Second Draft of TMA02

I realise I had intended to send this off at the end of November, but I'm on the case now. The story takes place in four scenes, at the beach, with the police, at the deceased's home and at the funeral. Four scenes is a lot for 2200 words so I tried to work on the main three and leave out the house scene, but it didn't really work. The story is about finding out about someone now they are dead that you didn't know well during life. I remember being involved in my parents clearing out my grandmother's house, when I was a young adult. There were aspects of her life that were on show that I had no idea about as a child, although she was a regular visitor and lived close by. I ended up with a box of cheap china that I loved, so retro, but I realised it was a set you collected over time, piece by piece with either cigarette coupons or a magazine. It brought home to me how short of money she was. In my character's story, she was unaware how much this person that she judged and disapproved of was so loved, so popular. How much do we really know even our own family? My brother had a fortieth birthday this year, I would only have known a couple of people there. His closest friends and I hardly even know their names, yet we are reasonably close. Yet when we are together, he says things that surprise or baffle me, that make me realise how little I know about what goes on in his life, and how little he understands about mine. At one of our deaths - probably mine, I'm nine years older - will he find out things he never knew and I never thought to tell him?

Meanwhile, I forgot about the OCA assignment even though it's 90% done. So I did the TMA commentary in first draft, it's very technical and needs to be less cold, so I thought I would have some fun with the OCA commentary today. I wrote a radio play, my first, and hope she likes it. Now I have to go back and edit it into something warmer and more emotionally satisfying. Not to mention I still have Chaucer plays to write, which would all have been easier if I hadn't slipped into a four week depression during December.

The other thing that has been slowing me down is the realisation that I do understand poetry, a bit anyway, and can actually write it. It takes forever to write, that's the difference between knocking off a few adjectives and a bit of fluffy language and actually writing good stuff - which I am beginning to recognise. Slow process but I am gaining in confidence about TMA03 and starting to collect freewrites for it. This could be fun.