A funny thing happened a couple weeks ago.  I finished writing my 3^rd draft of Circus (now called Animal), and I sat down to read the play from beginning to end.  Although this is a 3^rd draft, in all honesty it’s a 1^st draft of a 3^rddraft (if you know what I mean).  The overall structure (story) and characters of Animal are the same, however, entire scenes were scraped and only bits and pieces of draft 2 remained in draft 3.  It’s essentially a new play.

But I digress…..I felt relieved and accomplished once I finished writing this latest draft of Animal.   My thoughts were that this will make a great piece of theatre.  But after reading the entire play through for the first time and upon reflection, I had this thought in my head:  “I am not the genius I thought I was”.  I was disheartened by the quality of work and felt like everything I had written was pretty bad (clichéd, boring, unoriginal, on-the-nose, melodramatic and not very funny…blah).   When I write a new draft (or first draft) of any script, I do it in handwriting.  I’m old school that way and think better with pencil to paper.   So these past couple weeks, I’ve been typing Animal onto the screen and as I’ve been doing this, the play is beginning to take a new shape and I’m starting to feel better about the script.  I can only hope that the “genius” makes its way in.  Writing is re-writing and for me, it is probably the toughest part of writing.

Play Ball was re-written many times before it took 1^st Runner at the Kairos Prize.  The first draft of that screenplay (originally called The Tree of Life) is very different from what is now called Play Ball.  But you have to start somewhere; you have to get those words down on paper no matter how bad they are.  And it’s important to be realistic – a 1^st draft rarely goes without a 2^nd, 3^rd, etc, etc…

Speaking of Play Ball, I had a production company interested in the script and we had two good conversations on the phone.  In the end, they decided not to option the script (for those out there who do not know what an option is, basically it’s when a producer “rents” your script for a period of time in the hopes of purchasing it).  This company is willing to give me notes on the script and I can re-submit to them a new draft.   I will continue to pursue a home for Play Ball and in the meantime, I will continue to write…continue to strive for genius.