Standup Shakespearin'

[Ichabod Spoonbill]

Since PBill mentioned his topic, I'll tale about mine. I wrote a contemporary, young adult version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing called (Not) Much To Do About Surfing. Instead of taking place in Messina, Italy, I staged it in a surf camp the imaginary town of Messina Beach, Florida, somewhere between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville.

If you know the play at all, all the characters are there. Beatrice is now Bee. Don Pedro is Peter. Benedick is Ben. Don John the bastard is now Joanne. Hero is Hannah.

In this novel, a group of championship swimmers from the local high school decide to celebrate with a week at Leo's Surf Camp. Claudio the swimmer falls in love with Hannah, Leo's daughter while Bee, Leo's niece, continues a long-standing feud with her ex-boyfriend Ben, who's a member of the team. Meanwhile, Peter's sister Joanna is furious with her brother because he picked Claudio instead of her as the next team captain.

Of course, I had to get some SUP in there. Bee is an expert surfer, but lately she's been excelling in SUP surfing. She'll actually teach a class in SUP in the book. If anybody wants to read the whole thing, I'd be happy to share it. Just post or PM me. It's about 61,000 words, which is about 200 pages.

You want to hear crazy? I write the rough draft in one month. Here are the first three paragraphs:

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Bee stood at the water’s edge looking at the waves, studying them. She really didn’t have to — she knew how the ocean felt before she even saw it. It wasn’t hard; all you had to do was listen. That’s what happens when you surfed dawn patrol every day. You get to know big blue like an old friend, or a crazy cousin. The sea told you if it was pissed off or chipper, or if it was coming or going. It spoke with whispers and roars. And almost every morning Bee listened to it by her window. Then she’d go out in that darkness before dawn to ride the waves.

Bee had grown up surfing. It was in her family’s blood. She rode tandem on her daddy’s board before she could even swim. But for the last year she had been committing surfing blasphemy. Instead of hitting the waves with a traditional surfboard, Bee was going out on a huge white-and-blue surfboard plus a long, skinny paddle. No more splish-splashing through the surf on her belly. This board was so big Bee could stand up on it and paddle away like some exotic queen of a south-sea island. Standing up she was twice as fast as anyone else and could catch three times as many waves. A real surfing upgrade, and man, did she like that.

Bee sloshed into the water. It was cool and sweet, and with the stars up above and their reflections below her, Bee felt like she was paddling through starlight. Gorgeous, simply gorgeous, ‘cause she wanted to feel good, really. Surfing always made Bee feel good, even when… No, stop. It’s time to surf, not worry. She stood on top of her board and paddled beyond the breakers. Once past the foam Bee spun her board around. She caught the next wave that came along then crouched into her surf stance. The board slid down the wave front and with a little pressure from her heel turned to the left. Nice! Then it was pure zip for a hundred yards. When the wave collapsed into mush, Bee flipped the board around and started all over.