Children of Light is in its 3^rd week of rehearsals and things are moving along.  I am working with 2 composers, writing music for 4 songs.    We are at about the half-way mark of blocking the entire play and then we move onto acting.  I hope to pass on a cast photo by month’s end.  Children of Light will be performed at The Stone Church in Toronto Dec 8 & 9 for 3 performances.

Last month I reported on being a semi-finalist in the Writemovies Screenplay Competition.  I have now advanced to the finalist position with my script Home with the winner being announced on Oct 25.

I have one scene left to write in the re-write of my screenplay Walk (which will take on the new title PLAY BALL). When I started this re-write, I thought it would be simple (famous last words).  There’s no such thing as a “simple” re-write…or working through a few “tweaks”.  When you start re-writing, it takes on a life of its own.  I have re-written about 40 pages of Walk which is almost half the script.   Next step will be transcribing everything to the computer (because I handwrite everything) and in that process another re-write will happen.

Which brings me to my final thought of this blog: it surprises me (or maybe not so much) that the act of cursive writing is going out of style.   Cursive writing is another way of saying handwriting (yes, that’s right, actually physically writing with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper).  My 3 nephews and niece are in various grades in school and I’ve learned that hardly any of them do cursive writing anymore.  In elementary school, they still teach it, but it is slowly being phased out.  And in high school, everything’s done on computer.  I get it.  Sign of the times…but it makes me sad.

There is something about the act of a pen striking a page and writing (the old fashion way).  I have said this before, but my first drafts (and subsequent drafts) of any script I’m working on are all handwritten.  I may have 40 pages of brainstorming notes before starting a script.  And then, for a screenplay, an average script is 100 pages; those pages are handwritten.  For me, one of the great pleasures in the creative process is taking those pages of cursive writing and recreating them on the computer (ie, typing them out).  I am still creating on the computer, don’t get me wrong, but the seeds of creation begins in cursive writing.