North Hollywood, California
All right, so I was supposed to write Anne's final scene today. Did it happen? No! And to say I was completely torqued about it would be the only "charitable" (as Anne would say) way to describe my feelings. It was just one thing after the other at the office today. I know I'm there to work, and I know how lucky I've been having so much time to write this summer and fall, but I had given myself a break after writing the big Maud/Chester scene 30 November, and not only was I looking forward to giving Anne her send-off, I even felt I needed to get back to writing. But it didn't happen. Put this fire out, put that fire out, fuel this one and stoke that one. I had a brief break in the action where I at least started the scene and got up to the point Anne appears in the scene; after that I skipped to the next, very short scene which I did finish. But by then I was just too fried to even attempt Anne's good-bye - and I just kept getting swamped with work, anyway. Believe me, when Maud complained in the journals about not being able to write because of obligations she didn't care about, I know where she was coming from.

I'm not going to make the 8 December finish date, but that's OK. It has to get pushed into next week, anyway, because I realized that, before I can write the big finale (which I'm not going to go into any details about; come see the show to see how Maud spends her final moments!), I'm going to need to go back and read over the entire libretto so I can make the best use of the material. Maud will need to compare and contrast her past and present. I know the history (and therefore, the "story"), but, to make this the most effective, I will need to reference certain lines and scenes just to really tie it all together. So, we'll try for 15 December. It might be before that. But I think the finale will have to be written right here at home. It's way too important a scene to have work-related things competing for my attention.

Anne will have her moment tomorrow, somehow. And I think you guys are gonna like it.