W1K: WIN Turns 1,000...Days
There’s a day-count thread that runs through WIN's lyrics...
July 9, 2026
There’s a day-count thread that runs through WIN's lyrics. "Nearly nine thousand days" in the House. "Nearly nine hundred days" as President. "One thousand four hundred sixty-one more" had Ford been re-elected.
I'll occasionally mine the development timeline for day counts and serendipities, too--such as completing the first draft, spiritedly, on Day 76.
Last month, we generated an opportunity to have a developmental work-through—placing thirteen key scenes into a live developmental room with assembled actors, collaborators, and about fifty witnesses. (Much more on this in a future entry.) As I was preparing remarks for the occasion, I wondered what a fresh day count would reveal. 999. From page to stage, on the last of the triple digits.
There's a year-count thread that runs through the development of a new musical. Seven? Ten? Whatever that count may come to be, 1,000 days feels like a reflection-inviting waypoint– revealing a firm foundation and a readied frame, a build stacked with accomplishments, each seemingly arriving in tandem with needs or calls for more.
Add in the learning-by-doing. The rabbit hole days-rolling-into-weeks. The Plan A prompts Plan B, which sparks Plan C, which pivots to Plan D and then Plan E--which turns out to look a whole lot like Plan A. But thank goodness for Plan C, as that initiated Plan 2A, and Plan 2A was just what the doctor ordered. #ThoseWereTheDaze
Where were we? I finished WIN's second draft, in libretto format, on Day 140. First table read: Day 161. Our first studio recording session: Day 439. Second studio session: Day 461. Third studio session: Day 960. But that third session happened, by gosh, and how!
WIN The Musical became a company on Day 412. On Day 599, I returned to Michigan and entered the Ford Presidential Library for the first time, revealing that I'd written a musical centering not just the Fords but the Library's "sister" Museum. Day 601 marked my full return to the Museum in Grand Rapids, bridging to Day 694's official return and first meetings with its Director and Curator.
Day 717 (ish): this website launched. Day 828: WINstagram! Along the route, we dialed in our logo, poster concept, and key taglines--all yet to be revealed. And then all those plan pivots I'd mentioned, bringing it all back around again to the glorious 13-scenes-sung-from-stage culmination on Day 999.
On the thousandth day, the music team and I gathered, exhausted-yet-exhilarated, over champagne and warm cookies. "Look how far we've come!" "Here's to steps"–taken and ahead. So sweet the climb.
At various intervals throughout the journey, I’ve used A.I. as a strategic sounding board--to serve as an operational mirror reflecting what I've shared within a bigger picture of industry logistics. WIN Viability Assessments, I call them.
Reaching Day 1,000, it dawned on me that I hadn’t done a fresh viability assessment in all of 2026. "Given all that you know about WIN, the team, me, the journey, the connections, the resources, the responses, and the obstacles--and with mindfulness that there's plenty you can't know--what's our present viability outlook?"
The response that stayed with me landed here:
WIN is a high-potential museum-born American musical with legitimate long-range Broadway-contender qualities. Not simply the Gerald Ford musical, WIN is about how decency, family, accident, ambition, pardon, memory, and public service become remarkable when seen from the right angle. Its greatest immediate risk is no longer whether the material has impact; it is whether the project can secure the funding, producing guidance, and sustainable team structure needed to carry that impact into the next professional phase.
An encouraging vote of confidence, yes, though also a charge for the climb ahead.
On Day 1,011, as I publish this update, I consider the steps coming in the hundreds of days next upon us. Achieving a complete score. Introducing WIN and its content to Grand Rapids. Printing the first official poster. Releasing our vision video. More work-throughs--and then workshops and stagings in whatever forms they may take. Living room salon tours. Developing and presenting community programming. Forming a companion non-profit. Securing the "funding, producing guidance, and sustainable team structure needed to carry [our] impact."
Preparing to be prepared.
Resolute.
Making our moments--savoring them as they happen, and, again, down the path.