just so you know

hard: writing a radio play
harder: writing a radio play that makes sense as a mystery
hardest: writing a radio play that makes sense as a mystery and that will keep twenty nine year olds entertained for a morning. that means having enough acting parts for half of them and enough sound effects parts for the other half. and don't think that you can just write a part and that some nine year old will do it. oh no! that nine year old is gonna filp through that script the minute you give it to him and he's gonna count the lines that, for his convenience, you so thoughtfuly highlighted in advance. and if he doesn't have a lot of lines he's gonna complain, and loudly. he will never thank you for your pre-highlighting. he will never pronounce the words "mezmerizing" or "conscience" correctly. but after you've satisfied the unsatisfyable and ungrateful nine year olds you have to pick out music that will suit the mood of the radio play. you have to edit that music - loop it, perhaps - and burn a cd. and you have to make a filemaker document of all of the parts and sound effects so that you can print every part onto a separate avery label so that you can affix the labels to the kids according to the parts they are assigned. and when those kids are all covered in sound effects, they're probably gonna look really cute. and that's important, because it's going to be a key factor in your keeping your cool and maintaining perpetual patience. and then you have to make a prompt book so that the sound effects director can direct, control and contain the sound effects kids because if you don't do that, they will become wild children and piggy's head will end up on a stake right by the elevators which isn't likely to garner particularly positive feedback from the parents at the end of the workshop.