A breather and a banner

Now that I’ve fleshed out the minor characters and set all the scenes in one location, I feel reasonably satisfied with the new draft and I email it to the Octagon ahead of the deadline.

This last week I’ve spent pretty solidly working on the play, so I’m more than ready, to take a breather from Fred and all things Dibnahesque to focus on a different writing project for a while.

A large banner is now hanging in the Octagon advertising all the plays for next season. This is just as good as having my name up in lights!

A draft with holes

I’m now tidying up the post-workshop draft ready to send to David Thacker and Lizzie Newman. It’s all but ready and, as David said I could, I’ve included a few notes to them in red. As far as I can see there are still at least a couple of reasonably big holes in the play that need filling . . . 1) a story that Fred tells to Sheila on their first meeting. This has to be a tale of significance about life, death and destruction but I haven’t yet found the right one. 2) A new beginning for Scene 5 in the second act which has to be different to the other scenes in the back garden and shouldn’t involve Dad’s Army.

I will think about these two holes before the meeting on this draft in July and try to solve them in the meantime.

Apart from this there are minor glitches that can be fixed, I’m sure, during discussion with David and Lizzie and in the writing of the next draft.