UPDATES
26 May, 2012, Shakespeare Project Process

Very mixed feelings working on my Shakespeare project. Don't know how to describe. I was right about one thing. Very little time or energy to actually think about it. I know the basic idea. The shape of it. I've got the original Shakespeare play to rely on, after all. Of course, that doesn't really do me much good since I'm not exactly following the play. I've written—what?—approximately 30,000 words, and I'm still mucking about in act one. And, once I'm finally out of act one, I think the rest of the plot is just going to fly by. So, I think this is going to be very top-heavy, so to speak, which worries me for very stupid reasons. Oh, it can't be too short. Well, why not? Because the anticipated eBook price will seem unfair or something? Can't charge as much as for the others if it is only half the length? Seriously? Is that what's bugging me? That's just really stupid.

The most important thing is for the story to be whatever it turns out to be. I shouldn't be going by such arbitrarily stupid ideas as minimum word counts. Irrelevant. Arbitrary minimum word counts is one of the leading causes of padding. The other leading causes of padding that come to mind are unwarranted feelings of self-importance and bloody-minded delaying tactics. Can't get to that important bit yet. Not enough has happened. But, I digress.

Actually, one of the things that does worry me is the pacing of the whole mess. Not enough build-up. Set-up. Things seeming clumped together. Wanting to add more in the name of adequately setting the stage, as it were. Which is its own trap. More self-importance masquerading as pacing. More padding.

Yes, these are the concerns that haunt my brain.

Which brings us all back around to the feeling that not enough thought has gone into the preparation. Something I knew was going to happen. Kind of why I chose this project in the first place. Silly little slip of a work. Adapting a play. No need to give it a lot of thought. Whole point being just something to write down. Keep the creative juices flowing without worrying about getting kicked in the head by the feeling that it's just not good enough. It's not supposed to be good. It's just supposed to be. Interesting idea. Fun to do. Very light. No substance. Don't worry about the substance, anyway. Let it be whatever in the world it shall turn out to be.

So, I don't know. So many times, I've sat at the keyboard without a clue whatever it is I'm going to do. No idea what scene needs to happen next or why. Not a clue what anybody is going to say until they actually start talking. Determined, all the same.

So, yeah, no idea how to describe. The process being fairly weird. Almost but not quite improvisation. Not as much fun as The Faire Folk of Gideon, which was just a blast. Really flying without a net there.

The Shakespeare project? Kind-of interesting, really. Interesting ideas. Character motivations. Playing with the form of writing. Very minimalist. Lots of sentence fragments. Lots of dialogue without a shred of description. Moving along. No idea how it is going to turn out. I should be really excited by the whole works. No idea why I'm not. Exhausted from work. At least, I hope I'm just exhausted from work.

Oh, well.

copyright © 2012 by keith d. jones – all rights reserved