One Down, Eleven To Go

It is the end of January and I am happy to say that I have finally submitted my Radio Play, Voodoo Magic. Not a very imaginative title, I know, but I couldn't think of any more creative. The month of January literally kicked my ass. This was one of the most emotional months I have ever had and it had a huge impact my writing.

No excuses, but here is a recap of how things went:

I had made the decision to write 12 in 12 in December of last year. I found out about the BBC sponsored radio play writing contest near the end of December. On December 27, my Paw Paw passed away. On December 31, I celebrated my fourteenth wedding anniversary. On January 3, I finally started working on my play. On January 8, my Grandma passed away. And I was lost. I didn't pick my computer up again for nine days. So finally on January 17, I started working again. I didn't work much on the weekends simply because of the difficulty of getting things done with three kids being stuck in the house during the Winter season. The deadline for submission was midnight on January 31st. My goal was to submit my work on the 30th because I didn't want to risk the time difference between us and Great Britain disqualifying me.

Again, no excuses, but all in all I only worked on my script for maybe half of the month. So what I turned in was essentially a rough draft with one revision. How embarrassing. My best and my worst critic is my husband. When he read the first version, I cried. I had gotten so focused on making sure the length was right that I lost the story along the way. He couldn't figure out what I was trying to do; what my characters were trying to accomplish. I ended up spending two entire days dedicated to stripping my story down and building it back up. I cut scenes out and tried to focus on building characters and strengthening dialogue. I made sure that everyone knew what was going on. That no character just assumed anything. It made me feel that I was repeating a lot of information, but for a format that relies entirely on aural information, that is probably necessary. I haven't asked him to read it again. I'm afraid he'll tell me it still is't strong enough, but it's too late now.

I feel bad that I will be judged on something I feel is sub-par. I'm not comfortable with that. But on the plus side, I have a pretty good starter script to build off of for future projects. And I also have no idea what the judges are looking for. I never enter a contest expecting to win. I enter because of the opportunity to write something new and for the rare opportunity to get feedback. If I do win something, that would be great! But I never expect it.

Now to look for something for February...