Who Lives? (A Play) by Christopher Meeks

The new slightly tweaked version of Christopher Meeks's play is now available here:

$13.58

Paperback

The Christmas train is racing around the bend, and I'm still not ready to hop on. I love Christmas, but I find myself between projects, which has created a need stronger than the holiday.  I turned in my novel to my agent last week, after working on it for two years. Once he reads it and gives me notes, I'll work on it again.

In the meantime, I finally added the changes to my play "Who Lives?", which came about from the play's production earlier this year. I want the  published version to match what audiences saw. Director Joe Ochman and I worked hard at small cuts and additions that allow the play's momentum to build and never fall.

I'll sit in its memory a few moments: It had been an ideal production in that the cast was perfect, the production designers fabulous (and all nominated for Ovation Awards), the producer Lori Hartwell trusting, and the director sensitive to the play and his cast. Lead actor Matt Gottlieb became Gabriel Hornstein so vividly, he's been nominated for an Ovation Award for Best Actor, up against such major actors as Joe Spano in Edward Albee's Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolff, Glynn Turman in August Wilson's Two Trains Running, and Chris Pine in Beau Willimon's Farragut North at the Geffen Theatre. Awards will be handed out January 11th.

As for my next project, I realize I don't have another in the hopper. I'm a frog without a fly, or a fly without Emily Dickenson to buzz around. I'm starting to look for ideas that will swallow me for either short fiction or long.

One instant idea: it's time to rewrite a novel that I've adored, my story about a physicist in search for love using the Scientific Method.  He's both brilliant and clueless. The story can be tighter, funnier, and perhaps with a new title. Once I finish, I'll try it out first as a Kindle book.

Still, I'm in search for a new project to leap into during 2010. It'll keep me away from reading obituaries. I've been noticing obituaries a lot--Bat Masterson's Gene Barry died the other day, for instance, as did earlier in the year such people as John Updike, Walter Cronkite, Farrah Fawcett, and, of course, Michael Jackson. To quote Mick Jagger, time waits for no one. Best to find another project.

Where will it come from? While I'm in the shower? Driving? As the dog, afraid of the rain outside, pees in the house?

For now, I'll stir up some egg nog, crank up the fireplace, and write a few holiday cards to those I love. The dog may even curl up at my side.