I’m in the bubble right now. A week from tonight I will hear my new full-length play COMMUNITY read all the way through for the first time at my writers’ and actors’ group Fierce Backbone. I’ve heard chunks of it before, in installments, weeks apart. But next Monday is the first true road-test to see if it can go the distance without all of the wheels falling off and the transmission landing smack in the middle of the second act.

I like the bubble. It’s one of my favorite places to be. It’s a happy place. A place full of optimism and potential. It’s where I’m insulated from any script problems that are still lurking out there. It’s where the script’s amazing possibilities are still alive in my mind.

Before cold reality sets in.

The individual sections read well, we got some laughs, the characters were engaging. Yes, I did get feedback on how to make things better and yes, I’ve implemented some of those changes.

Right now I don’t know whether those changes work. And that’s fine. Because soon enough I’ll be wrestling with characters that need more development and an ending that needs more punch and… you get the idea.

Right now I can catch my breath and dream of glorious productions of this baby on down the road – before I have to get out my tool box and start tinkering and rebuilding again.

Here’s to the bubble. Because without the bubble, especially in the future when I’m up to my elbows in sludgy motor oil of scenes that have no pace and cylinders that aren’t firing because there’s no conflict, I need to remember the bubble of possibilities and keep driving towards it.