Mike Mariano

Up on the site: It Takes A Nation Of Norwegians To Hold Us Back!, in glorious HTML and PDF flavors.

I began the year with a list of plays I would fail to write. How surprising is it that one play made it to the site, while two others are well underway? I’m surprised.

What’s in store for 2007? The Egypt Play (again). The Aladdin Play (again). And how about I start sending these plays out? And how about I write something that isn’t a play? We’ll see. Happy New Year!

I have completed a second draft of the long-awaited Ibsen sequel It Takes A Nation of Norwegians To Hold Us Back! It is a twenty-minute one-act for two women and one man (An Enemy of the People’s Dr. Thomas Stockmann).

It’s all over but the formatting! I must remember my stew of regular expressions, search-and-replacements, and old-fashioned hand-markup that will result in HTML and PDF versions of my work. With luck, I’ll have a readable draft by the end of the year.

Also complete? A first draft of Act I of The Aladdin Play AKA As You Wish. Sure, the play will spend the better part of the decade in draft form only, but knowing I’m halfway there makes me feel falsely prolific.

How about a Naplwrimo update?

How about the one you expect? The end of the month is here and I have nowhere near a finished, ninety-page first draft of The Aladdin Play.

The quick pace of the playwriting month have forced some changes on my work habits. For the most part The Aladdin Play is coming across like a straightforward adaptation of Aladdin. In fact, if I write at my current pace until the end of the fairy tale, I will have enough for a full-length play using only this one source.

But I have other sources in mind for this play. And bigger themes! Love! And beauty! My time with this fairy tale must be cut down.

My slow, stingy writing process is giving way to rough drafts and cut scenes? The effects of this playwriting month are strong indeed.