Day 5

Today was a good day. In addition to writing, I spent some time mapping out action plot points in my story on a large piece of cardboard. It helps me begin to visualize the overall structure of the piece. As I begin to fill in additional elements--song placement, settings, etc.--it helps me to have a visual map of what I'm doing.

Thanks for the generous comments yesterday. As many of you said, you just get back up and go at it again. No sense dwelling on yesterday. Staying in the present.

Intentionally blurred...

Today's Tibits: Yesterday, I was reading the story of how James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim came to write Into the Woods (if you are a musical theatre fan, Sondheim's two volumes of collected lyrics--Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat--are a treasure trove). I went to the pages not because of my musical, but because I had a voice lesson last night, and decided to sing "No One is Alone" from Into the Woods. Sondheim writes that when he and Lapine were "looking for a quick way to make a buck," in 1985, Lapine had the idea of creating a television special "involving TV characters from situation comedies (for example, Ralph and Alice Kramden, Archie and Edith Bunker, Mary Richards and Lou Grant, etc.) in a car accident which brings to the scene characters from the cop shows (T.J. Hooker, Joe Friday, Cagney and Lacey, etc.) who take them to the hospital where they are treated by Dr. Kildare and Marcus Welby and Ben Casey, etc." Sondheim and Lapine presented the idea to Norman Lear, who loved it and wanted a script. But when S & L explained that they didn't want to write a script, they just wanted to sell the idea, Lear said he didn't want to buy the idea, he wanted a script. And that was that. One year later, Lapine came up with the idea of "applying the TV idea to the Brothers Grimm. We would write a story in which the lives of famous fairy-tale characters would collide and intertwine in a mutual meeting ground, and where else but the woods, where so many of the stories take place?"

Love that story. Oh, and if you saw Into the Woods in tryouts at the Old Globe in 1986, you may remember that there were characters there that did not make it to Broadway and beyond: Snow White and the Three Little PIgs.

Day 2

Just a note to say that I have now enabled comments on the blog page.

Today was a difficult day. In terms of getting to the writing. I procrastinated. I stalled. I dawdled. I goldbricked. And then I wrote. Because I promised I would. I wrote for two hours. About the musical. I probably wouldn't have written if not for the artificial (but oh-so-real) conceit of OctoMusiWriMo. And all of your kind cheers and encouragement. As Scarlet said, "tomorrow is another day."

Today's Tidbits: In looking back at notes I wrote about another idea for a musical (these written on June 8, 2014 at Blazing Laptops), my character starred in a third-grade production--directed by his way-gay teacher--that was an all-male version of Mary Poppins entitled Larry Poppins.

Was looking at Sondheim lyrics (always an inspiration) in his second volume of collected lyrics (Look, I Made a Hat). At the end, he wrote the following:

On the last page of Ulysses, James Joyce wrote: "Paris-Zurich / 1911-1918." I've always envied that pretension and I see no reason not to take this opportunity to do the same. (If only books were as good as the length of their gestation...) New York-Roxbury / 1994-2011.
 

 

Day 1

This is the first day of OctoMusiWriMo--October Musical Writing Month. I made it up. I took my inspiration from NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month--a well-established non-profit organization that encourages writers all over the world to write a 50,000-word novel from November 1-30 each year.

I have been looking for a way to motivate myself to do more writing on a project that is important to me. I want to write a full-length musical. So I decided to begin today and have set a goal to write every day this month. Since the shape and structure of a musical is different from a novel, rather than set a goal of 50,000 words by October 31st, I am setting these two goals:

1. I will write for a minimum of two hours every day of the month. That writing will be focused on creating the libretto of the musical. Depending on the muse and circumstances, I may also write song lyrics.

2. I will post to this blog each day to keep myself accountable, and to engage with a select group of supportive friends who are in my corner.