Another possible scene for a sequel to Gentlemen Never Tell. An element I like from this story is balancing the rivalry and romantic connection between Justin and Rosaline, for tension, humor, and a little spicy frisson. This scene is too cursory and not witty enough, but it’s meant to set up the nature of their conflict in this installment, plus the idea that they’re going to go to crazy lengths to one up each other.



( Day #15 - All’s Fair )

A bit I hope to incorporate into Mrs. Hawking part 9. Something I’d like to explore is how hard it is to expand into a functional larger team. Mary is now stepping into the leadership position, but it’s a huge challenge and burden, and she’s got to figure out how to handle it. And I like the idea that, as much as she’s come into her own and doesn’t need a mentor anymore, there are still some things Mrs. Hawking can do to help and support her in this step of her growth.

As a side note, I wasn’t expecting to write this scene; it just kind of came to me. It’s a pleasant bonus of doing 31P31D when I come up with something I wouldn’t have come up with unless I pushed myself to just get something written.


Photo by Kathy Bedard

( Day #14 - Responsible )

Bleh, I don’t like this. It’s the scene immediately following yesterday’s #11 - Too Much in Dead Tongues. I know what it’s supposed to accomplish, but the details are sloppy and the execution feels contrived. I prefer a more naturalistic unfolding, but when you have a character alone in an audio drama, it’s tough not to have the character talk to themselves in an unrealistic way. There’s also a lot of cliche imagery, most of which I don’t even know what is supposed to mean. Lame. I can always clean it up later, but still, bleh.

( Day #12 - Rosamunde )

Haven’t worked on this one in a long while. This is a scene from an idea I had for a ghost story audio drama, tentatively titled Dead Tongues. A family marries into an old noble lineage with a spooky house in the country, and the presence of the spirits are indicated by whispers of ancient Roman history and poetry. A conceit I’m not sure is workable practically, but I like the idea of it, and so I’m playing around with it.

This is another project I don’t really have fully figured out. Just noodling and seeing what comes of it. This scene comes after these previous:

Scene 1 - "Alea Iacta Est"
Scene 2 - "Left Her in Marble"
Scene 3 - “Shears His Flock”

( Day #11 - Too Much )

Ostensibly the fourth scene of my new horror piece Lacuna, after #4 - New Game, #5 - Curious, and #7 - Streaming.

A thing I often struggle with, particularly when I’m still figuring out the structure of a project, is the right speed of information release. I often find myself uncertain of what is good foreshadowing, what is giving too much away, and what is too empty because I’m trying to keep things hidden. This is a scene that is supposed to have early hints of important information under the surface, but neither immediately expose too much, nor waste the audience’s time. I don’t know if I’ve achieved either of those things here, but at least it’s down on paper.

( Day #10 - Inspiration )

I realized recently I haven’t worked on the mainline entry in my MCU fanfiction series, Forever Captain, for like a year now, and I feel kind of guilty about that. Of course, I feel guilty when I spend too much time writing fanfiction as well, so I guess I can’t win. But I do want those stories to get finished eventually. Unfortunately, I always find plotting to be the most intensive work in writing, and in a plot-heavy story like that one, it makes it the number one barrier to making progress.

It sometimes helps when I’m stuck on a prose project to try drafting scenes as drama, to lower the barrier to getting them on the page. That’s not super helpful when I’m trying to just figure out what needs to happen structurally, but it occurred to me it might help on a lower-intensity installment in the series that hasn’t seen any updates recently either. So here’s a scene from The Show, the one where Steve’s great-granddaughter takes him to see Rogers! The Musical. The premise of that piece is that while laughing over the musical’s inaccuracies, Steve gets to reflect to his great-granddaughter about the trajectory of his life, so I can weave pathos into the humor, and I’m afraid this scene is a bit thin for that. But as I continually remind myself— draft now, flesh out later. If you can’t do something you want to with a scene, do the next-easiest thing to it, and fix it in the edit.

I shall definitely have to do that here.



( Day #9 – Singing and Dancing )