Day 20 - Queen Anne's Lace

Back to the Beach

The weekend is winding to a quiet close. I spent Saturday in a culinary moode and prepared some serious feastings. Good friends came for dinner, we ate and drink. Somewhere among the menu planning and fish marinating, I didn't go running, but I did walk to and from the shopping centre to get a roasting pan!

Today, however, I walked along the bayside esplanade with Uiver in tow. We enjoyed the scenery of the distant bush foreshore and had coffee at the funky new sailing club cafe. After the there and the back, it turned out to be a long and energising walk.

Have really been doing this daily...

... but failing to blog about it. I'm very pleased with the progress though. I couldn't get so much done if I didn't have the 30 day limit to focus my attention.
Here is an old bit, almost the first that I wrote of this attempt, from Act I Scene I, the kids Saul and Jacob alone together for the first time:

A student room in a Cambridge college, part of a set. The original panelling is still there. A leaded window looks out onto the court. Mod cons have been fitted to serve the needs of conference guests and others during the vacation: a coffee maker; wifi. There's a couch.

...

SAUL: I'm having the bed.

JACOB: No.

SAUL: I'm having the bed.

JACOB walks stage L, looks offstage, throws his backpack through the door of the bedroom.

SAUL: You're a child.

JACOB: You can have the bed next year for three years. Takes out a cigarette.

SAUL: You can't. The window won't open.

JACOB: I'll say it's you. He lights it.

SAUL: Fucking... Please. Tries to grab the cigarette. Don't be a dick –

JACOB: You're swearing, Saul, and you need to control yourself. That won't go down well with the master.

Jacob lies on the couch and smokes.

JACOB: It is a bit blatant, though, isn't it.

SAUL: It's... tradition.

JACOB: No, fine. They're protecting their interests.

SAUL: They're doing it for us.

JACOB: That's what I said.

SAUL: So what's –

JACOB: The problem is just it's hypocritical. Do you think they'll get me in?

I would think if they can get you in, they can get me in for sure. As I got the brains. Since I inherited the family brains.

Hey, do you think this could have been their room?

SAUL: Dad's?

JACOB: Mum's?

They listened to records here, they smoked dope here, they did whatever people did in the 80s...

[alternatively: Jacob makes this speech to Saul. Saul then gives the bed up. It's too talky and pat for Saul.]

SAUL: Oh yes.

They kissed for the first time. It was electric! They knew. And when they came back here as PhDs – he, a young Turk of evolutionary theory – she, a hart drinking from the streams of medieval literature – they returned one night. It started in fun. They broke into the old room where they met. Nobody was around. It was dark, just like the first night they met. Just like tonight.

They made love, Jacob. Your father's penis, gently – but you're a biologist. You know the details. And you were conceived. On the bed where you now will sleep.

JACOB: Oh no way.

He smokes.

JACOB: It doesn't fit. It would have been you. I was in London.

I still like this bit a lot, and I think it's because Jacob comes across as a little shit -- an interesting little shit.
I really want all my characters to be extremely interesting humans -- not just interesting from the outside, but people you would like to talk to. Perhaps that is a mistake.