Month: November 2013

Wordcount : 2844

I was more interested in editing today. You look at what I’ve got written and it’s seven pages of nothing but lengthy paragraphs.  I don’t expect middle schoolers to dive right into that.

Here’s the conversation I had with my 11yr old test subject this morning (my daughter):

Me: Did you read the latest version?

Her: I did.

Me: What did you think, did you like it?

Her: I did like it. It’s good.

Me: What should I change?

Her: Nothing.

Me: Seriously, it won’t hurt my feelings, there’s got to be things that I can change to make it better.

Her: No, really, nothing. It’s good. Don’t change it.

Me: Really?  Nothing?

Her:  ….wellllll……who is Gertrude?

Me: …  ummm…..err……QUEEN Gertrude?  Hamlet’s MOTHER?

Her:  Ohhhhhhh!

Me:  That’s in the second sentence!

Her: Well I didn’t get it!

Me:  You just said it was good it was good don’t change a thing!

<later, in front of the computer>

Me: I used the word Gertrude 11 times.  I used the word mother 11 times. I’m not sure where it got confusing.

Her: Yeah but you never said mother Gertrude together!

Me: You mean other than here in the second sentence where I wrote Hamlet’s mother Gertrude?

Her:  There should be a comma there.

Me: What?

Her: After mother.  Hamlet’s mother, comma, Gertrude.

Me: That’s not the point!

Tonight we’re visiting friends, who have a daughter my own daughter’s age who is also into theatre.  The whole family is extraordinarily well-read but admittedly weak in Shakespeare. They also know I’m doing this project. I will almost certainly bring them a copy.

Oh, it’s on now.

While working on my Hamlet guide for the kids I wanted to make sure I had my capitalization rules correct, so I asked on Twitter.  When speaking of Hamlet, do you capitalize the word “prince”?  I figure there’s multiple ways to say it:

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Hamlet, who happens to be Prince of Denmark
Prince Hamlet of Denmark

and so on.

What I got back for the most part said, “If he is the only prince, i.e. he has no siblings, then it is his title and titles are capitalized. So, always Prince.”

Until this morning when a professional copy editor checked in and said, “Nope, titles in general are not capitalized.  Prince Hamlet yes, but Hamlet prince of Denmark is just a description so no.”

Let the bloodshed begin.  Which is it?  Cite your references.

See Day 1 here, if you’re curious about why we’re 7 days in to November and I just started counting.


Today’s word count : 2545

My “brain dump” portion is relatively complete. As I explained to my daughter, this is the raw version where I just make sure that I get the information on the page.  It’s not even what I’d call a rough draft because there’s no formatting at all (short of paragraph breaks).

Now I want to go through and flesh it out, add what I missed, clarify thoughts, stuff like that. I found myself explaining what was up with Fortinbras, why the story has to end with him, rather than on “The rest is silence,” although some productions might well cut it there.

My daughter is reading it each day with the following guideline: “Could you give this to a friend to read? Would your friend understand it? Would your friend want to see Hamlet after reading it?”

All three questions are important. I don’t want to make something that you would tell a student she must read.  Then it’s just another form of homework. I’m aiming for “This was an enjoyable read all by itself, and now I want to go see this story performed on stage” rather than “I read this because you told me to and I’ll go see Hamlet if I have to.”

I’ve always wanted to tackle the NaNoWriMo challenge (“National Novel Writer’s Month”), where authors commit to writing a thousand words a day for a month. For various reasons, I have not.

That doesn’t mean I can’t create my own, however.  As I mentioned yesterday, my daughter’s high school is performing Hamlet November 16-17. That’s a week and a half away. My goal is to produce a summary/guide/cheatsheet to the play that could be circulated among the 11yr olds (my daughter’s friends) that would meet two goals:  first, that they could actually understand what’s going on, and second, that it might prove interesting enough that they want to go see the play.

Last night I knocked out 1382 words on the subject.

I’ll report back daily until my task is complete.  Unlike NaNoWriMo where the goal of the entire month is word count (with editing presumably to follow), I have a hard deadline of next Thursday (allowing them time to read it before show time!) for something that’s at least acceptably edited and formatted.

Wish me broken legs!  Because if I broke a leg then I could stay home from work and write more about Shakespeare. 🙂

Back in April 2011 I told you about Still Dreaming, the next project from Hank Rogerson (who brought us the award winning Shakespeare Behind Bars). At the time they were looking for funds to start filming, and they easily hit their goal and went off to do just that.

Fast forward two years and filming is complete! But it does take a great deal of effort (and, ahem, resources) to see a movie through to completion, and they’re looking for funds to complete the work on “hiring a composer, doing a sound mix, titles, and final polish.”

What I think is amazing about the potential for this story is that they’re not just walking into their local nursing home and sticking a script in front of a bunch of people who’ve never acted a day in their long lives (although that would be a story in itself, albeit a different one). These are people who have been entertainers for decades, and who aren’t letting age get in the way of their ability to continue being entertainers. 

“What is it like to lead a creative life, even at the end of your life?” Spitzmiller asks in voiceover. It works on a whole bunch of levels. We talk an awful lot about the universality of Shakespeare, and I think we’re about to witness another demonstration of it.

The mission statement for Shakespeare Geek has become, “Shakespeare makes life better.” I think that if Hank has his way we’re going to see a demonstration of exactly that.  If you’d like to see Still Dreaming become a reality, please consider donating to their fundraising campaign.