Happy Cinco de Mayo! I hope you are enjoying a lovely sangria, daiquiri, or margarita somewhere. We wandered out to get a few groceries and some wine so we could make sangria at home, and then took to our back patio to drink in the sangria and the hot sun of the late afternoon. I was extra-careful this year, and did not get so tanked that I could a) injure myself, and b) not remember how it happened :)
But today's moment is brought to you by procrastination and discovery, which led to a huge breakthrough.
A couple of weeks ago, I went into the deep recesses of the storage closet in the office. My goal? To retrieve two Winnie the Pooh soundtracks on vinyl, stored in an old trunk. Sometimes I forget everything that is stored in that trunk, so I was surprised when I found all of my old scripts from various productions I was in. I decided to pull them out with the intention of moving them to one of the bookcases--sort of a reminder of those days when I still performed--but then I got tired after putting everything back in the closet, so I just left the scripts in a small pile of items I meant to do something with.
Etienne made a comment today about what I intended to do with the pile, so while he sat down to watch the Habs game, I went in and grabbed the scripts. To my surprise and delight, I didn't just find my old scripts, I found *my* old scripts. On occasion, I was tapped or assigned to write a brief script or a scene for a project, and somehow in my youth, I had the sense enough to keep copies. Found:
-A scene I co-wrote with two classmates for a Drama 101 class during my first attempt at college.
-A script of a movie I had written scenes for with members of my high school drama club (produced with a social work student).
-A script for a short two-scene play I wrote about teens and drunk driving for a Students Against Drinking and Driving event.
As I read what I wrote back when I was 16 and 17 years old, I was quite astounded; while these are the works of a teenager, they each contained lines and directions that were quite sharp, pointed, or witty. I inexplicably became irritated...why hadn't anyone encouraged me to explore this more?
Anyway, the breakthrough happened shortly after. I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to answers some questions and solve some outstanding character and plot point issues, in particular a major change for the protagonist, and suddenly, with a comment from Etienne related to a dialogue exchange in one of the scripts, I had some answers. Good ones. I still need to do some work to manage a few more questions/issues, but gawddamn! I'm excited now!
Sometimes procrastination brings good things...
...Wish you were here.
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