North Hollywood, California
Well, Act II is on its way. Leo and I haven't gone over the entire treatment, Lord knows, but we did agree to combine the first couple of scenes into one. See, although the musical is comprised of shorter scenes, there are currently 45 of them in Act II (make that 44) which is just a little too long for comfort! It's just that they're almost all important; even Leo, who had a much easier time making suggestions to consolidate Act I, had a tougher time knowing what to chop from Act II. So today I combined them in the treatment and I'll take a whack at writing it probably 3 October. I didn't realize we had off 2 October for Yom Kippur; as I am in the midst of readying my entire web site for an overhaul, I'll need that time to get as much done as possible. Besides, why start writing from home now? :)

Late last week I went over some possible corrections to Act I with Leo. He vetoed several cuts I was actually willing to make, and we explored some continuity issues. He's starting to experiment with some musical ideas, so his biggest thing is making some syllabic changes to the lyrics so they'll fit the songs easier. I generally have no problem with that as long as it doesn't change the context of what I'm trying to say, and as long as it's appropriate to the period and Maud's personal history. Example - I had young Maud referring to her grandfather as "Grandfather"; Leo said it would flow better in the first song if we said "Grandpa". Although I'd read the journals, it never felt right to me that Maud would call him "Grandpa"; it seemed too casual and indicative of a warmer relationship than they had, so I wasn't sure. Wouldn't you know I looked it up in the journal and from the get-go she was referring to him as "Grandpa". Leo wins! Actually, we both win when it sounds right. We'll still have to make more lyrical adjustments, but I made the dialogue changes on Monday. There are still a couple more things that need to be rephrased, but basically this draft of Act I is done and about to go in front of "the family" for their approval. Oh - I also finally made some changes to the song So I Say Farewell yesterday. It's during the scene where 16-year-old Maud leaves her father to move back to Prince Edward Island; Leo thought it would be more effective to have Hugh be a part of the song instead of Maud performing it all. He was right; it just took me several weeks to finally get around to adding those lines. We'll have to see what he thinks of it. Other than that, Act I is good to go!

And now we tackle Maud's life as a minister's wife. The only difference between starting Act II in comparison to starting Act I was that, with Act I, I sat in front of the screen and wondered if I could really pull it off. By now, I might be a bit anxious about tackling the more complex part of Maud's life, but I know that the words are gonna come from somewhere. They did before, and they will right up to the end. I feel really good about what I've written so far and, depending on how much of this version ends up on the stage in two years, I hope you'll like what I've done!

Studio City, California
What is this? A day at the office and no libretto to write? ‘Tis true, at least for today. I have reached an impasse – not because there’s nothing to write or because I have any kind of writer’s block, but simply because I cannot go on until I have a comprehensive meeting with Leo to go over some corrections to Act I and consolidate the treatment for Act II. It’s all right, for the most part; I expected there would be a gap between acts. But my intention was to resume writing 25 September and I think at this point it’s going to have to be 2 October. As long as it’s done by the beginning or even middle of December, which it should be. You, of course, will be apprised of my progress.

In the meantime, Leo’s parents are visiting from Toronto, and Mrs. Marchildon wanted to read Act I. She had a few questions about character definitions, but I’m gathering they were about minor characters, and Leo and I agree that, depending on the scene and situation within it, the minor characters don’t necessarily need to be all that defined. We’ll check into it when we go over Act I. But what really felt good was when she asked me if I was the one that wrote all the “poetry”. She was talking about the lyrics, of course…and, aside from a few examples of Maud’s poetry and someone else’s poem that I worked into one song, yes, it’s all mine. She said it was very good and that she was impressed! She’s the only one so far who has seen the libretto besides us…I’m really very honoured. Plus, it’s a good sign!

I have one other piece of news that I’m going to gloss over simply because I’m not at liberty to go into details at this point, plus it’s all so embryonic that it’s best not to get too excited about it all…but the gist of it is, we may have some major help in the next step of the musical – getting produced. I wish I could tell you because it was incredibly serendipitous and there were just too many coincidences involved to be an accident…but for now, I’ll have to just tease you with that. But it could be huge, and I’ll certainly go further into it when I’m able to. Exciting stuff, and all by way of bringing The Nine Lives of Lucy Maud Montgomery right to you!

Studio City, California

Studio City, California
I did it! I finished An Epoch in My Life! It just sort of came out of nowhere. For the last week or two, I was feeling I'd lost my groove - words weren't coming nearly as easily and scenes weren't coming together the way they'd been. So today I had to tackle Maud Meets Her Public - where Maud goes to Boston in 1910 to meet her publishers and some reporters and fans. It's a fairly complicated scene, so I was worried. But it fell together in the "old" way, and I was much relieved. So, on the heels of that "success", I thought I'd revisit Epoch. Wouldn't you know the words just presented themselves! I even felt some of the magic I was hoping I'd feel! It's all about the power of the imagination!

Oh, what a relief it is. Who needs Alka-Seltzer?

North Hollywood, California
OK, so I still haven't finished the "Maud gets published" scene. I had to leave An Epoch in My Life alone for the time being, but I'll go back to it next week, probably...because...as of right now there are only 4 scenes left to write in Act I. I just decided to move on from the song and continue writing the subsequent scenes (including on Labour Day, I'll have you know!). So, I should be done with Act I by 12 or 13 September, although I'll have to go back and finish Epoch and go back and add a few lines to So I Say Farewell on Leo's correct suggestion. After that, I plan to read through the entire act as a whole, as well as go back to the treatment of Act II and start cleaning that up in preparation for writing. I guess once I finish Act I, I'll take 2 weeks off to do that.

"Tomorrow" (quotes because it's after midnight), Maud meets her public in Boston! That one oughta be interesting!