Dispatches from the resident playwright - the writer's notebook

I'm drowning in paper. 
I know that seems impossible, or like an oxymoron at best, but it's the best way I can describe the process of revising a play. There is just paper everywhere. My script with my notes. Pages of other people's scripts with their notes. Multiple versions of outlines, updated, changed, scenes flipped, inverted or tossed completely, Other random pieces of notebook and scrap paper with still more notes on them. And that's not even counting multiple electronic versions, updated regularly, sitting patiently until they too can be printed and covered in my chicken-scratch handwriting.
I have a system, I swear I do. Currently, The Helen Project, ReVamp's next show, which premieres in June, is carried around with me everywhere I go (including a recent trip to New Orleans) in a three-ring orange binder - a printed copy of the script, plus many sheets of looseleaf paper, with any random, not-three-hole-punched scraps of paper tucked safely into the pocket.
And what exactly is on all of these pieces of the poor, defenseless trees I've killed? Here's a small sampling (are these spoilers? Nah. If this somehow makes sense to you, please call me and tell me, because at this point I'm trying to get the final draft to make sense to anyone, myself included.)

• Clone Helen should be more complex - not evil or bad, but insecure - how does that manifest?
• Helen as a people-pleaser - marrying Menelaus is an act of duty. Falling in love with Paris is an act of rebellion/autonomy
• Scene 5 - A red carpet - Helen interacts with the goddesses - is Menelaus there? 
• Helen is telling the story for HERSELF. That's the point. A woman's story/journey has validity in and of itself. We have to convince ourselves that our voices and our stories matter, because so often our own narratives are erased or down-played. 
• Helen's affair with Paris is a TMZ-worthy scandal - think Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt!

See what I mean? What the fuck sense does any of this make? Trust me, it will. Come to Plays & Players June 5-16, and see for yourself! Me and my trusty orange binder will be there!

​- Kristen M. Scatton