…Though we already had spring in February. But it looks as if our garden and fruit trees haven’t been too freaked by warmth, so with luck the next year will be rife with plum butter, dried apples & tomato sauce.
A Month in the Life…
April has been a disorderly hodge-podge, so we decided to write about it that way. The only thing that brings order into our lives is a screaming deadline, and in absence of that, all sorts of strange flowers and weeds appear.
Apr. 1, to Occidental for the annual Fool’s Parade—a bunch of happy loonies marching up and down the one block of the town. Then to San Francisco to play two sketches, “Mice†& “Five Minutes,†in An Evening of Puppet Obsession, a raucous, vivid puppet slam at The Garage, a tiny theatre south of Market. 
Apr. 2, writing Ch. 15 of new novel, Galahad’s Fool & lots of business stuff.
Apr. 3-4, finished reading Proust’s Swann’s Way, started Malory’s Death of Arthur. Much writing on Duo, our duo show.
Apr. 5, some window cleaning; Duo rehearsal, deciding on major rewrites; reading of Co-Creation at Pegasus Theatre in Rio Nido, small house but very responsive.
Apr. 6, Skype talk with Arturo on new screenplay, Marilyn Downstairs, hoping to shoot a low-budget short as a calling-card for our longer pieces. Evening moon circle.
Apr. 7-9, finished Ch. 16 of Galahad, trip to ocean, lots of promo work.
Apr. 10-12, finished Ch. 17, work on editing video sampler of Hands Up! for puppet festival application. Finished Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. Co-Creation reading at Imaginists, likewise small house, likewise enthusiastic. EF finishing taxes ahead of schedule.
Apr. 13-15, to the dental clinic in San Francisco, no cavities for a change; lotsa writing on the bus. Huge process of organizing email and weeding the garden— same job. EF to see great staging of Don Giovanni at Cinnabar. Finished video sampler of Hands Up!, posted on Vimeo.
Apr. 16-19, mostly a lotta boring work. Attended SF Writers Workshop on Tuesday, a long-established and free critique circle—slowly learning something about writing prose.
Apr. 20, talk with Arturo, good progress on Marilyn. To Sebastopol Gallery for their 5th anniversary reception, then to a poetry reading. EF to Berkeley to see retards, a bizarre and wonderful variety show.
Apr. 21-23, lotta work, unsettling dreams, trip to ocean. Watched lots of short films, somehow finished Ch. 18 & 19 of Galahad’s Fool & launched on the final chapter.
Apr. 24, with EF to SF Writers Workshop, read first six pages of our novel Realists, lots of critique, extremely useful. Had a beer.
Apr. 25, Co-Creation reading at Main Stage West, good response. Finished first draft of Galahad’s Fool—now have to read it to see what the hell it is.
Apr. 26-27, just a big buncha stuff. Good talk with Arturo about the filmscript, nearly finished with revision. Mostly finished with reservations & prep for our trip to Europe.
Apr. 28, to Redwood Writers Conference, day spent in panels on distribution, marketing, all the crap of it, but useful. Then to usher for a new musical, Silver Spoon, at Main Stage West. Finished Malory’s Arthur and reading the ms. of Galahad’s Fool—a great mess but very promising.
Apr. 29, coffee at our Sunday hangout, Hard Core Espresso, then to the farmers’ market, then to a joyous Romantic Era-themed picnic in a graveyard near Graton, perfect weather. No work at all.
Apr. 30, a ton of catchup email, massive weeding of burr clover, and writing this. What’s it all about? Having a hard time following the plot line. Still, we’re both going regularly to the gym.
Upcoming…
May will see our visit to our daughter in Tuscany, then CB to Spain, EF to France & Switzerland, and pretty much devoted to writing on multiple projects. June, we’ll be doing a number of readings, and back into rehearsal on Duo and editing (at last, o Lord!) the Frankenstein video.
And at the end of May, we’ll play host, along with Main Stage West and The Imaginists, to a visit by five young Russian directors and a longtime guru of international exchanges Philip Arnoult. It’s a trip designed to give them exposure to the work of US theatre outside the “major centers,†so they’ll be visiting Baltimore, New Orleans, Austin, and San Francisco, with a day up hereabouts.
Our Novel Realists…
Continues to circulate to agents & small presses, even as we still tinker with it and continue having great faith in it. Now, we’re considering, while still seeking print publication, to put it out as an e-book. Consensus is that this won’t compromise its chances in print, but it means we don’t have to wait a couple of years before eyes can behold it. News will be forthcoming.
Peace & joy—
Conrad Bishop
Quote of the month…
From Realists…
Years back, they’d made a big thing of the New Millennium, and for senior English he’d had to write a paper on what the New Millennium would bring. He worked all night, logging into every Futurist website, skimming his shelves of science fiction. He wrote forty pages of dystopian extravagance, then boiled it down to four words: MORE OF THE SAME.