Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

My 12" Powerbook aka The PB: I can carry it everywhere! Macs are for artists. PCs are for our beloved worker bees.

Final Draft: It’s not just for screenwriting.

Note Taker: I create a separate notebook for each writing project. Each notebook holds random thoughts about the play, dialogue snippets, images, an outline for each Act. Stuff I don’t want to lose. Stuff I may not use. Stuff I want to make sure I follow through on.

Sticky Brain:  I use this to hold research material, quotations, receipts, the "whatnot" of my life that doesn’t necessarily relate to a writing project. Stuff I want to find quickly when I need it.

Merrian-Webster’s 3rd International Dictionary: I use the wonderfully big hardback edition, as well as the online edition.

When I don’t have my laptop, which is often, I always carry at least one pen, and a small notebook. ALWAYS. I write down any ideas I have, no matter where I am, or what I may, uh, be doing. Yep.

My standard pen is a Sharpie Ultra Fine Point. Not always practical, as it can bleed through thin paper. I like the boldness and the commitment writing with a Sharpie requires of me. And I like the colors. Green, Blue, Red, Black, Purple. When I’m not using a Sharpie, I use a Fisher Ballpoint Pen; the "astronaut" kind. They survive airplane rides without leaking.

Sharpie has a nice "Accent" highlighter I’ve been using. I used to use Zebra’s highlighter until I couldn’t find them anymore. I really only like the color yellow in highlighters. Can’t seem to branch out to the others.

In my writing studio, I use an erasable whiteboard. In between scripts, I jot down new play ideas as they come to me. During a specific play project, I use the whiteboard to hold important ideas, character names, and a list of events, or scenes I want to keep track of. The whiteboard is hanging in a prominent place near my desk. I can pace the floor, and scribble on it at will. Of course. Or sit and stare at it for a kind of meditation.

I also keep a private online journal, over at Live Journal. Private, yes, so that only I see it. It contains only ideas for my plays. It’s online so that I can access it from anywhere, even when I don’t have The PB with me.

I write to understand myself, my family, my friends, the strangers around me. I write to try to understand why I respond to the world the way I do. Equally importantly, why you respond the way you do. Thus far, I have to love all my characters I am writing about; even the evil ones. Because, ultimately, no matter how much you see ‘you’ in them, they are really all a part of me. Somehow, I believe, this love keeps me connected to my compassion, my humanity, and possibly brings me just a little humility/teachability.

Why I write plays is harder to explain. For years I wrote bad poetry. There was a story I wanted to tell, and I tried it as a novel, unsuccessfully, and then condensed as a short story. Also unsuccessfully. In the course of writing prose, I realized all that “came out” on paper was in dialogue form. And it was in that moment, playwriting became my writing home.

If you look into any play, you’re gonna see the playwright, in one disguise or another. The miracle of Shakespeare is that he had so many disguises.

Arthur Miller

There is some instant gratification involved in theatre, that is extremely potent. If you are fortunate enough to have some kind of audience for your work, actors to bring it to life, you feel the power in making an audience laugh, cry, and pay attention. It’s my drug.

I write to find wholeness, to earn my keep, to entertain, and maybe even edify, in some way, myself and you.

Afllicted. Yes. Arthur Miller said something like that too.

I don’t know why Mr. Miller is quoting today. He just is.