the project I should be doing now

I'm supposed to be writing now. Not here, in this blog, but on a different project. And I'm avoiding it.

Gads!, but I hate holding papers in my hands, knowing that I'm suppose to fill those papers with my words. And of course I love it, too. What a great feeling of satisfaction when it's done, but until then...?

To make it worse, it's a project (a play) that I wrote some four or five years ago and which may be on the schedule for a theatre on the West Coast next year. The 'catch' is that they want a few changes.

They are absolutely right, now that I look back at that script. What they want is totally reasonable, and will only serve to make the script stronger. But I don't live with those characters any more. They were a part of me when I was writing the initial script, and they were with me as I made numerous re-writes. But we've gone our separate ways since then. How do I know what Billy should say? Or how Ivy and Rose should react? I'm just not that close to them anymore.

But it'll come back to me. I'll read and reread and reread the script some more, trying to remember just who each character is. And talking and writing about them is part of my process.

But until I can make that leap where I can issue words from their mouths, I fear the pages waiting for me.