57. Edgy?

It's been almost 90 days since I released The Presence of That Absence which brings me face to face with the question of what my next creative project will be. Summer is generally a good time to start these projects because things slow down a bit, and this year the lingering effects of the pandemic have made them slow down even more.

At first I had a specific project in mind which I started working on. But it started to feel like I was just pushing words and/or notes around on the page. So after further thought, the answer to the question of what to do next has taken two forms. The first is starting a music notebook to develop some new material without the constraints of targeting it for a specific style or audience. It's a self development project designed to give me the freedom to create with the goal of improving and advancing my musical language.

The other form the answer to the question of what to do next takes involves writing a play or musical, about writing a play or musical which has the goal of being edgy (i.e. socially cutting edge) but ends up making the writers feel edgy because edginess in the sense of relevance is so random, slippery, hard to grasp and sometimes feels like death from a thousand cuts.

I think the factor of mediocrity may also play a significant part because there is a lot of that going around in the arts and elsewhere as the quest for more likes, hits and clicks from social media becomes the driving force, and digital technology has jumped in with plenty of shortcuts available to make up for the lack of skills.

Seems kind of crazy to be contemplating writing another play during a time when theaters have been closed and manuscripts have undoubtedly been piling up. But it also sounds kind of edgy, doesn't it? Wonder if it has good legs? Hmm..... Let's see if I can come up with a compelling synopsis.