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I am busy lining up a director for my New York reading of Blue Roses at the Dramatists Guild Friday Night Lights series on October 28, 2011 at 6pm. Stop by if you are in Manhattan that evening. The play runs between 60-75 minutes. You can still make your 8pm show.
I will have finished a first draft of the sequel to Blue Roses by then, which I can pitch at will to anyone who shows interest, and maybe to strangers who will listen, just for practice. (Pitching your story is critical if you're a writer who wants to get produced.)
On the poetry front: I received a late night email from Binge Press and Productions. They want to publish my mini-chapbook "Invert Sugar" of lesbian poems. I'm quite happy about it. They produce these minis, not to make money, but to promote poets. I'll receive 50, fifty!, of these little charmers, plus 100 broadsides of one of the poems from the book to promote myself, and they will sell as many as they can at places like the AWP, book fairs and readings.
Serendipity much? I'll be giving away books and broadsides at my reading, won't I? And handing out business cards, of course. Speaking of which, my new cards sport ALL my social network info: google+, Twitter, blogspot, Facebook, website, email and cell. What do you include on your card?

Although I do think that most of my energy, creative and otherwise, is going towards healing my body from the fall, I can feel my brain trying to steer itself back toward writing creatively again. I have two big projects: a major rewrite of "Blue Roses" and a minor rewrite of "The Godmother." Blue Roses first I think, because I'm excited about it. Although the characters from The Godmother periodically harass me, even in my dreams, to DO SOMETHING, to get the play produced. That bunch, they want out of the box. Each character has a full life that wants to be lived onstage. I could do an entire series with these characters, if I had the chance. I could see them in a TV series, for sure.
I would love to see them in an onstage series, although that is so hard to do. Not that a TV series isn't hard to do! Right? Where would THAT money come from? I guess what I mean is, that because a local production seems more doable, it seems harder. The TV idea would be completely up to someone else who came along and bought the rights.
The point is, I have enough ideas, enough character background and story to write the material. These gangsters are kicking at the file cabinet all the time. Where they are it's 1928, Kansas City, Missouri, and Prohibition is in full swing. Not really enforced in KC because of politics, so the Irish Mob is doing great. The Godmother is a young butch dyke who has just taken over for her murdered brother. She is Tomboy McCorkle and she chooses for her second Mr. Uppity Jones. Half her crew is African-American, half her girls are too. She's got a thing for her widowed sister-in-law Corker, and she's got a younger brother to raise. She's also got some serious competition to watch out for with Chee Chee di Mayo and his boys. So, you can see I'm gonna have to get to them soon.
Blue Roses is getting a complete overhaul. The current protagonist will become a background player as one of the background players steps up to take over the story. I'm excited about it. It makes so much more sense in my mind already. I'll tell you more after I complete a draft.
How do you gear up to write new creative works? do you outline? mind map? talk about your work or keep it secret? I'm planning to use Blake Snyder's Save the Cat to outline Blue Roses this time, just as I did when I wrote The Godmother. It is a screenwriting book, but it works for the stage as well. Tell me your writing secrets! I'm spilling mine.