Starting the Hat

So, I brought my daughter to rehearsal this morning. While driving to the store, after I dropped her off, I started thinking about the show, and started improvising some dialogue for the scenes. I had that impulse to write, but was nowhere near a computer; in fact, I'm in the middle of a hard target search for the jump drive that has what I already wrote. So while at the store, I picked up a small notebook. After the store, I stopped at Infuse, my favorite tea shop in Sayville; got myself an Earl Grey de la Creme, and sat and wrote. Freehand. In a notebook.

First, I wrote out the five story lines, and the 3 or 4 scenes that make up each independent story. I noticed that each had a scene that overlaps in my mind. I then started writing out the second scene for the Brian/Lena story. My original plan was to write out each story line first, and then combine them. Scene "BL2," as I have come to call it, starts with Lena writing in her blog about Brian's firing, and explaining that he's been on a job search. That leads into a song called "Do What You're Good At (And Do It For Money)." (That song has already been written.)

With BL2 written, I went to move on to BL3... except that is really part of another scene. Brian appears in Tiffany and Dan's scene, having gotten a job at the coffee shop. So... I'd really need to write their scene, which is TD3, and I haven't yet written TD1 or TD2. I also realized that this would happen a lot. So, my solution was to plan out the entire show, and where the scenes would appear. I began with BL1, JK1, etc; and then rewrote it as Scene 1, 2, 3, etc with character names and plot descriptions, and indications of where the songs will be. I can now build on this, and write the show in this order.