary dealing with one another again after their four-year separation. It will also add a lot of grist to Clara’s story, as she navigates her feelings about Beatrice’s path.

This will need a lot of refining and expansion. I still don’t know the details of the case or how it will work. But there’s something I can work with banged out here.


Photo by Mark Edwards

( Day #8 - Hall Girl )

And we’re off! Starting things off with some noodling on an early scene for Mrs. Hawking part 8. As I mentioned yesterday, I don’t have that show as fully outlined as I usually like when I start drafting, but we have a fair number of elements we’re trying to piece together. I want to use 31P31D ‘24 to make actual progress, so I’m using the drafting process to figure some of this stuff out. The below is a bit bare bones, but getting the bones is my primary goal at this stage.

We do know that in this show, Mary and Arthur are drawn back to London for his job; right now I’m setting it in 1892, meaning they spent four years away. That means a major part will be Mary and Mrs. Hawking confronting where they left their relationship, what they’re going to do about it, and if there’s any possibility of rebuilding it. That will be the major thread, though there are a number of other things to negotiate, such as a case for them to work on… and what to do about the fact that they’ve got like a three year old by now.

Will figure that out later. But full credit to Christian Krenek for the last bit in here.


Photo by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #1 - Welcome Home )

This is a very rough, quickly banged out scene from an idea I had for possible use in Hawking part 7. It occurred to me that Beatrice Hawking, Clara and Nathaniel's older child, will be 13 years old, which may be old enough to finally depict. It might be interesting in part 7 to include her as a character, growing increasingly interested in Mrs. Hawking's detective work. I also thought it could be a good challenge for Clara to have to confront feelings she's having about her daughter being drawn to Auntie's unconventional world, as opposed to the more typical genteel existence she imagined for her. I think it could be really compelling if hammered out right.

Finally caught up again.



( Day #26 - Her Own )