All Eyes on Me

This brings us to the end of yet another 31 Plays in 31 Days. That makes twelve years I’ve done this, 2012 to 2023. Despite it feeling variably useful to my creative process in recent years, I always feel satisfied having done it, and very much enjoy looking over the stuff I made each year. It turned out to be pretty useful this time around, as it often does when I have a planned project I need to complete.

I was not in a great headspace for much of this August. I’d been feeling foggy and depressed for most of it. While I was still able to do creative work, and even some good stuff if I may say so myself, I felt completely incapable of certain brain-intensive tasks. Like, for example, I wasn’t up to any plot structuring at all, which is something I’ve always found very, very demanding. So pretty much anything that would require building out of what was happening was basically out of the question.

( Here are the projects I worked on this year: )

( And here are the characters I wrote about: )

I think that inability to do intensive structuring work is evident when you look at the sort of stuff I worked on this year. Mostly a script that was already totally blocked out (except for the one scene that I got VERY VERY STUCK ON), a piece that is intentionally meant to be unplanned, plus schticky stuff that’s entirely one joke at a time. It also meant no Dream Machine or Adonis, as I’m at that point with the current installments of those pieces. I thought I’d do more work on my non-Texts Captain America fanfic, but I only managed to build out one scene that was mostly planned already anyway. (That did help me complete the actual chapter in that story, so definitely worth it!)

I did find, however, that the approach I took was not that burdensome, even not feeling particularly sharp. It was only until the last week or so of the challenge that I found myself really struggling for material, which is probably the latest that’s ever set in for me. Maybe it was because I focused mostly on a pre-outlined piece (Mrs. Hawking part 7) and humorous shorts (Little Monsters, Texts from Avengers Tower), it made it much easier to draft stuff than it sometimes is. I also very often went in like, “Okay, just write some bullshit, doesn’t have to be good, edit later,” and then actually really liking what I came up with.

One thing I noticed this year is that I ran shorter more frequently than I think I ever have in previous years. Part of that was the nature of the projects I worked on— I let myself count Texts from Avengers Tower, which I didn’t before, and also did several Little Monsters bits which are also quick. I’m just drawn to humorous shorts lately. It meant I often broke one of the rules of the original challenge— each piece was supposed to be at least one page in length. While I admit to feeling weird about it, like I slacked off or something, I actually don’t believe that length is an appropriate measure of a piece’s completeness. Drama, all writing really, should be as long as it needs to be, no more and no less! So despite my ingrained fear of laziness, I am okay with that part of things.

What are my favorite pieces? Honestly, I thought was work this year was generally pretty good, if in need of fleshing out. Many scenes of Mrs. Hawking part 7 are looking promising, if still very rough and nowhere near good enough yet. I particularly like the parts where Mary is trying to figure out how to fit everything that’s important to her in her life, and realizing she’s not going to find a perfect balance, like in #13 - Doing it All, and in #19 - My Life As It Is Now. I think the joke in #17 - Get In, Loser is pretty damn funny, and I’m fond of #28 - The Cool Kids’ Table for being something I thought I’d just whack together and ended up really liking. I actually like all the Little Monsters bits, even if the joke IS basically just cannibalism every time!

My favorite lines? When Miranda Barrymore asks if Mrs. Hawking was Mrs. Frost’s friend, or if Mrs. Frost hurt her too in #26 - Something That Made it All Right, Mrs. Hawking’s answer of “I was her friend. And she did.” I crack up at Frankie’s capper in the self-titled scene, “Oh, my God. I’m at the cool kids’ table!” Even though I didn’t come up with it, I feel like I made good use of #12 - So Damn Lucky’s “Forever’s a long time, kiddo. And I was married to your grandma… forever.” And as much as I struggled with getting #31 - Marginalia down on paper, I love when Beatrice asks if there are many men like Pride and Prejudice’s George Wickham, Mrs. Hawking says, “If there were not, my dear, I might have become a ballet dancer.”

Now, on to editing up part 7. And figuring out a title for it. I’ve made it this far, but drafting is, as always, just the beginning of the journey. Next year in Play-rusalem! Or something.

Immediately following yesterday’s #25 - “Dangerous and Unwell”, the next piece of the scene. This is a little bloated; this woman is running her mouth way too much and too personally in front of these strangers. Again, I’ve cut it before the last piece, which is more spoilery than I care to show right now. But right now I got to get through the challenge while finishing the important work.



( Day #26 - Something That Made it All Right )

This scene directly follows #16 - “All I Can Do”. Again, this is more spoilery than I prefer to post. But I’m getting very close to a complete first draft of Hawking 7, and need to move into editing. So I’ve kind of got the fill out the challenge without assigning myself too much random drafting that will take away from that more important work.



( Day #19 - My Life As It Is Now )

Ee, this one is a bit more spoilery than I like to post. But I’m close to having a first draft of all scenes for Mrs. Hawking part 7 and need to move more into editing than creating new material. That’s one of the big downsides of 31 Plays in 31 Days; I end up having to put a lot of energy into generation just to meet the structure of the challenge even if that’s not strictly productive for what I really want to accomplish. And I find myself forced to post stuff that kind of spoils the climax just to have enough scenes. Especially since one rule I’ve stuck to pretty strictly across the years (all twelve of them) is to not repost an edit unless it is COMPLETELY rewritten, with none of the original reused.



( Day #16 - All I Can Do )

This scene directly follows after #5 - All a Mess. This is the moment where Mary breaks down, forced to recognize that she's overloaded and unable to manage everything all on her own. Part of my goal is to show that it’s not so simple to just overhaul your life, even if that’s what needs to be done for your own health and happiness. But I also want to show that Mary’s feelings about leaving her old life are not simple; even though she knew separating from Mrs. Hawking was the right thing to do for herself, she still misses her and hurts that it had to happen. I also want to show Arthur unconditional in his effort and desire to support Mary, but not really sure how to. They’re figuring this out as they go.

Again, this scene currently is a bit bare-bones, with those ideas not as deeply explored and realized as they should be. I keep repeating that because I'm embarrassed the drafts aren’t better. But that's how drafting goes, at least for me. Still, this scene’s very important, so I know on the edit I need to get it right.


Photo by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #13 - Doing it All )

A mid-story Hawking 7 scene of Mary and Arthur. By this point, Mary has taken on a case for a local man she meets in #2 - “Lost Children”, on top of everything else in an already busy life. I want to establish here that both she and Arthur have a lot going on— her work and his, caring for their baby, and their obligations to their friends and their community. But at this point, I’m trying to create the impression that they are handling it because they’re just so capable and determined. But I’m hoping to build to the idea that even the most capable and determined people in the world can’t do everything all the time, and that’s just a truth a person has to come to grips with no matter how valiant their intentions are.

I’m also toying with establishing a parallelism between the cases being worked in both New York and London, across Mary, Arthur, and Mrs. Hawking. Without drawing too much attention to it, I kind of want them all working on variations of a similar case (a girl has disappeared). I thought it might serve to tie them together and make points about how they may be going down different paths, but their history ties together. History, after all, is a rope. ;-)


Photo by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #10 - A Plan for Everything )

This builds upon yesterday’s #6 - An Interesting Life. It’s still extremely clumsily written, as I am just focusing on the structure in this first draft. But at least it has slightly more in the way of specifics, in some of the dialogue in the beginning. I need Beatrice to be slightly cheeky in her insistence, with some tension between Nathaniel and Clara as the accommodating and stern parent respectively, while hinting at Mrs. Hawking’s reluctance to any emotional connection being the real issue here. It will also lead into an eventually revised version of 2020’s #4 - Soft Touch. It all needs SO MUCH editing, but it’s a start.

I’ve also got a small thematic detail I’m trying to run through without making too big a deal of it. Mrs. Hawking references a book here with an inscription that says it used to belong to “Cornelia M. Blake.” It will be echoed later in the second conversation with Beatrice, where she’s been looking at an old picture of “Madam Amina.” These are not big clues to anything, and certainly not related to the case. Maybe it’s too much, but I wanted to try out the idea that Miranda’s letters have been making her think about certain things.



( Day #7 - Cheeky Girl )

So Bernie and I struggled for quite some time to get a handle on the next phase of Mary’s journey in the story. For a long time, we were kind of defaulting to the idea that she might reject being a superhero all together for a while, out of a desire to separate herself from Mrs. Hawking and avoid anything that might make Mary become like her. But it always felt a bit off. Like, not that natural and with a fairly pat, obvious solution. Of course she would eventually come back to it, so like, that kind of struggle calls for her to decide she can be her own kind of superhero, different from the way Mrs. Hawking was— which is something she already figured out and has known for years now. It just felt like it was too easy and not a very meaningful next step.

Things started to work when we realized that a better challenge would be her having to figure out how she’d actually balance having all the things in her life that she wants. Marriage, motherhood, friendship, work, play, and superheroing— that’s a lot, each one eating up a lot of time and effort. Now that she has everything she wanted, does she actually have space for it all? It’s a natural and actually relatable next step, as a lot of people today find they don’t have the time and energy to do everything they want and have to do. One of the things that made Mrs. Hawking such a force is that she devotes everything she is to being great at it. If Mary wants to spend time on other things as well, what will she have to sacrifice of her ability to do that work? While I want Mary to be awesome and do incredible things, forcing her to deal with this kind of very real human limitation allows us to challenge her in a way that actually feels meaningful.

Structurally, there will be a scene between #2 - Lost Children and this one to show her fighting to keep all her balls in the air. I want to show her doing a good job, but going through real struggle to do so, and having to figure out the compromises that she can actually live with. So she has to go through dropping some balls to realize that it’s going to be necessary.

This scene is somewhat weirdly broken up, but I try to find shift points to create discrete scene pieces. It makes drafting (and posting them for this challenge) easier.


Photo by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #5 - All a Mess )

How is it August already? Well, that means it's time to do 31 Plays in 31 Days, for what is it-- the twelfth year? I hate to break my streak, so onward we go again!

Though I have a project I can use it to make progress with. I'm working very hard to get Hawking part 7 drafted, as I finally feel like I have a handle on it. It's a big shift in the status quo, with the team broken and split between London and New York. Also, on the wake of a huge shakeup like the Ripper story in part 6, I need to make sure we follow it up properly. This one is going to be less of an explosive plot-driven story and more of a character piece, where everybody is confronting the fallout of their actions and the split. If the story is going to turn on that, the character journeys need to be really compelling. A tall order, given that I feel like the bar gets higher every time! But nothing to do but try our best.

Here's a bit from early in part 7, showing us Mary and Arthur's new life in New York. I'm thinking we're in 1890 by now, and things are very different for the two of them now that they're out doing their own thing. Mary's got the freedom to run her life and work however she likes now, and I think Arthur's new job at the embassy has meant they've come up in the world a bit. I'm excited to explore the implications of those things. I'm particularly happy to get to give Mary a friend! The way we've written her up to this point, you'd think she never had one! But this introduces Kathleen Duncan, to demonstrate that Mary's life has gotten broader since she moved to New York and gained some independence.


Photo by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #1 - Busy Days )

Working out of an idea for the eventual inclusion of Beatrice, Nathaniel’s daughter, onstage in the Hawking series. In the third trilogy she’d finally be old enough to be depicted in a manageable way, and I like the idea that she wants to have a relationship with her fascinating great auntie. But the idea of a bright young woman who wants to get close to her brings up a lot of issues for Mrs. Hawking that Beatrice is going to insist on making her work through.



( Day #14 - Another Young Girl )