I don't know if I've ever learned to stop editing. I've been working on THE SCARECROW by Percy MacKaye--a play that is super fantastic and out of copyright. The unfortunate part of it being kind of obscure is that there aren't a lot of good copies around of it. I had to type it up so I would have it to use. This was very time consuming. My friend, Greg, and I are thinking of doing a reading of the play this month, which means I need to get it together. NOW. Yesterday.
And I need to not think about the prequel I am attempting to write to this play as well.
Right now, I'm just fighting with changing the language of the play. There's a lot of archaic language in it--a lot of 'thy', 'thee', 'thou', and I don't know if it needs to stay or go. I was noticing as I was reading the play for the 400th time this week that these archaic pronouns aren't always used in the play, and I started to consider removing them from the whole play. And I don't know if it's a good idea or not.
There's not a lot of information on how to do an adaptation of a work. I don't actually know how much of an adaptation it is. I think it's closer in kin to the versions of Shakespeare that take the language he used and made it modern.
But then I wonder how much of the play I am going to lose this way. There's a beauty to using these archaic terms. It was in the play to begin with--so why mess with it?
Eh, I guess I am going to save a draft with the archaic stuff and one without and see which works better AFTER I finish editing it.
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