Archive for September, 2008
Day Twenty-Three (Sorry… that’s all I got)
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY TWENTY-THREE
Writing: Some nicely focused Beauty and the Bee writing. Very pleased. I now have the first ten pages of the second act put together, and I have my work for tomorrow set out - Two monologues that have to be condensed to their essence and then woven together between two characters. This will work as a transition to a scene I have already written in the one act.
Thoughts: Hmmmm. I don’t think I have any thoughts today…. ok! Blog over! Everyone go home!
Oh all right. Let’s see what comes out (flexing the fingers) Today was very functional. I’ve decided that I’m going to finish the first draft of the bee play by September 30th. I have a week, I have time (even with traveling this upcoming weekend) and I think that would be a great accomplishment. It’s important to remember (I always have to tell myself this) that the first draft is not the finished draft. It’s the first. It’s not the end, it’s just the beginning. I’m not looking for perfect, I’m focusing on the characters and story and trying to connect the dots. I don’t even have to connect all the dots, just enough of them. No one’s going to see this draft. There’s two more drafts and a workshop to come. Stop panicking! You’ll be fine! Breathe into this paper bag!
Ah-hem.
Usually the day after travel day is pretty tough to get through mentally. Takes a bit to get back in the saddle. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time. I’m only home for two days and then back out on the road to Chicago for the EdTA conference. I’m teaching a pretty intensive workshop at the conference (a three hour masterclass) and frankly, I have to practice for it.
I don’t speak off the cuff. I don’t ‘wing it.’ My workshops are very important and when I ‘wing it’ I sound like an idiot. Even when I know what I’m talking about it takes effort to hold things together. All my workshops are carefully thought out and written out. Also, the things in my mind are what’s going on in the moment. A workshop I taught a year ago, does not stay in my mind! I have to find time this week to refresh, look at my notes, make sure I’m not going to sound like an idiot. Tall order….
Submission: Remember The Buritto to Flower City Theatre.
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The Grim Reaper needs a rubber chicken
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY TWENTY-TWO
Writing: Very little. 
But I did type out my re-write of the first scene of the second act, and I did think about the characters in the Nano play I’m not writing.
Thoughts: The long drive home today. Driving home from a conference is always a thousand times more difficult than driving there; you’re drained, you’re tired, you really don’t feel like driving. Craig and I have perfected the home drive: two hours on, two hours off. No extensions, no excuses, no heroes. On the two hours off, you must sleep. Works like a charm, but also means there’s little time for thinking and writing. But then again, so what? Move on, write more tomorrow.
Here’s a little video of my writing time in St. Louis. I’m not sure what I think. Really, it’s just me writing. On paper it seemed like a good idea. Your world won’t change if you choose not to look at it. And I look REALLY grim when I write. I had no idea that’s what I looked like. Truly (which is just another word for really, who am I kidding) I look scary. Scary, grim, playwright. And you should see what I kept out. Goodness. Grim.
It may be hard to believe, but I am at my most happy when I’m in my writing zone. It’s fun, it’s fun being creative, I get so excited when I’m able to take an idea to the next step, and the next and the next. I love the accomplishment of writing, the beauty of it, the intensity, the thrill.
That look though. Hmmmm. Grim is not a good look.
Speaking of St. Louis, If you live in the area, or plan to be in the area in the middle of December there’s going to be a writing marathon! It’s hosted by Scott Ginsberg, also known as The Nametag Guy.
It’s No Excuses, Just Writing, All Day. No networking, no eating in the writing room, just writing. Sounds like a highly focused concentrated environment. Great, great idea. We can all use that from time to time. And a different location can be really useful. I find that just moving rooms in the house inspires me in a new direction…
Submission: Full script of Leaves of Grass requested by Halcyon Theatre. Nice to get a bite on a query so quickly.
It’s far from heroic to shoot an exhausted cow
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY TWENTY-ONE
Writing: Snippets here and there as we played St. Louis tourists today. Writing in the car on our way around town I re-worked the opening of the second act. Maybe this will work, it feels like it could be ok. We’ll see when it’s typed up.
Thoughts: All rules are meant to be broken, all experiences can be turned on their ear, theatre can be enjoyed, enjoyable, filled to the brim with joy. See? I DO like theatre!
Last night we saw Hal Holbrook perform Mark Twain Tonight! It was fantastic.
Hal Holbrook has been performing this show since 1954. The show is comprised of various excerpts from Twain’s writing. The selections he performs are never the same from performance to performance. He’s 83 and he never does the same show twice.
My major complaint about Frost/Nixon was the amount of unnecessary talking. How is it one man, with no pretty set, alone, talking for two hours does not elicit the same response?
Universality, warmth, sharp wit, vivacity, chilling reality.
This is what Mark Twain brings to the table. His views on politics, politicians, religion, Christians and their collective views on Money and humanity. It’s startling how something written in the baby years of the last century make you gasp with recognition. The timely relevance breaks your heart. And Twain has perfected the one two punch: one makes you laugh, two brings you to your knees. Fantastic.
Hal Holbrook brings an ability to share a story. He’s not talking at me, telling me something mundane. He is dressing a world with words. That’s the difference. Warmth and wit flow out of him and surround us all.
Did I mention he’s 83? And yes there’s clearly no blocking, he just moves where and when he wants. And yes he has to go back to the lectern quite often to check his notes. And yes, 30 years ago he didn’t need a lectern. So what? It’s all in tone, in style and with such ease - my god he is effortless. So crisp, so alive, so joyful. I went to see David Copperfield this year and he was awful. Great tricks, but he wasn’t just phoning it in. He was back home in LA sending up smoke signals.
Mr. Holbrook’s performance could have been the same and we would have forgiven him. He’s 83! But it wasn’t. And he got stronger as the show went on. And it almost seemed at the end that he didn’t want to go.
And does he know how to pause or does he know how to pause? And we waited in drop dead silence. The man is a master of the pause.
Submission: Ten minute play Bottle Baby to Play With Your Food - a great name for a lunchtime play series!
Observations
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY TWENTY
Writing: Hmmm. I typed out the first montage scene for Act Two of the Bee play and it didn’t come together like I thought. Hmmm. Well. That sucks and kind of stopped me in my tracks. Back to the drawing board.
Turned back to the Nano-play (you know, the full length I’m NOT working on???) and wrote some thoughts on the third sister. Thought about adding a brother, but he doesn’t seem to want to come out and play. He’s nowhere, I can’t even see him.. Came up with a nice intro but I definitely don’t have time to work on it so why am I doing this? I supposed writing on a play I’m not working on is better than staring into space…
Thoughts: I went to see Frost/Nixon last night at the St. Louis Rep Theatre. These are my observations:
- On the front door of the theatre there is a sign that says, ‘Concealed weapons are not permitted on these premises.’ Who, carrying a concealed weapon to the theatre, sees that sign, turns around and takes their weapon back to the car?
- The St. Louis businessman has a Stepford devotion to the khaki pant. Was there a memo and I missed it?
- This play has no intermission. It’s an hour-forty. Oh oh.
- Oh good, there’s a multimedia aspect. I see a bank of twelve TVs. I want to add screens to the nano play I’m not working on.
- First watch check. 8:25. Oh oh.
- I don’t know much about Nixon and I know nothing about Frost. Will this play help me?
- Second watch check 8:45.
- The TVs are used really poorly. They don’t add to the design of the play, or to the theme, or to much of anything. I even forget they’re there, which is a bad sign. Marti, our host, says when she saw the play on Broadway, the TV screens almost became another character - they were an integral part of the play.
- This play doesn’t help me. Nixon borders on human and the actor playing him does a great job. Everyone else is a cardboard cutout. I know nothing about them, I learn nothing about them. I could give a crap that Frost wins at the end. Doesn’t that mean something, that I don’t care if he wins or loses?
- I love token women roles. Really. I love them. Furniture movers, silent nose powderers, girlfriends who wear nice dresses, go for food and refuse champagne. I can’t get enough. Why isn’t this play a two-hander? Frost and Nixon. Why should we care about anyone else? Why are there more people on stage?
- Because, dear reader, we have narrators. Narrators to tell us what we’re seeing, what the characters are thinking, talking, talking, talking. I despise narrators. I loathe them. Why am I being told this play instead of shown this play? Who wrote this play?
- Peter Morgan wrote this play. He’s a brit, mostly a screenwriter. He wrote the screenplay for The Queen and The Last King of Scotland. Frost/Nixon is his first play. It went to Broadway. Huh.
- Third watch check 9:09.
- Fourth watch check 9:10.
- Oh My God. There is so much talking.
- Shoot. Me. Now.
- Now, I’m spiraling deep into my green-eyed monster. How did this get to a stage? I am sitting in a rep theatre that would never never read the title of one of my scripts, watching a mediocre play that has been to Broadway. Frank Langella won awards for his portrayal of Nixon. It’s really the best part. Is that enough? Was he better than the play? Shouldn’t a play stand on its own?
- Is it because I’m a girl that I hate this? A bitter playwright?
- Nixon just said, ‘When a president does something wrong, it’s not illegal.’ The entire audience gasps. That’s a good line. His next is, ‘I realise no one shares this view.’
- I wish that had been the thesis of this play. That’s a line to base a play on.
- I’m not that bitter. But this is why I don’t go to the theatre.
Submission: Ten minute play The Drive to Longwood University.
The Passion
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY NINETEEN
Writing: Beauty and the Bee. Wrote a couple of nice monologues, which are in keeping with character, but less with the structure. Came up with a shell outline for the second act, which is potentially exciting. I think I need to type out my work now to see where I am, what I’ve got, where I’m going.
Thoughts: Stealing time at the conference today. It’s the teacher conference so when the workshop sessions are on, the exhibit area is dead quiet. That means time to write, and time to post!
The teachers here seem particularly intent on learning and going to workshops, which I had cause to experience this morning. I teach a workshop on finding the character clues playwrights leave in the text. I had a packed house with 59 teachers. That’s a HUGE number. Twenty is a great turnout, so I was overjoyed when I walked into the room.
I’ve come to learn that workshops are an important part of my, I don’t know, purpose, as a playwright. I want to share my passion for theatre and hopefully spark that passion in someone else. I want to emphasize how important theatre is in high school. I want all students to write at least one play. I want to show and share my belief that theatre can be an effective powerful force. That it can affect us all. The more I teach, the more passionate I realize I am. That, my goodness, this stuff means something. I care about what I do and what I write. Who knew?
Submission: Leaves of Grass query to Halcyon Theatre.
On the road again….
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY EIGHTEEN
It may be 11:30 EST, but it’s still Thursday! And besides, it’s 10:30 here in St. Louis. Tomorrow may be a lost cause as we’re going to the Theatre after a full day of exhibiting.
Writing: Beauty and the Bee, got the first compilation scene for the second act written out today. Great ideas flowing. I also wrote a full page monologue for Catherine. I’m not sure it has a place anywhere, but it revealed some very interesting ideas about what she’s thinking. Always useful.
Thoughts: Ah, writing in the car. Sometimes, it’s very fruitful; the concentrated time, no distractions… although sometimes you end up staring out the window for hours. Today was a nice balance of both, since it was such a long drive. Lots of work…. lots of window staring.
I love traveling by car. But I never, never, write and drive. Need to be a example to the kids.
Speaking of which, I wanted to talk about the ‘writing hero.’ This is one of the questions in the regular playwright mini-interview at the back of The Dramatist (the magazine for the Dramatists Guild) - Who is your writing hero, alive or dead?
First, writing and hero are two words that don’t seem to go together. We writers, on a whole, don’t go into burning buildings, risk our lives for the sake of others, take people in who themselves are risky, reach higher, do more.
But that’s rather a grumpy attitude, and there are certainly many different ways to define reach, do, risk. Given the chance (you know when I get a whole different life where someone thinks I’m important enough to interview in a magazine) to respond to this question, this is what I would answer:
‘My writing heroes are those who chose to write, when every single person around them says not to. Those who don’t get a ‘real’ job. Those who DO get a real job and still find time to write on subways at 5:30 in the morning. Those who, instead of taking five minutes to breathe, write. Those who put the kids to bed, and then write. Those who write on the way between job one and job two and three. Those who get told they suck as a writer and still write. Those who get yelled at by misguided directors, actors, reviewers and get up the next day and write.
This applies to anyone who chooses a life in the arts. There are so many reasons not to be an artist, and few reasons to see it through. Don’t give up. Pick up the pen or turn on the computer. Always Be Writing.
Submission: Did a bit of ‘clumping’ to prepare for the weekend, got a number done ahead of time. Someone suggested this sounds rather like cat-like. I don’t have a cat, but now I have an image of submissions in the litter box, which is nasty…
Leaves of Grass query to Purple Rose Theatre.
Do what you can do….
30 Days of Development: Lindsay is writing every day for thirty days, and submitting every day for thirty days, and blogging about it every day for thirty days. Whew! Can she do it? Stay posted….
DAY SEVENTEEN
Writing: Nano-Play. Quick and dirty scrawling today.
Thoughts: The first rule of Writing Club, is don’t talk about Writing Club. (Oh wait, that’s a different club. All I’m doing is talking. My fingers are hoarse….) the second rule is, write when you can, where you can, what you can.
Today, I had an hour at my volunteer shift where I looked left and right, saw that there was nothing I was supposed to be doing, no one I was supposed to be talking to, and out came the handy dandy notebook. Came up with two pages which will end the play nicely. Third rule, never go anywhere without a notebook. Or seven. Did you see my pile of notebooks?
Thank goodness I did, because there’s not a lot of extra time today. It’s pre-travel day, we head to St. Louis tomorrow at 6AM. Should be very interesting to see how this is going to go. Not necessarily the writing, there’s lots of down time between traveling and the conference. But the actual posting. I’m going to try to be as organized as I can, but following the second rule of Writing Club and a second act reference to Sunday in the Park With George …. ‘you do what you can do….’
Submission: Ten minute play How Does Your Garden Grow to Live Girls Theatre.
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