Good writing day yesterday. After lunch with Dave and friends, I helped out at the bookstore for a little bit, changing an outlet in the upstairs office to three-prong and putting some curtains over the windows to keep the room cooler. Then over to Sweet Adeline with my laptop and books, where I worked on scene four for a couple of hours. I got four or five pages written — probably about two-thirds of what the length of the scene will be — and I think it’s very good stuff, too.

When I write something meant to be spoken or sung out loud, lyrics or dialogue, I read it out loud as I go. I write the line, and then I imagine myself as the character in the situation and I say the line and see if it feels right for the character to say it. And I also imagine myself in the audience and I try to feel how I’d react to the line if I were hearing it for the first time, and see if it creates in me the reaction I would like it to create in the audience. Usually, of course, there’s something wrong with the line and I have to make an adjustment and try again, and sometimes it takes many, many tries. So there I am in Sweet Adeline, typing away and saying everything I’m typing under my breath, and I can only imagine that anyone taking notice of me was thinking, oh that poor man, he can’t type without moving his lips.

I want to get a good first draft done of the first act (of three) as soon as I can. I think there will be eight scenes in the act, so I’m about halfway there. And it feels very good to be moving forward with it again.