North Hollywood, California
I am so not in the Maud zone right now! But it's not that I haven't been - I've gotten another good chunk written this week. Leo wonders if I might not be leaning too much on the journals for Maud's dialogue, but that's sort of a tough one. Sure, I might be, but, on the other hand, I like the idea of using Maud's actual language, the words she used herself. I feel like if I rephrase her words, I'm cheapening it somehow, and that I run the risk of modernizing the dialogue. We'll see. Right now I'm just more concerned about getting it all out there; it can be tweaked later.

So, if everything goes according to my self-imposed schedule, I could very well be done with the first draft of the libretto on 8 December. I'm glad, of course - that's 3 weeks ahead of my original estimate, and, with us trying to get this put on in time for the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne in June 2008, time is of the essence - but it still makes me feel a little sad. I spent a year on research and now 3½, almost 4 months on writing, and I've found it very fulfilling to be creative every day, or at least gear up to being creative before I actually started writing. Obviously the creative process won't end after December; I'm sure there will be revisions and there's the whole thing of getting the visual aspects together. I'll have plenty of 9LoLMM to keep me busy through 2007. But I've poured so much of myself into this thing, it's been such a part of me for such a long time now, that the thought of finishing the libretto just seems a little...well, why don't we not think about that for another 4 weeks, shall we?

I'm on 1928 - the reintroduction of Nora combined with the writing of Magic for Marigold. I was supposed to write it yesterday, and then today, but I just kind of haven't been there for some reason. I'm feeling too distracted somehow. But I'll give it a shot tomorrow. I will - you can hold me to it!

I must say that I rather like some of the things that are coming out of the recent scenes. I don't want to go into too many details about what, but there have been some int'resting (as Marigold would say) developments. One of the nice things about Maud interacting with her different characters at different phases of her life is the dynamic that appears in each scene - sometimes different than I originally planned. And it's just been spicing things up with a new energy in these last few scenes. Hopefully it will all be cohesive when I read Act II as a unit. But, at the risk of sounding conceited, I'm liking what's coming out. It's really true when writers say that the characters write their own stories and the stories tell themselves! I can't take all the credit for it. I feel like I'm basically just a channel. And I hope Maud likes it!