Notebooks

Last Tuesday I bought two new A5 notebooks from the stationer's. I always feel a sense of hope when I buy a notebook, and I often begin a new one before I've finished the old one.
The thinner of the two is going to be used for writing practice, as propounded by Natalie Goldberg in Writing down the bones ( http://www.nataliegoldberg.com ). I will write, on the tube to work, about a subject which I've set myself, i.e.; Richmond Park, Alan Brown's mum, etc. And at the end of the session, as the train pulls in to the platform, I will jot down tomorrow's subject on the back page. In time to come, these timed pieces might turn out to be seeds for future projects. But just writing them, losing yourself in the writing, is wonderful. They are not for anyody else to read. You write them as quickly as possible, automatically if you can, without any thought for grammar, spelling, margins, to bypass your inner critic.
The fatter of the two notebooks...is for my new project. Which might lead you to conclude that I've finished the on-act stage play I've been telling you about. I haven't. I've written about nine tenths of it. But I felt bogged down.
I'm telling myself that I've finished the first draft. I've begun to type it up. I've promised my writing group that I will bring something in to read on 8th March. What I'm hoping is that, when I've got some feedback it will embolden me to start a second draft.
Have you ever seen the film Speed ? There's a bomb on a bus which will explode if the bus dips under 30 miles per hour. The authorities divert the bus onto a new, empty motorway, but they discover that there's a gap in the middle of a flyover. Sandra Bullock, who is at the wheel, has no choice but to put her foot down and hope that the bus will clear the gap.
That's how I fee typing up this stage play. As I get closer and closer to the last thing I wrote, I know that there's a piece missing before the curtain line.
I'm telling myself that by typing up the play, I am working on it. But it feels more like stalling.
Meanwhile, I've begun making notes on this brand new project, the one I'm going to get right first time. As you may recall, I got the idea for this story from Twelfth Night ; and I'm thinking of it as The Twelfth Night project until I can think of a proper title.
The premise of the story is this :
Heroine falls in love with a married man whose wife has just thrown him out. Wife discovered that Married Man had had an affair (with a third, unrelated woman who doesn't appear in this story). Married Man is desperate to save his marriage ; so Heroine sets out to help him.
So far, I've been jotting down the ideas for this project that I've already had. Such as :
* Heroine is Married Man's boss
* Heroine is digusted by Married Man's conduct
* Heroine befriends Wife. Married Man discovers this, and asks Heroine to persuade Wife to take him back.
These notes have given me a great sense of momentum. After weeks of getting nowhere with a project, I now feel exhilarated.
But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And at some point, I will go back to my stage play and write a second draft, because you can't keep running away.