Hello happy people. BradK here with an update on life as I know it and my general whereabouts and whatchyabeendoinabouts of late.
Well, I just got back from Europe. Barely. I left London's beautiful Heathrow Terminal 3 a scant 14 hours before the UK Airspace was closed due to the ash cloud belched forth upon this land by the Icelandic Volcano Mount Icantprounounceitandniethercanyou. So, counting my lucky stars (that you can see through the ash cloud) I have returned.
(By the way, I'm told the ash on the ground is so thick right now you can't see the potholes in the streets... Yep, some Icelanders can't tell their ash from a hole in the ground. Wokka WOKKA!!)
So after a whirlwind tour of the UK, France, Germany, the Ukraine, Russia, and Switzerland in just over three weeks, the BradK has returned to the mostly-English speaking part of the world, albeit, we do speak "bad English" more than "English" 'round these parts.
Now, you may ask, "But BradK, with all that travel and seeing all those sights, surely a Musing had to have hit you on your adventures!?"
Loyal readers (and occasional curiosity seekers), it's true, there was much to Muse me AND a-Muse me. But my mind was a razor sharp focus over the past month or so. See, just before I left, I was driving home from work, and I had a "Grand Musing" - one that is still to this day, not quite ready for prime-time (or rather, blog-time). I envisioned a story that needed to be put to paper...er... Word Doc. And several weeks later, I realized the origin of my story came from an unlikely place. I was having a conversation in a bar with one of my favorite bartenders and a very Sweet Man... er.. Sweetman... (it's his last name, bear with me). We were discussing "Honesty vs. Selfishness" in some context that was basically, a silly fun premise. Fast forward a couple weeks, and the conversation had sat quietly in the cobweb covered moldy part of my brain called the "subconscious" until it came screaming into the forefront of my thoughts.
So it became a play exploring an extreme, but possible, situation where honesty may be the more selfish option between a couple.
What you say?
Well, yes... I said the play explores the situation as a dramatic concept. Act I is complete and sets it up pretty nicely I think. Act II is a little more tricky because I need to decide on 1) how to resolve the Act I conflict, 2) IF elements are resolved, and 3) justifying properly 1) and 2).
So far... so good...
"Woah, that's pretty heavy man..." you say? Yep! (I sez)
And if you think the conceptual conflict is heavy, wait until you see the CONTEXT! I do enjoy a good dramatic element. As a director, I like those moments in the script that rip out your heart and eat it for lunch (EXTREMELY well executed in say, the first 10 minutes of the Pixar movie "UP!"), and then have a moment or two midstream that takes a sledge-hammer and whacks you a good one in the nether-regions (preferably just before intermission in a play). Also, I think a really well written piece is proven so by the discussion it generates afterward, where people can talk to each other about the choices that were made by the characters, whether or not they would have done the same or different, or whether or not they personally can feel what the character felt and empathize, even without condoning or agreeing.
So that's what I'm going for. And I'm trying to find that "thing" that carry's through those ridiculously difficult choices. In the case of my play, I decided that the "X-Factor" called Love must partially prevail (yeah yeah, call me mushy), and how that plays out in Act II will be the toughest part of the writing. The goal is to not have it get all Nicholas Sparks formulaic. Although that works for him, I think there's an element of realism that will make any tragic event a little less "cutesy" and a little more true across the entire spectrum of the human condition.
For example, in real life, the loss of a loved one through illness, though a sad event and generally overshadowed with grief, often includes an element of "relief" because of the end of suffering. Without getting all mad at me, consider this possibility: is it not also true that the relief goes both ways? What I mean is, although there's an end to the suffering on the part of the newly deceased loved one, is there not also a "selfish" element in there as well, where the relief also hits the surrounding family and friends, relief from having to *watch* a loved one suffer and care for them in their need? It does sound callous, but in fact, I think it's a normal part of the human condition, and depending on the person, that more "selfish" relief has a greater or lesser impact on them based on who they are as a person. Is that ok? How does that affect someone if they examine themselves and realize this? Is it something some / many / most people even realize? Are there exceptions to this (does that suggest a more pure soul)? Does this usually morph into a form of guilt, and if so, what's the resolution for it? What else could come of it? Is there a form of acceptance?
So that's another element I'm slightly exploring with this script.
Yeah. Heavy.
But fascinating!!! In any event, I'm very much enjoying putting together this piece and am looking forward to sharing it with anyone who is interested. Please bear with me, as there are only a few select people I would bounce it off of while in it's "early development" stage, but once I have a full draft I'm happy with (note: Not the "final" version, but a full workable version), I would be happy to post it here...
Well, that's it for this musing... sorry if it depressed you a bit... that's why I started off with the bad volcano / ash joke..
MAKE YA LAUGH, MAKE YA CRY!
Ciao!
B
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