Creeping up on it

I shouldn't overstate the importance of finishing a first draft of a new play, because after all, that's just the beginning of the work. Then, one must read it through out loud and fix all the clumsy parts one can find, and make sure it all flows together. Do a little timing to see how long it runs. Then let some folks read it over and make suggestions. Then contemplate a reading gathering to see what it sounds like in other voices and interpretations. Then, maybe, you're close to a finished draft.

But all that being said, it is still exciting to me, now on the third time through this process, to be within a few pages of having a complete story. (I'm not counting the ten-minute play, since that started off as just an exercise to see if I could do one, and literally, the first draft took six hours to write. There wasn't much time to even contemplate the "process" on that one!)

Anyway, "The Good Life" has almost been glued together. At some point, there will be reading and timing and editing, but I'm always thrilled when something in my head makes its way to being, for real, on paper. And it's almost there.