Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

• Hurley’s Mom
• Jesus Christ is not a weapon.
• As said to Hurley, Lost, Season 4, Ep. 12

At the end of April, I completed the draft of my wild and woolly ensemble play. I began this play in May 2006.  Way too long between start and finish.

Yet, there was no straight line from the beginning to the end. That is, as I began that play, I was finishing up the “final” draft of a different full-length play. During that two year period, I wrote two shorter plays, other plays had staged readings, some out-of-state workshop was attended, oh yeah, I moved from San Francisco to Louisville, and started an even newer play. I’m good at setting deadlines. Somethings, though, the glories of Life take precedence, and the play gets finished when it gets finished. MBH has an envious way of writing his first drafts very quickly, and then takes longer for his re-writes. I’m the opposite. I take longer to finish the first draft, and then get through the re-writes faster.

Perhaps that’s all bullsh*t. My process keeps evolving. That’s the one thing I know for sure.

I gave MBH the draft to read. Then he gave me some notes, a couple “this is me writing your play” comments, and mostly what he gave me was great conversation about the play. It was helpful to go through the play with him, and talk about what I had accomplished, and what I hadn’t. One of the ideas I had for he play, I had not yet accomplished and wasn’t sure how to get there. By the end of our conversation I knew exactly what I needed to do. And it wasn’t from anything he told me to do. It was from listening to his experience of two main characters that prompted the light bulbs to go off in my head. That kind of helpful conversation comes when someone knows your work, knows what you’re capable of, and doesn’t have any ego invested in his own opinions about all of that.

It bears repeating that you need those Safe Friends to share your work with.

The last two weeks have been spent re-writing, and I’ve been very excited about the shape the play has taken. The Beloved is out of town this weekend. No distractions for me mean I’m confident this round of re-writes will get finished while she’s gone.

And today from my home state, the Cali Supremes said:

In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and their central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all individuals and couples, without regard to their sexual orientation.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
In re MARRIAGE CASES (S1479999)

I had no doubt they would rule in this just manner.

UPDATE 5/22/2008:  All Evernote invitations have been passed out. Enjoy!

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An easy way to share and collaborate on notes are drool-able software features. Years ago, when I worked in computer technical support, one group I was in used Tornado Notes. I’m talking MS-DOS time, folks. TN was not a collaborative product, yet we pushed the envelope to make it so.

What I want out of any note keeping software:

• a way to easily clip texts, image, urls, from any application
• quick, unencumbered ability to type a note
• fast, comprehensive search features (including pdfs and images)
• the ability to store whatever I want (pdfs, images, text, handwritten notes)
• an ability to easily share notes, and allow others to add or modify notes
• to be able to access my notes anywhere there’s a wi-fi connection, from any  wi-fi device
• uh, and really, really cheap (you can’t get what you don’t ask for, ya know)

Evernote is very close to all those personal requirements. I’m not sure where I’ll end up with Evernote. Ultimately, a writer, out on my own, it will come down to cost.

I do like the idea of Evernote very much. The image recognition features, which can only improve over time, are very powerful. I value the platform and location independence of the product.

I have four Evernote invitations left, if anyone wants to try it out for his or her self.

(Send me a email if you want one.)

I did fix my SoHo Notes problems satisfactorily. That wasn’t pretty, as it ultimately involved doing a OS X “archive and install,” and reinstalling SoHo Notes. I guess there are only so many upgrades any one laptop can bear over a handful of years.

Evernote allows you to publish notebooks. Aqua Minds Notetaker also allows you to publish notebooks. (I still use Notetaker in conjunction with SoHo Notes.) MBH and I tried using this Notetaker feature, some time ago, for a collaborative venture. It was not very effective. Since then Aqua Minds has created a collaborative NoteShare application that I have not tried. Can’t afford it.

MBH and I settled on a private Typepad blog for keeping notes on our joint project. It works, although as our notes have grown, the blog requires more organization, and has become a bit unwieldy.

From SoHo Notes, you can email a note, and that’s about it for sharing.

I’ve published an Evernote test notebook, with four notes, to see how it works. Future features (months and months away, from what I’ve read) will include collaborative notebooks, and the ability to share notebooks with specific users.

UPDATE 5/22/2008:  All Evernote invitations have been passed out. Enjoy!

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My Soho Notes has been misbehaving lately in software bloated fashions. Alas, I miss the old Stickybrain version. For a moment, I thought I’d switch to Journier. Then I discovered they’re now charging $34.95.  Probably worth it. If I hadn’t just shelled out for the rotten SoHo upgrade….

As I pondered dumping SoHo, I got it working again. I must change my own computing habits to realize its power. It’s all about the shortcut keys. I also found a whole other crop of Mac notetaking software:

Tinderbox…jeez, louise it costs $299
Evernote…free for the moment. Requires an invitation. Read the graphic below.
Together…$39
VoodoPad...$49.95…there’s a “lite” version for free.
EagleFiler…$40

This is not an Ad. This is an Adventure!

Updated 5:52pm:  Was Evernote able to search my handwritten note? Yes! Although the results were hit and miss. I suspect my messy handwriting to be the culprit. Still, I’m impressed.

Noodler’s Ink
Esterbrook
Clairefontaine