A Writer's notebook, Day One-Hundred-Thirty-Nine

It has been a long week, and an even longer process in total, but tomorrow is the day, and I am, honestly, nervous, and excited.  I trust in the work, generally, but I have been up until all hours doing edits the last few nights, and I have to wonder a bit at my proficiency at a certain point.  It is, though, just a reading, not a full performance, and I am going to keep working on the piece to refine it further after the reading tomorrow.  This is a beginning step, and it will take more work to give this play a life of its own.

However, tomorrow will be a triumph, I am sure.  I have absolute faith in the actor and his connection to the work.  It is clear that he found it, from the start, to be worthwhile, and I am glad that I am giving him a script that is a bit more manageable.  I hope that the newest draft will provide him opportunity to perform it at a reasonable speed, without the need to limit his performance for pace.  My goal has been to get a script in place that would facilitate his success with the piece, and that was mostly a matter of getting the script to a reasonable length, which I hope to have done.  

It seems to me that it will be well inside the desired time, and I am very much excited to see how the audience responds to the play, as well as to the other short pieces that are in the showcase.  Having watched them develop, it is fascinating to see what happens in the hands of capable actors, and I am sure that it is going to be even more interesting seeing it after they have become more familiar with the pieces and are on stage before an audience.  I know from my own, very limited, experiences acting that the energy changes incredibly when the audience is there, and I am sure it will bring new life and depth to the works in ways that are incredible to see.

At this point, I am running on fumes.  I was awake all night for two nights in a row, and didn't really make up for it in any way today, so  I am ready to just crash.  I am shocked, to be honest, that I did as well writing this as I have, even getting this much written that is coherent feels a feat.  It does, however, reassure me that I have a sensibility that remains, and which likely guided my efforts even at the most exhausted moments last night.  But, even so, I must get to bed now, as I want to be bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning, to use a rather silly phrase I associate with my Dad, somehow.  Anyways, good night.  Tomorrow is an exciting day, and I am glad to get to bed so it might, at least seemingly, come sooner.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Fifty

Each of the three pieces I wrote today was a bit of a struggle to get going, if I am honest.  That happens, as I have mentioned, and my answer is generally to just wait it out, and the results vary.  A lot of the time, if I am really stuck, I might try to force something out, often it winds up being a bit meta, with me writing about being stuck without much in terms of inspiration, and it feels a bit like I am working scales in a way.  All the aesthetic decisions are there, they just don't always have a lot of purpose behind them, and that is fine in that context.  Essentially, I am just forcing myself to do the work, and getting it done, and I am showing myself that I can and will do it even if inspiration never strikes.  This can often take pressure off, and that lack of pressure opens up creative thinking and inspiration. Now, that is a fine thing for me to do, and I am likely to use that approach again many times in the future, but today I felt that I want...
Read more

Le Guin, Steering The Craft, Chapter Five: Adjectives and Adverbs (Exercise Five, Chastity)

A note of apology for my lateness with this.  I had expected to have time earlier in the day, but it was not to be, alas.  Anyhow, I am still a bit nervous about this exercise, though it is clearly of significant import to Le Guin, as she points out that it is the only exercise that she has given to all of her workshops.  That, of course, does not alter my feelings about it, excepting that I am aware of it as something valuable and worth doing, so the fact that it is a bit daunting might well be seen, through that light, as a promise of reward, perhaps.  The more difficult the task, the more one has to gain, at least by some logic... Exercise Five: Chastity Mr. Torino was in charge.  He had his way.  It was the way.  Desktops are clean.  Nothing but work.  No pictures: not your kids; not your girl or wife; not (as Allen recounted) your car.   None of that.  No plants.  No cartoons.  That is for home, this is work....
Read more

A Writer's Notebook, Two-Thousand-And-Fifty-Nine

I have been thinking about how I can discuss certain aspects of my poetry and the choices I make as a writer.  In particular, I tend to write without as much reliance on sensory details and descriptions, instead choosing more abstract depictions.  This is something that I know many writers would call an odd choice, as specificity seems inherently to demand the application of detail, but I tend to be a bit hesitant about relying on depictions that utilize the senses, as I find that approach somewhat problematic.  For one thing, sensory description is always going to be less than universal, and not only because of the reality that there are individuals who lack one or more sense.  In many ways, for me, the deeper problem is one related to language itself.  Our use of language creates our experiences in a very real way, though I can't necessarily offer a full explanation of what I mean by that right here, but using a word for an object bestows qualities on it....
Read more