North Hollywood, California
Aren't you glad you finally met Leo? I have to tell you, he's been working like a madman this week on the music for our show. At home especially, but even during the homily at his church! Of course, I can only gauge it by how it sounds on his piano, whereas I'm sure he hears the whole orchestra in his head, but there's some really good stuff coming out of it. I always feel a little bad when the direction he goes in differs from either what I heard in my head as I was writing the lyrics or it doesn't quite match the tone of the scene - because then I have to butt in. Still, this is a collaboration in every sense - we had agreed what scenes I'd write first before I ever wrote a word, and I always brought every scene to him for his approval before I moved on. So don't I have the right to have a say in the writing of the songs? :) The only real problem we keep running across is when he comes up with a melody and it turns out I've written too many syllables for what he has in mind. It just means I have to rewrite a line here and there and do my best to keep the syntax, tone, character, and/or intention intact.

He composes a good deal at his place, and often calls me in the middle of it to ask me what I think, playing me stuff over the phone. I'd love to be there for the whole process, but it's just not practical, and he wasn't breathing down my neck when I wrote the libretto at the office, was he? Just the same, I like being there when he's creating, not only so I can put in my two cents if need be but so I can help if necessary. Oftentimes he isn't clear on what I meant rhythmically when I wrote the lyrics, so it helps him for me to sort of time it out. Apparently I do a lot of starting on the downbeat, which initially throws him! But his music is going to be nothing less than brilliant, and, as I said, he's been quite prolific this week. I think it's safe to say that, even at this late hour, he's tinkling out ideas on his piano!

As for me...well, production's been a little slow on my end this week in comparison. It's not my fault. As you may recall, my job at the agency ended at the end of December, and then there was that trip to Toronto (and Florida before that for a long-overdue family visit) - so I went a good stretch without an income. Add to that a screw-up with the unemployment people, and you get a pretty tight situation. What I'm leading up to is that I had to take a job on Monday, and, as you may expect, there's no time to work on the musical when I'm there like there was at the agency. I'm doing data entry, and it's pretty constant. So it's left me little time to work on getting the journal quotes together - although you may be surprised to learn that I sacrificed a couple of lunch periods (30 minutes for lunch! Barbaric!) to immerse myself in the libretto and the journals, highlighting here and redlining there. (I ate during my second break, in case you're concerned!) But it's tough going. I put in an e-mail to the family for guidance but I haven't heard back from them yet, so I'm just going ahead as I have been. The problems come because, for the most part, I didn't just incorporate the quotes in full blocks - I've edited them for length, moved phrases around...Maud speaks in past tense and I have to change everything to present tense...stuff like that. So it's not very clear.

The other problem is...well, I spent a year reading all the journals and then combining the information I got from them with Maud's books, as well as literary analysis, interviews, books about Maud...and now I'm having to do the exact reverse by separating the journal information from everything else. It's like going back to the beginning of the research process - except that it was so long ago now I can't find the sections as immediately as I'd like to, and when I was writing the libretto I often found pieces that caught my eye and used them on the fly to give such-and-such scene added dimensions...and I certainly didn't keep track of what pages things were on in the journals. So to say it's a laborious process...I think I already used that word earlier, but it's the only word that describes it. I'll be doing more tomorrow...battle on, Xena!

I was a little hesitant back there to speak of my employment and financial woes. On the one hand, I feel like I'm supposed to be "Adam-Michael James, librettist, co-writer of The Nine Lives of Lucy Maud Montgomery", and it doesn't do to let people think I'm anything less! But, on the other hand, it doesn't do even more to be deceptive about who and what I am. I do find it the height of ironic that I'm working on this project which I know is going to be "blow'd up!", yet here I am struggling to pay rent, living off my credit cards, and taking a job entering names and addresses of people who have ordered ants! I mean, how wrong is that? But it's my life right now...and all I can do is keep working on this show and moving forward, even if things aren't all that pretty. I wrote the libretto and Leo's working on the music and the family is behind us and we're on our way, so I just keep hanging onto that. 9LoLMM - 20 JUNE 2008 OR BUST!

All right, that oughta give you something to chew on for a while...I will do my best to get some more video with Leo in the coming week. As for me, it will be more ants and tracking journal entries on the sly. I feel like Maud did when she snuck in her own writing between working at the newspaper...and when she squeezed it in between minister's wife visits! No one can say this all isn't appropriate somehow!

This show will be a huge success...and I won't have to do desk jobs ever ever again! I have spoken!