March Checkpoint

So, after sending a few fellow cdubIIIers my old old poems (Brandon, Niall, and Ave Maria) I got very few critiques on them. I think they've been around so long that they are kind of stuck to what they've always been. I still like them and if any amazing ideas come to me about any of them before May, I'll definitely keep editing them. As for last month's poems: I made the short one a little more clear. I really enjoy it, even though it doesn't have a point. And Dark still needs work, but I added some stuff and changed some stuff. That will be my big editing project for April. If you've got any suggestions, throw them out, por favor.

Dark

Sunday Afternoon Love

As for new poems, I have the one that I wrote for the team piece for the decathislam about Human Trafficking. And I have a poem about Ikea being death.

Februray 15th Checkpoint

Poems to go into the book:
Paper Airplanes
Prayer Request
Sister Jean
Christmas Wish
Tessa
Brandon (super re-edited)
Niall (super re-edited)
Ave Maria (super re-edited)

Dark

Last night, I laid awake for hours,
listening to the gentle creaks of my house
and watching the shadows curve through my room
as headlights passed on the road by my window.
I can’t remember when I finally surrendered to sleep,
only knew the hum of my alarm clock meant morning had arrived.
And I had spent another night,
without retaining dreams.

I need something to record my thoughts
as I fall asleep.
I want to know what I’m thinking
in those last few seconds
between consciousness and sleep.
I don’t remember.
I don’t remember the last time I had a dream
that meant something,
made me wake up in a sweat of realization
because my life was changed.
I know my best thoughts must come to me
while I’m sleeping.
There’s no other way to explain
why I haven’t had good idea
since I learned to sleep with the light off.

It never used to be this way.
Afraid of the dark ‘til I was sixteen,
they said I had a problem.
A fear of dead people under the bed
forced me to sleep with my legs crossed
from the time The Sixth Sense came out
‘til my legs had grown in that direction
and it was just more comfortable to sleep that way.

I used to lie awake thinking of the things I would take
if something were to happen in the night.
A fire,
a robber,
a monster.
My childhood blanket,
my picture album,
the box of letters from my grandparents.
A bag in my closet was packed just before bed every night
and emptied before school in the morning
until I was thirteen.

My fathers bed went unslept in
for four years. He spent his nights
dozing by the foot of my bed,
so if anything were to happen,
he’d be there to protect me.
These were the worries I passed along to him.
And even with him lying there
the bathroom light constantly crept through my doorway
after the house began to get dark.

Until
electricity prices went up
and sleeping with the light on
wasn’t okay anymore.
And growing up meant
I had to let go of my irrational fears
and let my father sleep in his room again.

So I taught myself to close my eyes tight
before I flipped off my light switch,
not open them again ‘til morning.
And in the darkness of shut lids
I found only thoughts
in those times when I couldn’t sleep.
A good night’s rest didn’t happen.
Instead I found myself waking every twenty minutes
with another idea.

But lack of sleep caused me
to count myself to sleep,
breathe in patterns until all thoughts were gone.
And now, I don’t remember the last time
I had a thought that meant something.

Sunday Afternoon Love

Sunday afternoons
in the basement of a church,
you made me believe.
You stole my shoe, wouldn’t give
it back for two months.
You said you had lost it but
flirting is in your
nature and you couldn’t stop.
Til you realized that
you cared about me and you
kissed me in the hall.
Sunday afternoon love is
a beautiful thing.

Sometimes I have a short attention span...

After working half of the school year on my play, I feel like it is going nowhere and I don't have the energy or brain capacity at this point in time to figure out how to change that, so I'm changing my project. I think if I make my project poetry, I'll be more productive because I won't have to think long-term as much as in the play with plot and character development. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably work on my play over the summer when I have more time. But for now, I'm going to have a chapbook together by the end of the year. So checkpoints:

Feb 15th- Have two new poems plus have all of my old poems that I want in the book picked out.

March 17th- Two new poems, re-edit old poems, edit Feb poems

April 30th- Two new poems, re-edit Feb poems, edit March poems

May 19th- Picture taking days, layout, finishing touches

So by the final due date, I will have a chapbook for you.

January Checkpoint

The first act ended up being shorter than I’d originally thought it would be, but all of the planned scenes were written. It’s only like 14 pages when it should be about 40. That makes me think more needs to be added, but I’m not sure what. It feels kind of like a one-act, but it has too many scene changes and if it’s worth keeping at all, it needs more conflict. If it’s going to be turned into a one-act it needs a lot more conflict a lot faster. I know that character development is lacking, so I need to go back and think of what I want each character to be like in-depth again. And I was thinking maybe starting it when they meet, but I don’t know if that’s too much. I feel like it’s moving at a good pace as it is now, maybe a bit fast; but that’s just how I read it in my head. I think I’m going to ask people to read through it out loud for me soon so I can get a feel for what it’s really like. Since I edit as I write and I read over what I write regularly throughout writing, this copy has my revisions, but I need to get other peoples ideas. With everyone being so busy with either their own checkpoint or Misentity stuff, I’ve felt bad about asking. I’ve also spent a lot of in-class time, when I have actually been in school, doing Misentity things, like submissions and slam stuff, and working on poems, so editing has fallen to the wayside. This play is starting to feel like a nuisance to me and I’d like to work on other things for a while, but I know I can’t take a month off of it to work on other things or I won’t finish by the end of the year. I’m frustrated. I think I want to drop this project in general and start over with poetry. I think it’d be more useful for me.

The first act

Checkpoint 2

Here’s the deal:

I didn’t like where my original play was going after re-editing the stuff that I had from this summer and writing new scenes, so I decided to put that one to the side. After mulling over other topics that I thought I could write about, I came up with the idea of a love story about a pathological liar and her relationship problems. This required research into the issue of pathological lying, which was very interesting. I really liked/like where my idea was/is going, but seeing as I got a really late start (like came up with the idea on Saturday) I’m kind of behind. I still like the idea from my original play, but I think the problem was figuring out exactly how the plot was going to work. I think once I do figure it out, I’ll be able to pick back up on that play, but for now I’m really excited about the current one. I think that figuring out the entire plot from the beginning was a good move and I’m glad I have something to stick to, rather than just writing scenes and hoping they’d all go together (like I was in play #1).

Act I

Scene 1- Becca and Mark’s first date. They’re in a bar and are just having polite conversation. Mark excuses himself for a minute and Becca starts talking to the bartender. She makes up a different version of a story she told Mark and this is when we first realize that something is up.

Scene 2- After they leave the bar, they go back to Becca’s apartment. Mark goes inside for a cup of coffee. They talk and get closer and we see that Becca is indeed kind of weird, but Mark is too blind and into her to see it.

Scene 3- Mark leaves Becca’s and immediately calls his brother. We hear Mark’s half of the conversation, but it’s all pretty much just him raving about how wonderful Becca is. At the same time we see Becca. She talks to herself a bit, soliloquy style.
Scene 4- Becca and Marks’s third date. It’s a double with Mark’s brother and his fiancé. Doug, the brother, is a funny guy and through him we see Becca form a deep connection with Mark. Becca gushes over the way Doug proposed to his fiancé and describes her perfect proposal.

Act II-

Scene 1- The engagement. Mark and Becca have been together about three months and it’s a really good fit. There’s this big proposal scene in a restaurant and Becca gets upset with Mark for making it such a big deal.

Scene 2- Outside the restaurant Becca realizes how lucky she is that Mark wants to marry her and there is a big lovey cute scene. Any awkwardness that Mark had felt about the proposal is wiped away and once again he is blind to her lies.

Scene 3- Everything is perfect. Mark and Becca are out shopping and they run into an old friend of Becca’s. Through a conversation with her, Mark starts to realize how much he’s being lied to.

Act III-

Scene 1- Later the same day in Becca and Mark’s apartment, yes they’re living together, Becca makes up an elaborate story about what happened to his shaving cream. He gets fed up. He and Becca start fighting and when Mark accuses her of being a liar, she automatically gets defensive and starts turning everything around on Mark. Mark calls off the wedding.

Act IV-

Scene1- We see a very depressed Becca. She is at work, but isn’t doing anything productive. At the same time we see Mark crashed at his brother’s place and attempting to date again.

Scene 2- Comic relief. Two pathological liars together in a waiting room.

Scene 3- Becca with her shrink. Together they analyze a past relationship and Becca comes to grips with her problem.

Act V-

Scene 1- Becca’s attempt to be honest. In the grocery store one day, she runs into Doug’s now wife. She talks to her about Mark and how he has been and is completely honest.

Scene 2- Doug’s wife goes home and tells Mark about what happened. Mark is still heartbroken and skeptical, so he doesn’t believe her.

Scene 3- Becca is back at the doctor’s. She eventually gets up the confidence in herself to go talk to Mark.

Scene 4- Becca and Mark talk. I haven’t decided what their resolution is yet.

What I have written jumps around a lot and some of it needs to be extended or isn’t the whole scene, but I’ll get to it. Hey, that’s just how I write.

And I realize that the around nine pages that I have written of my current script makes it look like I have not fulfilled my checkpoint and you could look at it that way, or you could look at it that I now have TWO plays in the works and the combination of pages I have for both plays exceeds that number I said I would have written for this checkpoint. It's not like I've been doing nothing, I just switched it up a little. If you want to see said pages from the first play, I can show you, but they are on the back burner until I finish this play or I come up with better plot justification. And I am very excited about the new play, so making up the 10 pages that I didn't write this checkpoint will be easy and will be added to the 20 I will do for December. I also realize that I may have put too much pressure on myself for this month, but from here on out I will be less pressured.

So pretty much this is a round about way of saying I suck at planning but now I'm finished planning and I can just write.

Look here for my play
Look for my first attempt at a play here

Checkpoint 1

PLAY

I did the checkpoint, but I don’t think I like it. It seems really angsty to me and I don’t want to write angst. I want to write drama. Angst bad. Drama good. I’ve been really distracted lately, so coming up with a good plot line has been difficult. Once I get locked down what I want to happen in the play, writing it will be a breeze. If it comes down to it, I might just have to start writing and see where it takes me. I don’t know.

Becca is a high school sophomore. She’s too young to be in 10th grade, but she’s smart. She’s average at school. She talks to people. But she doesn’t have really close friends there. She has a best friend, Reese. He’s not real (but shhh the audience doesn’t know that yet). He’s actually the main character of a book, Becca’s favorite book. He did some amazing, dangerous, adventurous things (I’m not sure if I want it to be an adventure novel or if I want his life to somewhat parallel the brothers life). He’s pretty cool. He’s her everything. They have a great relationship, as demonstrated in the first act when some bad stuff (first example of my inability to come up with non-angsty high school goings-on) happens to Becca in school. Reese makes everything better. But when the book goes out of print (cause it’s old and no one reads it anymore) Reese disappears. Bye-bye Reese. Becca gets sad, really sad. End Act I. Act II. Welcome back into Becca’s life her drug addict brother, Owen (2nd example of angsty-ness). Becca and Owen have a huge fight, then a big bonding moment. Becca asks Owen to stop using drugs. It’s a no go. The Act begins to follow Owen’s life, rather than Becca’s. Later in the act, after seeing how important it is to Becca, he tries, but ends up dying of an overdose (ohhh angst). At the funeral, we see Reese again. There is no big reuniting scene. He just is there. Becca might not even see him. End play.

Here’s the things:
-I wanted three main characters who aren’t all knowingly intertwined, but they are very much so important to each others stories.
- I wanted an imaginary friend, but we’re not sure if he’s real or not.
- While I was writing the above, I thought that maybe they could be each other’s imaginary friends, but that’s silly.
- I wanted it to be all symbolic and moving and stuff. I thought having Owen’s and Reese’s stories somewhat parallel each other would be cool.
-Originally I thought the book could be obscene and be banned (or burned) but then I felt like I was ripping off our poem from last year.

I’m feeling really badly about this right now.
Jeff just gave me an awesome blog that I need to read and use to help me. http://bethanyharvey.com/blog/posts/2007/07/write-characters-not-mary-sues/



UPDATE ON POEMS- maybe if I have extra time I'll do a chap book

Done(ish)
Paper Airplanes
Prayer Request
Christmas Wish
Tessa

(Re)edit
Ave Maria
Brandon- work
Niall- coda
Sister Jean

Worth it?
Risk Taker
Brandon- art
Andrew- fornicating goats
Paris Hilton
Project Hercules

Ideas
Roman
Gay Love
Sairus- time zones

Ohhh justification

I'm having serious issues coming up with things to justify what my characters do, which makes me uncomfortable with setting up the storyline. I've been thinking a lot about whats going to happen to each of them. I started this play in the summer, but I don't like where it started heading and now I feel like I need to keep the characters but throw the original plot out. So that's what I'm going to do. I worked on poems today. In addition to finally deciding to through out my plot.