Hey Do You Want To Listen To A Really Good Musical? Do You Want A Musical Where The Main Characters Are

Hello! After technical difficulties (again) here is the Hamilcoins comic I posted this morning. Have a great afternoon!

i never stop blogging even when im really upset i just sit there sobbing hitting buttons and reblogging everything

Okay but hear me out: the second and the third chapters are the hardest in the entire book.

Everybody complains about chapter one and endings, and I get it - that's your big money moment, make or break. That's what matters the most to the reader. But I think in terms of sheer difficulty for the writer, in terms of individual chapters, the very beginning is where projects live and die.

Chapter one is an idea. I have probably thirty or forty chapter ones sitting in my computer that never went anywhere, or were cool thoughts but didn't have a plot behind them. They were scenarios with no inertia. One chapter a story does not make.

But the second chapter, that's where things start to change. Chapter two, in most books, is pure setup. You're not just writing the immediate aftermath of the first chapter, you're writing the whole damn book in a few thousand words. That's hard. It takes a LOT of mental energy and requires you to do the actual work of plotting, whereas chapter one you can just dash down whatever inspo you've got whether it goes somewhere or not.

That's tough as hell, but I don't count two chapters as a story either. Two chapters is still nothing but an idea. Chapter three is where the character takes their first action influenced by the inciting event, makes their first move, goes from a person to a protagonist. Chapter three is where you stop telling the reader what could be and start showing them what is. I think you can have the best idea in the world, but if it can't carry itself to chapter three, it's not a story. Certainly not a novel, yet. And that's why the beginning of a project is so critical, because you're mega frontloading and roadmapping a lot of what comes later right at the very beginning.

So when you're starting your next WIP, don't make your goal be to reach the end of the book. Shoot for chapter three. I promise you, once you've got three chapters down in your word processor, the rest of the book will be a whole lot easier.

You guys want to listen to The Ripening real quick

just as a favor

so you know how sad I am right now

I do not know how to articulate this in a concise way that does it justice - sondheim would know, except he probably would brush away what I’m about to say in the way that he often did praise - part of the loss here is now that we’re forever bereft of an artistic bridge between theatre’s past and its future, and how impactful and part of the fabric of our culture broadway is. steve was mentored by rodgers and hammerstein. oscar was not only a teacher, but a surrogate father to him. he worked with leonard bernstein. he passed on that tradition of teaching and fostering new talent by reaching out to young composers, including jonathan larson (who was taken far too soon, but unquestionably had a permanent influence), including lin-manuel miranda, and that barely scratches the surface of the lives he touched, interacted with, guided and changed. all last night and today, names keep popping into my head of people who I know are grieving him, and they’re legends. they’re luminaries of the theatre. sondheim linked our cultural and musical and literary (because his lyrics ARE literary) past to where we’ve traveled and come, where we might be going. I know he said stop worrying where you’re going, but without the compass he provided, where would we be? stop worrying if your vision is new, but his always was, and its innovation and originality and moving complexity was because he was a keen observer of the current times, but also cherished the lessons he learned from those artists past. there are endless, countless things to say about the history of musical theatre and its composers and lyricists and writers, but no one had the perspective and rich perception of it that he did because he was there. his legacy lit the way because he was a part of artistic history at every turn. so it’s not only his loss as an extraordinary human being, or the realization that we won’t have new creations from him now, it’s also a grief for that piece of the past. his life kept that here with us for so long, and we were better for it.

he loved teaching. he considered it sacred. it’s our job now to keep carrying those memories and lessons on, if we can honor him in any way, it’s to keep teaching one another. his memory IS a blessing and we’ve been entrusted with it. careful the tale you tell, that is the spell. keep telling it.

Good morning! As promised, here we have Burr's first appearance in Hamilcoins. Have a great day!

Hello and good morning! After many problems with the photo and format and getting it off iCloud, here is today’s Hamilcoins comic (click to enlarge). Have a fantastic day!

Hello, tumblr! This is my first HAMILCOINS comic. Many more to come eventually

hey guys i actually never use this blog, find me at @iamhop :)

Inktober 2017 | Day 30 | Found

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Jenn Colella is amazing and that is a fact