This afternoon I had a go-see for an IBM print ad at Donna Grossman Casting.

 

 
November 13, 2004 (Saturday)

Some great new developments in my book. As you know, for all of this year, I have been hard at work on my book on long-form improv called The Humanation of Chaos: Artistry & The Long-Form Improviser. At the end of July, I put out copies of the partial first draft to peers of mine for review. I got a nice amount of constructive feedback, one of the big ones I took to was making the draft more friendly. That was well heeded advice, especially since I talk about "emotional association" in the book and wasn't so much doing that myself!

In the months following the printing of my partial first draft, I worked on some ideas that I'd been struggling with and trying to further develop. Unbeknowst to me, I had lost track of some of the core ideas in my book. What happened was that I used to be connected to the ground, my foundational ideas. As I was trying to till them, my head got stuck in the clouds. Eventually, I lost track of the ground and was floating in the air. Only over the last couple weeks did I realize this, deciding to look back over my book and some of the original ideas I learned from game theory. It was a good thing I did! The original ideas I had flowed so easily out of me, and losing touch with them removed the source of the flow. So instead of being some kind of river of ideas, my ideas started to pool and not go anywhere. I was getting frustrated. I reconnected with the source, and I'm back "ideating" just as I had in the spring, and now even better. I rediscovered controversial ideas I'd had back them, and now I know how to talk about them even better. Also, I saw myself as a little more sane than I felt over the last few months; I would think I discovered some key idea, feel strongly about its being a key idea, only to refute or stray away from it a day or so later. This happened repeatedly.

I'm back to rewriting my draft, and the writing is going splendidly so far. I am working without a deadline at the moment; I will likely put one on once I figure out the pace for my rewrites. For now, a new rough draft is pouring out of me. I'm trying to take it a little slowly, though, so I can keep track of the structure of my arguments. If I write too much, I'll burn myself out.

But after a 11 months of working on this book, I don't foresee myself burning out for long. The ideas are so interesting that they've become a spirituality of sorts for me. I think you will like this book a lot, whether you're an improviser, actor, self-help junkie, psychologist, quantum physicist, astronomer, linguist, general-semanticist, what have you. The book has a broad, broad appeal.

Cheers!

 

 
November 14, 2004 (Sunday)

Today I played fast-talking floor broker Charlie Young in a New York Stock Exchange continuing education industrial.

It was great fun, and it was my second industrial in a month with Producer Lisa Levin and the New York Stock Exchange. I hope to do it again!

 

 
November 18, 2004 (Thursday)

Today I worked on a commercial pre-production print shoot for Clairol Herbal Color. It was fun!

 

 
November 30, 2004 (Tuesday)

This evening I auditioned for a production of The Joy of Gay Sex. In attendance were Director Ben Rimalower, Casting Director Michael Cassara, and Reader Christopher Sloan. Michael, Christopher & I went to the same college for acting, Otterbein College.