Home Stretch
Today I will finish the polish of CLIMBING THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN. I have been going through the whole manuscript, over and over. More than 180,000 words, 560 pages in final book layout using 11 point type and .9 line spacing. My friend Lonnie Burr pointed out it is longer than THE ODYSSEY. I hadn't noticed.
I stopped counting after seven complete read-throughs, so I guess I am over ten times through today.
And I am pleased with the story, the way the book flows, what an easy read it is.
I'm finishing the typographical/layout corrections. I will give it one more spellcheck before sending it off to my editor for his final check by fresh eyes before it goes up onto Amazon and Kindle. I will begin the promotional side of getting it read. That means I will be setting up the limited "free download" days so people will get the chance to read it - and post their reviews - with Amazon.
When this is done it should be easy to work on the smaller books.
SONG OF ORPHANS, my first book, will be a breeze. the cover by Fred Lang still holds up and serves that story.
THE TASTE OF FIRE, a collection of short stories, has been expanded by removing NIALL'S DREAM from my book list and folding that story into TASTE OF FIRE.
The anthology of my favorite plays, 3 PlAYS, will require the least work. I wonder about the lost plays. THE PATRIOT was a monologue set in a pub, after hours, with a young man's involvement with IRA, was brought to life by my late friend Thomas Boyle. PRAYER FLAG, a Christmas collision between a senior and a runaway, has been lost. DRY RUN, Jesus coming back but keeping a low profile this time... lost. ASSASSINS/FEAR OF LIGht exists but I have pulled it from publication because it is far too much personal therapy and less involved with serving the audience.
Looking t my own scripts and accepting they are not worthy of survival - they were transitional and educational experiences. But they are not theater that needs to survive.
There was a season of production in the Los Angeles small theater scene. I was a participant of Marsha Meyers' playwrights workshop, then I ran two more versions of the workshop under the title PLAYWRIGHT'S DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP. It was at the CAST and Fountain Theaters in Hollywood and resulted in many productions around the small theater scene. John "Smitty" Smith opened the Deja Vu Coffeehouse Theater to me as writer-in-residence, as he did for Robert Patrick next door at the Fifth Estate theater. A writer I first encountered in my days producing radio theater invited me in to direct some of her plays (which concluded with seven different productions of her amazing play SHATTERED SECRETS in the San Francisco Bay Area). I directed other plays for new authors and produced slates of one-acts at several L.A. venues. With producer Rev. Jeremy McLeod we created theater in found spaces around Berkeley and San Francisco. We set up lights and plays in various church basements, community halls, school rooms, and dance studios.
At the Deja Vu we mounted productions every three months, giving us a short break, six weeks of rehearsal, and a month of performances to try out new scripts and experiments in the theater. It forced me to grow as a writer, director, producer, teacher, and cheerleader for playwrights who blossomed in that scene during the early 1980s.
I was spoiled. I wrote twenty scripts and they were all produced.
3 PLAYS is the cream of that crop. (I am open to options for film production, if anone is interested.)
And my juggling continues. While working on CLIMBING THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN I have been writing on SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #13 (the last of the series), the next novel, MORE THAN THIS, and working up a portfolio for some side hustles while waiting for my overnight success. I'm running out of time on that.
Other than that I don't do much.
And I am pleased with the story, the way the book flows, what an easy read it is.
I'm finishing the typographical/layout corrections. I will give it one more spellcheck before sending it off to my editor for his final check by fresh eyes before it goes up onto Amazon and Kindle. I will begin the promotional side of getting it read. That means I will be setting up the limited "free download" days so people will get the chance to read it - and post their reviews - with Amazon.
When this is done it should be easy to work on the smaller books.
SONG OF ORPHANS, my first book, will be a breeze. the cover by Fred Lang still holds up and serves that story.
THE TASTE OF FIRE, a collection of short stories, has been expanded by removing NIALL'S DREAM from my book list and folding that story into TASTE OF FIRE.
Looking t my own scripts and accepting they are not worthy of survival - they were transitional and educational experiences. But they are not theater that needs to survive.
There was a season of production in the Los Angeles small theater scene. I was a participant of Marsha Meyers' playwrights workshop, then I ran two more versions of the workshop under the title PLAYWRIGHT'S DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP. It was at the CAST and Fountain Theaters in Hollywood and resulted in many productions around the small theater scene. John "Smitty" Smith opened the Deja Vu Coffeehouse Theater to me as writer-in-residence, as he did for Robert Patrick next door at the Fifth Estate theater. A writer I first encountered in my days producing radio theater invited me in to direct some of her plays (which concluded with seven different productions of her amazing play SHATTERED SECRETS in the San Francisco Bay Area). I directed other plays for new authors and produced slates of one-acts at several L.A. venues. With producer Rev. Jeremy McLeod we created theater in found spaces around Berkeley and San Francisco. We set up lights and plays in various church basements, community halls, school rooms, and dance studios.
At the Deja Vu we mounted productions every three months, giving us a short break, six weeks of rehearsal, and a month of performances to try out new scripts and experiments in the theater. It forced me to grow as a writer, director, producer, teacher, and cheerleader for playwrights who blossomed in that scene during the early 1980s.
I was spoiled. I wrote twenty scripts and they were all produced.
And my juggling continues. While working on CLIMBING THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN I have been writing on SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL #13 (the last of the series), the next novel, MORE THAN THIS, and working up a portfolio for some side hustles while waiting for my overnight success. I'm running out of time on that.
Other than that I don't do much.
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