North Hollywood, California
Well, ya write one, ya gotta write more. I guess it was Leo's positive reaction to the first scene/song when he got back that's spurring me on. I'm brought back to that part of writing where it's one thing to think about it and conceptualize it, but another to sit down and actually write it - and it almost always comes out different than you're expecting, at least in detail.

The thing that got me was, the first scene seemed comparatively easy. The second scene I struggled with! Suddenly you have two scenes and you're comparing them to each other and you want to make sure each has its own voice and you don't want to repeat yourself, which isn't necessarily easy! I'm also having to keep in mind Maud's age at the time, all the historical aspects and faithfulness to her life, and then there's the other characters. I finished Scene 2, but I'm not jumping up and down about it yet. I'm just doing what they talk about in that book The Artist's Way and getting something committed to...uh...pixels, and then I'll come back to it later. Given I really need to be done writing this by the end of 2006, I can't afford to get stuck for very long!

Then today, Scene 3 poured out of me and I feel like it's the best one yet (naturally, there's no lyrics in that scene!) and I got up to the song in Scene 4, which is where I stopped. But it was good progress, and I felt good about it. Leo hasn't seen 2, 3, or 4 yet. That will probably happen tomorrow. Onward!

There are also some developments in terms of paperwork and formalities and all, which I won't go into detail about. But it's exciting stuff. This is the first time I've worked on a project that involves so many other people! Well, I suppose my video involved plenty of people, but it was still my concept and subject only to my own approval. This musical has so far heralded so many new experiences that it would exceed your bandwidth to list them all!

I suppose I should be sticking to my original plan of rewriting the treatment...but I supplemented the June draft with enough of the new info that I feel like I can take a chance on the actual writing now. And it's satisfying to finally be writing dialogue and lyrics after a year. More than that, I'm starting to enjoy doing it. Hopefully that'll translate to what you end up seeing!