Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

August Wilson said,

If you want to be a writer, you must own it.

For many of us, the process of writing is omnipresent. We are either writing, or thinking about what we’re writing about. (That’s why so many of us are, well, boring to the outside world, eh?) I have learned not to compare myself to other writers, anymore. We all do it slightly differently. How I write is only that; how I write. It may not work for you. Just as, how you write may not work for me. There have been only two writers’ processes I have identified with–Tony Hillerman (a mystery writer) and Edward Albee (if you’re reading this, do I have to note he is a playwright?). As different as two writers can be, aren’t they?

A friend gave me the book, Talking Mysteries: A Conversation with Tony Hillerman. Back in the days I read a lot of mysteries, I loved Hillerman’s. In answering the question of “when” do you write, Hillerman said the question is difficult to answer.

The way I put a book together, as a matter of fact, sounds on the surface like an argument for writing as a way of life….I write..while driving…during those endless committee meetings…at cocktail parties, at the cost of sometimes nodding at the wrong time…I write in bed…on an old sofa playing a solitaire game…Thus is absoutely impossible to tell whether I am writing or loafing.

Yes, indeed. Recently, as I sat in my neighborhood coffee house, my favorite Barista came up to me, as I stared out the window, and said, “You look bored out of your mind.” “Me? Oh no, I’m just working.” In fact, I was working quite intensely, while I sat there, to all appearances doing nothing.

Edward Albee has described his process of writing a play, as one which gestates for a very long time, sometimes years, in his mind before he ever puts a word on paper. By the time he begins to put his words down, the characters are alive in his mind; formed into people he can place in any situation. He does not feel he needs to rewrite, as he writes what he means to write.

My variation from Albee is that I feel re-writing is a fun part of the process. The first draft finds its way to a conclusion, and the foundation of my play has been built. The play is then resculpted, tweaked, stroked until I feel I can take no farther.

A play is never finished. It is only abandoned.

A key element for me, when a new play is forming, is I have an image or a feeling that becomes a strong focal point. Actually, it is often the end point; the last moment of the play. When I have a basic idea of how to get to that end point, that’s when I begin writing the play.

From that moment, when I begin putting the words down, I write every day. Weekends are optional, unless I’m on a deadline of some kind. My goal is five pages of dialogue. If I churn out more, ten or twenty, I certainly don’t stop myself. I know myself well enough to know I can always churn out five pages. They may not all make it into the play. Even so, no pages are ever wasted pages. I do not censor or edit during this period. Long gone are the days when I agonized over a single word, which could take all day, or weeks, to discover, and keep a draft from seeing completion.

Lately, I have taken to writing in long hand. Usually in the morning. Long hand feels more natural, and there is less staring out the window during a writing session. The PB is engaged when the story is coming too fast to maintain by long hand. And I will go back and forth between long hand and typing. In the afternoon, I do chores, errands, or type the long hand pages up in The PB. Some editing occurs as I type the into The PB. The heavy editing comes after the draft is completed.

I read a lot of plays, and see as much theatre as I can. I know there are writers who do not engage in the medium they write in. They don’t see plays, see films, read novels, whatevah. I don’t understand these kinds of writers. I learn as much from a bad play, as a good one. Remember, I said somewhere on this blog, I’m easily entertained. My mother used to call me a sponge. This is how it works for me. Period. Enough said. Feel free to expound on how it works for you, okay?