I started a play this week. It’s actually the feature length version of a one-act I wrote back in my freshman year of college (and, surprisingly, one of the pieces from college that other Leaguers who had class with me remember most). It’s tough going, very slow going. I’m not sure that I like it so far, and I’m writing at a snail’s pace, compared to what I usually do. I’m getting somewhere in the neighborhood of a page a day with this thing, which could be for any number of reasons (currently, the character I’m working on speaks only in rhyme, so that is slowing things up a bit).
Not so far back in my mind, I know that writing a play at this point in time is not necessarily the “smartest” thing to do. We’re hoping for some good competition results next month, and, either way, are all doing what we can to have a few more polished scripts each by the end of the summer. So clearly, starting a new stageplay works against that goal. Yet, on the other hand, the protagonist in this play is very much a character I identify with (though our situations in life are incredibly different). I’m at a point where, due to various happenings, desires, feelings, and an ever increasing sense of restlessness, I need to write a character I identify with now. A character I can see as myself. Isn’t that one of the supreme purposes of writing, anyway?
I do want to get back to my screenplays, and after another round of feedback and another look at my post-Apocalyptic spec, I’ll attack it soon. I want to get it ready by the end of August, and hope to have it done sooner than that. But I am not the protagonist in that script. I don’t do what he does, I don’t act as he does or talk like him. He’s fun, and I enjoy writing him, but he can’t help me express what I need to right now. He’s great at making it cross country after Armageddon hits Earth, but he can’t iron out all that I’m thinking about now.
Hell, I barely can.
Not so far back in my mind, I know that writing a play at this point in time is not necessarily the “smartest” thing to do. We’re hoping for some good competition results next month, and, either way, are all doing what we can to have a few more polished scripts each by the end of the summer. So clearly, starting a new stageplay works against that goal. Yet, on the other hand, the protagonist in this play is very much a character I identify with (though our situations in life are incredibly different). I’m at a point where, due to various happenings, desires, feelings, and an ever increasing sense of restlessness, I need to write a character I identify with now. A character I can see as myself. Isn’t that one of the supreme purposes of writing, anyway?
I do want to get back to my screenplays, and after another round of feedback and another look at my post-Apocalyptic spec, I’ll attack it soon. I want to get it ready by the end of August, and hope to have it done sooner than that. But I am not the protagonist in that script. I don’t do what he does, I don’t act as he does or talk like him. He’s fun, and I enjoy writing him, but he can’t help me express what I need to right now. He’s great at making it cross country after Armageddon hits Earth, but he can’t iron out all that I’m thinking about now.
Hell, I barely can.
