5:58 AM: Printed. And now, I sleep.

4:52 AM: I think I’m just about done this thing. I’ve lost all ability to judge how good it is. It’s in the director’s hands now. The director’s patient, patient hands.

4:10 AM:

….to Hell.

4:01 AM: Blargh.

3:33 AM: I now have a draft. Let the improvening begin. Look how excited I am:

3:15 AM: A thought occurs: everything I write is garbage.

2:29 AM: I am always impressed by the massive urinal here. A family of vacationing Belgians could live in there for a week if they wanted.

Also, may now be going a little squirrely.

1:41 AM: There was jerky!

12:41 AM: I’ve got about a page and a half now. I only have one actor, so the whole thing is a sort of long monologue. I don’t much envy the poor sod who has to memorize all of the bleating. We’re coming up to the traditional 1AM snack run, so I can get away from this thing for a few minutes. What wonders will I find at the corner store? Do they have jerky? Will it even be open? So many questions.

11:48 PM: We have video!

Note to self: the cradled-laptop shot is not the most flattering.

11:08 PM: I have a title! And a character name! Are they good? Probably not! God, this is fun. All the angst of writing compressed into eight hours.

10:35 PM: It begins. I’ve received my room and actor assignments. I will be writing for the chapel. This is both delicious irony and a happy turn of events, since it can seat a lot of people. I am nothing if not an egoist. For posterity, here’s a picture of my looking happy and caffeinated after completing the obligatory Timmy’s run:

And now, I begin the random stream of consciousness that will loosely resemble a play.

Since 2004 (and with an I’m-living-in-England absence in 2006), I’ve been taking part in a nifty little event called Trafalgar 24. The gig is pretty simple: you show up at 10PM at the Trafalgar Castle School, get assigned a room and some actors, and then write a 10 minute play due at 6AM the next morning. Then you get shuffled off to a hotel to crash, and a bunch of actors and directors show up and attempt to stage your delirious, rambling mush. Come 7:00PM, a bunch of nice people show up to watch them. The whole thing is a chance to pretend I’m a writer for a day, and it’s a fundraiser for the excellent  Driftwood Theatre Group. They’re the kind of people that deserve to have money raised for them, so I get a big charge out of the whole 24 hour extravaganza.

This year, I thought it might be fun to “liveblog” (as the cool kids say) my experience of churning out a play overnight. So, starting here at 10PM, I will be providing real-time updates of my slow slide into madness. Here’s a photo of me taken around 2:30AM last year:

I promise to look even more crazy and less flannel-clad this year.

Plus, it’s an all-girls school, so I’ll also be posting the endlessly amusing things you find stuck to the wall. Here’s an exemplar from last year:

Clumsy renditions of bad teen romance? We got ‘em.

So, tune in here tonight for all sorts of wacky good times. It’ll be totally rad. I promise.