{"id":4619,"date":"2016-07-29T20:51:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T08:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/?p=4619"},"modified":"2016-09-15T09:15:48","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T21:15:48","slug":"fill-in-the-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/fill-in-the-gaps\/","title":{"rendered":"Fill in the Gaps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;ve <a href=\"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/2016\/06\/05\/hop-jump\/\" target=\"_blank\">raced ahead<\/a> with a script but all I have are <a href=\"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/2016\/06\/12\/a-to-z\/\" target=\"_blank\">a beginning and an ending<\/a>. I&#8217;ve <a href=\"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/2016\/07\/02\/ten-years\/\" target=\"_blank\">avoided<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/2016\/07\/11\/poultry-deja-vu\/\" target=\"_blank\">prevaricated<\/a> but that&#8217;s not getting me any closer to meeting a(n admittedly self-imposed) deadline.<\/p>\n<p>Right, then.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Still Life With Chickens<\/strong> is the story of a cranky old woman who reluctantly adopts a barnevelder chicken and learns that there&#8217;s more to her sunset years than waiting for death. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4635 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-480x640.jpg?resize=480%2C640\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-scaled.jpg?resize=480%2C640&amp;ssl=1 480w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-scaled.jpg?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-scaled.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_1346-scaled.jpg?w=1050&amp;ssl=1 1050w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve written:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the <strong>first few scenes<\/strong> where \u2014\n<ul>\n<li>MAMA tends her GARDEN which is a bit of a haven from caring for her housebound husband;<\/li>\n<li>the garden is invaded by CHICKEN who has a taste for silverbeet;<\/li>\n<li>Mama catches the chicken, then tries to find its owner to give them a piece of her mind;<\/li>\n<li>Mama, unable to find the chicken&#8217;s owner, decides to look after it for a few days;<\/li>\n<li>CUT TO some time later \u2014 like, several <em>weeks<\/em> later \u2014 where Mama and Chicken have come to an arrangement:\n<ul>\n<li>the old woman has someone to talk to;<\/li>\n<li>and the chicken is given parts of the garden to eat and scratch up, as well as kitchen scraps;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>and the <strong>last few scenes<\/strong> where \u2014\n<ul>\n<li>Mama has mellowed noticeably;<\/li>\n<li>Chicken disappears, forcing Mama to interact with her neighbours in search for the chicken;<\/li>\n<li>and [A SATISFYING RESOLUTION IS ACHIEVED]*.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Like I said, I&#8217;ve tried to launch myself from the tail-end of the first act with no success, while an attempt to work my way backward from that final act has been equally unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>I listed some stepping stones:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>[OPENING SCENES]<\/li>\n<li>Something Happens<\/li>\n<li>Something Else Happens<\/li>\n<li>Crunch Time!<\/li>\n<li>[CLOSING SCENES]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>My stomach tensing with the possibility of knocking this bastard off \u2014 and recognising <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hero%27s_journey\" target=\"_blank\">Joe&#8217;s 11-Step Programme<\/a> \u2014 I sketched in some more details:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>[OPENING SCENES]<\/li>\n<li>Something Happens\n<ol>\n<li>Could grandchildren visit? They&#8217;d love the chicken! Excellent opportunity for variations on <em>If you really loved me, you would visit more often<\/em>;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li>Something Else Happens\n<ol>\n<li>Mama attends the funeral of a contemporary, and sees the shrinking circle of peers;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li>Crunch Time\n<ol>\n<li>Mama&#8217;s husband is taken to hospital, leaving Mama feeling very alone, maybe?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li>[CLOSING SCENES]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Mm.<\/p>\n<p>I could be onto something here.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>* I know this is one of those dry technical posts but I can&#8217;t bring myself to spoil the ending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;ve raced ahead with a script but all I have are a beginning and an ending. I&#8217;ve avoided and prevaricated but that&#8217;s not getting me any closer to meeting a(n admittedly self-imposed) deadline. Right, then. Still Life With Chickens is the story of a cranky old woman who reluctantly adopts a barnevelder chicken and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/fill-in-the-gaps\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Fill in the Gaps&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,23],"tags":[14,1210],"class_list":["post-4619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","category-theatre","tag-chickens","tag-still-life-with-chickens"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4619"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4699,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4619\/revisions\/4699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}