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Ch-Ch-Chaaanges

I haven’t posted since April, mostly because I’ve had some incredible personal and professional changes happening in my life.

First off, I found a new job in an entirely different career field. In April I applied for a position as a Content Writer with a small yet mighty marketing and advertising firm. I got the position and today marked the 90th day of my new job. It’s been a sometimes daunting, often challenging, but always rewarding experience.

I have to say I absolutely love my job. There are times I am frustrated and even panicked, but at the end of the day everything works out. I spend my time writing all day, every day. And I get paid to do it. It’s pretty much a dream come true for me, because I’ve always wanted to be a full-time, working writer.

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Premiere: “And Ten More Years” (audio play)

I previously mentioned that my short audio play “And Ten More Years” had been selected for Project Outbreak to be performed. Well, tonight is the premiere, at 7 pm MST.  Meet Emery, James, and Ren, a polyamorous trio celebrating their ten year anniversary, though not at all harmoniously. Cameo by some very important pineapple juice. You can listen to it here on Facebook or Instagram. Tell me what you think!

ETA: If you missed the live broadcast, you can still listen to it on Instagram here.

The Melody of Now

Photo by Elly Fairytale on Pexels.com

Walking past the cottonwood, its silver limbs drooping and still barren, I check the bush. Fenced by a criss cross of grey metal, their pale branches yet bear the dead leaves of last autumn. Blinking amidst brown and dulled red: shoots of green.

Spring.

Finally.

If you didn’t notice or mind that was first person, present-tense, then I did my job as a writer.

First person present tense is one of the most loathed tenses. Many people complain — and perhaps rightly so — that it is “artificial”. Third person past tense is preferable in and superior in all ways, I have been told time and time again. If you must write a story, write it in third person past tense, for goddesses’ sake. It is clearer, more transparent, more “natural” to a reader.

Not so, I would contend.

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The Minutiae of Life

I’ve been struggling mightily with my current project, a novella I have been working on since 2016. I have persisted through four drafts now, and I hope that the current draft, the fifth, will be closest to what I have wanted the project to be from the inception.

But it’s been so damn hard to write. I couldn’t figure it out until this evening why that is.

It’s minutiae. It’s about the small things that make our lives. The earliest draft was all about small and unremarkable things occurring.

Fiction these days tends to gravitate towards, well, bigger things. Bombast. Explosions and epic love.

So on one hand I have an inner critic, we’ll call him Asshole. Asshole likes to tell me that “no, you have to have a catchy beginning” or “no, this has to be BIGGER and MORE IMPORTANT”. On the other hand I have my Muse. And he is persistently trying to get through to me and guide me towards what the story actually is.

In addition, writing minutiae is hard. It’s so easy to write too much, to clutter a story with extraneous things. On the other hand, it’s equally easy to write too little, and leave the reader parched for more.

I know I will eventually figure it out and find my groove with the project. But for now it’s a bit of a slog.

Theater is Dead; Long Live Theater

I recently came across someone’s blog post where they lamented theater in a COVID-19 world. They claimed that without live performances and human interaction, theater is effectively dead.

Really.

Because from where I’m standing, my students have access to plays via streaming services online. Just this last week I saw a dramatic reading of a play done via Zoom. And prior to that, I sent my own play to Project Outbreak which is part of a project to get actors and sound artists and playwrights working, so we can raise money for struggling theater artists.

Those are only three anecdotal pieces of evidence which contradict this idea of “the death of theater”. I am sure there are many more pieces of evidence. I am sure that in days to come, many more people will find ways to use technology in inventive ways to bring us theater.

Instead of naysaying, I think it’s time to roll up our proverbial sleeves and get to work with solving this problem, rather than thinking we are helpless and can’t do anything about it.

Lesbian Visibility Day

So like any good gay/queer I am late to whatever queer function is happening. Yesterday was Lesbian Visibility Day. I recently finished writing a short play about two lesbians. They meet after a terrifying pandemic has wiped out most of the human race. It’s been two years since either of them have seen another person. Of course they fall in love.

Below is an excerpt from the play. This is very undercooked and needs more revision.

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