45 minutes before my play is due, and I am zen.

I recognize that there are things wrong with this draft. There are things wrong with this draft that I cannot fix in the time I have remaining and I am just going to let them be. With that in mind, I recognize that I have basically written eighty pages with limited grabbing from my previous draft in about four days, and that is no small feat.

I recognize that there is language in this play that is "inelegant." There are monologues that I felt like I needed a shower after writing. Someone gets called a "cum-dumpster," which I think is a terrible phrase and one I would never,  ever use; but I recognize that it is in character. I recognized that my biggest weakness as a writer last week was my reluctance to "go there" and let sex and violence be explicit. I recognize that this play represents an attempt to overcome this weakness. It might not be there yet, but I forced myself to write the monologues and I forced myself to leave them and if nothing else I learned how to push my boundaries this semester.

I recognize that this is not a final draft. I will revise this play. But I have made improvements in the rewrite that justify that I only slept four hours last night.

And I am zen.

Fresh drafts and alternate character interpretations

One of my aunts has a fridge magnet that claims she is "Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult." Carson is that relative (not literally based on my aunt) pumped up to eleven. His responsible adult costume is paper thin. Marcus treats him more like a younger sibling than an estranged friend, which is much closer to what I originally envisioned their dynamic. Honorary "Uncle Carson" just creates a much more comfortable and friendly relationship with Lou, as well, and the degree of transparency that all of these characters have with each other is really freeing.

There's no longer layers of secrets - there's only one, and it's the most important secret. 

But back to Carson. He's the free-wheeling uncle who blows into town when the wind pushes him that way. He's thirty-six, but retains a boyishness and refusal to grow up and face responsibility that likens him to Peter Pan. He owns neither a dependent animal nor a coffee table. He has never been married - in fact, any attempts at all to probe into his romantic life prove utterly fruitless: it is either so non-existent or so convoluted that it will never come to light. 

(When Lou is twenty-four she will run into Carson at some family function and suddenly understand ever aspect of his psychology in a single epiphanic flash.)

Carson is erratic, a little bit manic depressive, a lot of an optimist. He anticipates every plan ending in success, puts justice first... and still, after all of his hospitalizations and rehabilitations and the abuse he's been put through, believes that people are fundamentally good. Carson remains a Hero not only because it's the only thing he knows how to do but because he believes in the work.

I like the airiness and the energy this new draft is giving me. I was told to let the play breathe - and I hope I'm doing that.