on saturday, i was at auditions for what's going to be a wonderful local production of my new script. one of the teen-age actors asked, "so what's it like writing a play?" i'd never been asked that before. without any thought, i answered, "lonely" & then added, "but it's fun." i don't know where "lonely" came from - just popped out.
so, without thinking, answer the question for yourself - "what's it like writing a play?"
It's funny to see this post today. I'm sitting in my favorite writing place, Panera, and I have my play in front of me, my notebook, pen and laptop in case I need to look something up. I've been looking forward to being here to work on my play all week.
Ever since I got accepted into Hollins' writing program and then not be able to attend for financial reasons, I've not been writing. I've been doing a little bit here and there, but mostly I feel trapped inside of my writing and I can't find my way out.
Right now, it's more daunting than anything. For the last three years, I've pretty much been writing non-stop. When I got blocked, I jumped from project to project, editing each in turn. Then when I couldn't do that anymore I worked on submissions.
It's funny, because I almost wish I hadn't been accepted to Hollins, or that I wouldn't have let myself be talked into applying (not that it was that hard to me to be talked into).
So I guess for me right now, it's like running up a mounting in place.
When I'm really into it, it feels like the best high I ever had - and I was a young man in the 70s, so I know all about that! It's like leaving my body. It's a rush. Lonely? Not for me.
I miss writing my play. It's sitting very proper on the bookcase. All those characters asleep waiting for someone to wake them up and do what they are supposed to do.
That's a good question, spiny norman. The first word that popped into my head was "hard," and the second word was "easy." For me it's hard to overcome my initial and daily inertia, but once I sit down and start writing, it's easy, at least for a few words or sentences or whatever I'm lucky enough to get down at one sitting. Then I run out of steam and it gets hard again, so I take a walk, and -- invariably when I walk -- somebody in my head will say something or an idea will present itself, and then it gets easy again. For a while. I guess it's like a seesaw. Hard, easy, hard, easy. But I have to get over my chronic inertia (which is a cocktail of fear, laziness, various tendrils from the past, insecurity, self-deception and who knows what else) to get anything going at all.
