It’s wet and windy, it’s the middle of the afternoon and it’s October. It’s also three months since my last post. I am just pondering on whether or not to do another houseworky type thing or …….. not. Not, I think, seems favourite at the moment.
I could also be re-reading my murder mystery play that I’ve written but I’ve got play blindness now and I really need someone else to read it through. In typical fashion this all came about because - because I have this unerring ability to walk into things.
Sue came up to me one day, in the spring it might have been, or early summer, or something. She said ‘Could your group put on that Murder Mystery play you did at the church for our church, we thought it would be a good fund-raiser for October’ These may not have been her actual words but on the same lines basically. So I said, ‘Yes, I’m sure we could, I’ll ask the committee’. These were my actual words……well close enough. In the mean time I thought to myself we have done this same murder play half a dozen times now and everyone in the town must know who did it by now so I’ll just write another one, I’ve got six months. So all through the May, June and July part of the year I had it at the back of my mind that I really needed to start thinking about a plot for the Murder. I checked with the committee and they agreed we could go ahead with it and thought it was a good idea as we get a donation for our own coffers too and that is never unwelcome. All through August I kept thinking ‘I should get on and start writing this play’ – I advertised in our monthly newsletter and got a handful of people prepared to help out and perform it. By the end of August I was starting to get a bit anxious that I hadn’t so far even come up with a basic outline of a plot even though I had a cast all raring to go. In the first week of September inspiration finally arrived and I have finished writing it at last - with just enough time to go over it with my assembled group of volunteers. It is designed to be read from the script so a few rehearsals should be sufficient. It is now filling me with a sense of alarm and dread that this is to form the entire evening’s entertainment for a large group of people and what if they think it’s absolute s**t, not to mention the fact that one of my volunteers is a creative writing enthusiast and not averse to giving his honest opinion. How on earth did I get into this? And then I get a telephone call from a nice lady who has a scout group who has heard that the acting group I belong to might be able to put on a Murder Mystery for the scout group, a jolly idea for a fund-raiser……..I need to lie down in a darkened room!
Hey ho.
One of my plans for the year was to start a book club and I am composing in my head a text message to send to some of my lady friends. I think I’ll just go for it. First Monday in November and see what happens. And then if it comes off I might do a web-based spin-off. So far November is not too cluttered with other stuff. I wonder how complicated I can make this.
