A Writer's Notebook, Day Four-Hundred-And-Thirty-Eight

I am still having a bit of trouble getting started on my play, which is due in a week at this point. I have a few ideas, as I have mentioned, but I think that I am just going to set aside a little time on Monday and just start writing.  It may be that the play which results is not appropriate, but even if that is the case, it will be a good thing, as it will get me moving in the right direction with the work.  It is a short play, only twelve pages at the most, and that is probably too much in all reality, if we look at it in performance.  I think that aiming for between seven and ten pages is appropriate, and I am certain I can write a piece that long in a day.  So, if I don't feel the piece is right, I'll get back to work.

By writing one play, though, I hope that I will get myself to the place where I am with my poetry.  While I do, of course, have poems that I write after long consideration about an idea, I am also able to just begin work, trusting that things will come.  Now, of course, a play has qualities and structures that are less intuitive to me than poetry is, as I have studied poetry for a long time.  However, I also think that the kind of poetic work I do can also be a good basis for the voices in a play.  That is, while there is a larger structure of plot, I am not worried that I can't write something that works moment to moment, and I can always refine issues of plot once I have a clearer idea of what I am doing.

This approach is not necessarily the most mature, in terms of a practice, but it is a way to get going, and that is, for me at least, often the most difficult thing.  As I've said many times, one reason I am so committed to my poetry at this point is that I spent a long time not writing, and I am afraid I could easily slip back into that mode if I didn't keep at it daily.  I have gotten started, but I don't know how easy that will be to do again, should I stop.  So, I am going to take an approach with writing the play that is similar, one of just focusing on getting started and then keeping myself going from that point forward.  Even if it does not result in a play that I feel good about, it is better than any play I am thinking about but not writing.

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