I have been pretty consistently blogging once a week on Sundays since my new website was published. And yesterday, I plum forgot. It never occurred to me once.  No clue why.  I was busy. But I'm always busy.  I'd had a full weekend, but again, nothing new there. I pride myself on my capacity to work. It's likely my strongest sense of self. The thing I enjoy the most. Not that I don't love to play. I do. But I truly love to work. It is just how I was made.  I imagine it wasn't necessarily how I was born. Would that not be amazing to see what you would be if there had never been any influences good or bad only your raw response to the world. In any case, here I am, made and established, a worker.  

After a really good cold reading of Lf&Tms Thursday night, Ariel and I - my ace collaborator - Ariel Aparicio - note how both our names end in CIO. I don't think I've ever met anyone else whose name ended like mine. In any case, we were so inspired by our director's questions, we went into a re-write - both text and lyrics - that went further to express what we've needed to express in the show. So much of the main character's emotions are our emotions and it was so great and freeing to get further clarity and to further express and deepen.  Love this show.  Love working on it and with Ariel.  

Then I turned to The World Avoided. Got some good feedback on new pages with my Lark Play Development Center group.  This play is so tricky and such a fine line being non-fiction and about science. I am learning where and how i can be fun and theatrical and where and how it is of interest to the audience to hear the science.  

I just read notes on writing by Hemingway that someone posted on FB. And he suggested paying attention as you have experiences to how you feel. What it was in the moment that gave you that feeling.  Was it an action, a color, a sound, a smell, etc. what exactly gave you the emotion. Remember so you can create that emotion for your reader/audience.  Want to think more on that. I spend a lot of time as a writer thinking about action. And I do think a lot of my audience and how they might respond. But I like this specific notion of thinking of how to create a specific emotion in someone else.

Then I spent time with my collaborator Sandra Daley on our new to be revealed secret project.  I love banging heads with Sandra and seeing what we can come up with.

Then I had to do some money work which is economic analysis.  I don't mind this work, though I wish I could always only write plays and whatever I want to write.  I do value that my world is bigger than the theater. But I really had to push out this major piece.

Work.  

I'm a tad grumpy. I've been working hard and still money seems to move out faster than it moves in. And I haven't had a bump from royalties in a bit and that makes me sad.  I do love royalties because it means my work is out there and I am working.  I love to work. Ha ha ha.

Back to it now. Still got more pages to write which is a gift which is my life which is my joy.  

I started the day checking weather in New York and whether or not my flight was still on schedule. United said it was, so off my friends took me to the Houston airport.  Where I've been for the past  seven hours.  It was very exciting the first two hours as I was made to race from gate to gate and terminal to terminal as one flight got cancelled and there was still hope for a flight to Newark.  We even boarded a plane at one point.  Only to deplane an hour later.  At this point, we're next expected to attempt to take off at six p.m.  per the latest from Newark.  Ah, traveling in the middle of a tough winter.  I'm managing to stay relatively calm.  What else can I do.  I am sticking it out in hopes that I do manage to get home some time tonight.  It is a funny thing this many hours in public surrounded by strangers.  I tend to stick to myself. I don't get into conversations that go beyond may I use that plug or would you watch my stuff while I go to the bathroom.  Actually, folks around me seem to be in a pretty similar mood. It is nicely quiet and I've been working on a script.  In life, we always don't know what's going to happen next no matter how much we think we do or hope we do.  This is a perfect metaphor for that reality .  I am truly in touch with my powerlessness at this moment. With my need to just simply go with the flow.  I wish I could identify quite what this feeling is.  Am I sad? No, though I will be if I end up sleeping in Houston.  Am I mad? No, nothing/no one to be mad at.  Am I bad?  No, I actually am behaving myself.  I only fussed once and the airline gave me a good reason to do it.  Am I glad?  Well, not glad to be sitting here. Glad to be alive.  Glad for friends and family.  I guess i am mainly feeling resigned.  Is that a feeling?  Resigned.  Powerless really is the word. Ain't nothing going to happen except what happens.  

This adventure is on the heels of a quite successful work week with my Houston colleagues on The Gold.  I first joined the team on this musical in 2008.  Phil Yosowitz is the composer/lyricists and original book writer.  Inspired by the Holocaust survivors he met growing up, he created the story of an athlete, a boxer, who is Jewish and intent on competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  His Olympic hopes are dashed as Nazis gain power.  In his original conception, he imagined following the story of this man through the Holocaust to the founding of Israel and on to Israel's Olympic Team in Munich 1972.  Phil and his daughter, producer, Laura decided they wanted to work with another book writer and I was recommended to them.  I said yes because the scope was so extraordinary and kind of insane; I wanted to see if I could do it.  They had funding for a workshop presentation the following May. As it happened, I was gearing up for my first off-Broadway production of Looking for the Pony and Rolling World Premiere at Vital Theater in NY and Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta.  We had to carefully plan our work schedule aroudn my other demands.  By March, we had a new script that went all the way to Munich.  Would it work?  We had no idea, but we went into rehearsal determined to try.  We presented it two times at the Miller Theater in Houston to very warm audiences.  We learned a lot about what worked and even more about what didn't.  Between my work schedule and that of the Yosowitzs, we talked as months turned into years, but we didn't dig in again until this past summer.  Finally, the pieces came together in such a way that we all got comfortable with a new completely different approach to Act Two much more focused on relationships and with about 20 years lopped off.  With this many changes, I urged Phil to sit back and wait for me to write "a play" of the Act without music.  I wanted to start as fresh and clean as I could even though I knew some of the songs we had would still work.  I completed the play draft of Act Two and we all read over the fall and discussed and adjusted.  We then made the plan for this week to work on integration of music and scene.  Phil had taken a number of my scenes and musicalized them.  I love when songwriters do that and great discoveries resulted for both of us.  We've really grown into a nice collaboration that we all are enjoying.  We ended the week with a bunch of singers/actors learning the music and singing/reading it for us and a group of invited guests.  It was thrilling. We learned a ton.  We're very excited where we are. I have about 4 and 1/2 notes that are excellent and will take us that much further.  Next we want to ask a few close friends to read and share their feedback.  

It was a great week. I'd be happier if I had already landed in New York. But for now, I'll be grateful for all I have and trust that I'll be home eventually.