Sailing Women

Almost two years ago, I wrote a blog post for LAFPI about sailing as a metaphor for playwriting.

Metaphor became reality as I found a bunch of women’s sailing organizations and got on boats. So now, I hope unite two of my passions—sailing and playwriting. Yes women playwrights, let’s take to the seas, and. . . .(okay haven’t thought that far ahead yet).

First of all, if you want to learn to sail, I highly recommend the UCLA Marine Aquatic Center. You don’t have to be a UCLA student to take sailing classes there. In fact, the majority of students in my Capri 14 class were adults in their thirties.

My sailing instructor at UCLA told me about the Women’s Sailing Association (or WSA). It’s a sailing club dedicated to women’s sailing (although men can join too). They sponsor day sails and cruises. They can even get you into racing.

Before I knew it, I was going out on day sails, starting regattas, and dancing in a pink wig on the bow of a catamaran in the Christmas parade (theatre on the water). Because of WSA, I’ve met a lot of great sailors who were generous with their time and boats and willing to teach me sailing. Also the stories are awesome.

There’s also Sea Gals down in Long Beach. Sea Gals was created to get more women out sailing. On a Saturday or Sunday, you get to sail a Catalina 37, a large race boat. You go out with an all-women crew. It’s a super supportive environment, and there’s no yelling. The boats stay in Long Beach Harbor, so there are no rolling waves.

So if you’re thinking, gosh, I’ve always wanted to sail, but I don’t know how to go about it. Or if you’ve been sailing and nobody told you  how a boat works. Or if you just want to try something different, check out these organizations. Here are their websites:

UCLA Marine Aquatic Center

Women’s Sailing Association – Santa Monica Bay

Sea Gals

And that’s the end of my blog week. As always, it’s been a delight.

Oh I Could Never Why The Heck Not

Or the post where I try to be inspirational.

I am trying to eliminate the phrase, Oh I Could Never, from my mental vocabulary. It’s not in my writing process, but I’ve been trying to eliminate it from my life thought process as well.

Oh I Could Never. It’s such a simple thought. It can be used ethically. Oh I could never shoot someone. That’s a good thought to have. Please, my friends, never stop thinking that thought.

But Oh I Could Never could also be used in negative ways to eliminate possibility. Oh I could never go and try that new thing. Oh I could never go two days without a shower.

We all have standards that we hope to live our lives by. But what about the possibility of something new? What if I stepped off the curb of Oh I Could Never into the puddle of possibility?

So whenever I think Oh I Could Never, I add the phrase Why The Heck Not. I prefer heck to hell because in this context, heck reminds me that it’s so simple that I don’t have to swear.

Oh! I almost forgot. I have to plug stuff today.

If you are in Prescott, Arizona in April, my monologue “Cake” is being performed by fellow LAFPI blogger Tiffany Antone as part of an evening called Love Makes The World Go Round. Here’s the website.

I will not be in Arizona in April, but I’m sure it will be a fun night.

 Speaking of Tiffany (who is definitely in the WTHN zone), she’s producing another festival of women’s plays. I recently blogged over on her website.

Comment Feedback

We’ve all been there. We’ve all received feedback for a play and gone huh? We writers want to be diplomatic and open, but at the end of the day, some things we hear are just plain stupid.

When we receive those little gems of stupidity, we nod, smile, and say, yeah, I see. Then, we promptly forget it or put the comment on auto repeat as we drink ourselves into a stupor or walk away with our hands on our hips whispering what the f*ck while wondering why we even allowed that person to talk to us in the first place.

I won’t go into all stupid comments I have received over the years. I actually have forgotten many of them sometimes without the aid of the drunken stupor. However, there are a few that I just have to share.

Diplomatic Disclaimer: These are comments I have heard repeatedly over the course of almost twenty years, so if you think you may have said something similar to me, I have no memory of you saying it specifically. It’s not you, it’s me. All me.

You are crazy for writing that.  Wow Jen, you write crazy. Whoa, crazy stuff.

 Sometimes this comment is meant to be a compliment. Still, the implication is that I am out of mind when I work. This is not true. I am focused. I am working with an awareness of both the mental and sensual. I don’t write for therapy either.

 I don’t get it. I don’t feel it. I dig it. I love it! IIIIIIIII. . .

 The interesting thing about I-comments is that they are about the speaker saying them. They’re not about the work in question. That’s nice that you get it or don’t get it, but if you really want to engage a writer about her work, ask her a question. Questions lead to communication. That’s good. Communication is good.

It’s like Beckett. It’s Beckettesque. Very Beckett.

Beckett didn’t write my stuff. I wrote my stuff. Beckett wrote his own stuff. I respect Beckett. Usually when someone uses a term like Beckettesque (or Pinteresque or Chehovian), she (or he) can’t speak deeper about such a comparison which is not interesting to me anyway.

So what is a poor play viewer to do when she or he encounters me?

If you see me in person and want to tell me that you like my play, simply catch my eye and point to your nose with your right index finger. That’s all you have to do. I’ll know.

And if you want to compliment me, compliment my shoes because deep down, I am a girlie girl.

On Pseudonyms and Pen Names

When the Bronte sisters were first published, they were Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.

Pride and Prejudice was first written by the author of Sense and Sensibility, and Sense and Sensibility had A lady listed as author.

Nowadays, women can publish under their own names. My favorite author name for a woman is Lionel Shriver—her name is actually Lionel—she named herself because she liked it.

I have a lot of different pseudonyms. I write plays under Jen Huszcza, but I blog under different names. When I work in different forums, the voice comes from a different place and my mind works in a different way.

I’m not going to tell what my pseudonyms are. I’m not that easy.

Are pseudonyms career suicide? Shouldn’t I make ‘a name’ for myself? Shouldn’t I be a ‘brand’? Shouldn’t I let everyone know everything about me? Shouldn’t I be easily found on facebook and twitter and in the blogosphere?

I won’t insult your intelligence by answering my own rhetorical questions, gentle reader. I will say that in this age of instant access to too much information, it’s nice to be a bit elusive. I can slip in and out the backdoor without being noticed. I can steal kisses in the shadows and pick wallets out of pockets. Was I here? Was I there? Where was I?

On Woody Allen

Back when I was a baby writing student of eighteen, there was a cute guy in my craft class who loved Woody Allen, so  I watched a bunch of Woody Allen films in rapid succession. Some of them I liked. Some of them I didn’t. There certainly were a lot of them.

Fast forward to now. Woody Allen has just had a hit with Midnight in Paris and was the subject of a PBS documentary. He’s in his seventies, and he just keeps churning out movies. Every year we get a new Woody Allen film. Some are good, and some are yawners. I loved Match Point, but I fell asleep ten minutes into Cassandra’s Dream.

I was thinking about Woody Allen when I got a rejection letter recently. No the letter was not from Woody Allen. It was from a literary manager who said the play wasn’t for her company, but if I had anything else, I should send it on. I thought, heck yeah I have something else, and I sent her another play.

As a playwright, my job is to the write the plays. Some of my plays are not bad. Some of my plays are probably not producible on this planet.  I just keep writing them and throwing them at the wall. One of them might stick.

I keep waiting to run out of ideas. Hasn’t happened yet. I’m gonna do this when I’m in my seventies. Oh no.

The Play I Hate

It started with the title. It was a great title. It was one of those titles that I thought, yes that’s what it’s all about. It was provocative yet mysterious. It was sexy yet full of ideas. It would even look good on a poster.

I started writing the characters. They were all right. They took their time revealing themselves, but I’m not a pushy writer. I gave them their space. There were five of them. They were all humans. They were characters that actors would love to play.

I liked the stage I saw. There was versatility to it, yet it was just realistic enough for an audience to say, ahah, I know that place. It was a good space.

I wrote a draft beginning to end. It was exploratory. I just wanted to see the characters run. It was two acts.

I put it aside for a year. Or maybe three years. Time is not specific in Los Angeles.

Recently, I picked it up again.

And

I hated it.

I hated everything about it. The set was claustrophobic. The characters were awful. The ideas in it were stupid and muddled. Even the title annoyed me.

I didn’t hate myself for writing the play. I just hated the play. What was I thinking?

I have written other plays that I’ve put aside for years. When I picked them up again, I could see my thinking and build on it. But this play was a junkyard of yuckiness. I even started to relish in my hatred of the play, and I knew not to give into hate.

So I put the play back in its virtual little yellow folder.

Then, last week, I started thinking about the play I hate. The title wasn’t so bad. I started making notes to change it. Oh no.

Then I realized that if I push all the things I hate about it further, I might start to like it.

Or not.

Meanwhile, I continue to work on a completely different play that I like.

For now.

And on that bombshell, I end my blogging week here. As always, it was a delight. Jen

On Jealousy

Recently, I was talking with a writer friend whom I’ve known a lot of years. We go all the way back to writing craft class.

My writer friend works in a writing related field and makes good money. He also writes scripts occasionally.

We see each other from time to time and usually have a nice writing related discussion. Recently, over coffee, we were talking about the stuff we were working on. I was going through my list of writing to be done (it never will end, ever).

I’m Jealous. You’re so prolific. My writer friend said to me.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t want to say, oh you can be prolific too, you just have to write more because that would be just not true.

I was also shocked that someone would be jealous of me. Me???? I have terrible vertigo, and that’s just the beginning.

My writer friend has a lot going for him. His job is good. He lives well. He should not be jealous of me. I do not have the power job. Compared to him, I. . . .

Ahhh-hah. I see.

Maybe we should strive to not compare ourselves to others. In the long run, it all evens out, and if it doesn’t, so what.

 I have seen friends from school go on to be super successful in writing, and weirdly I don’t feel jealous of them. Besides, we were all goofballs in school, and I still think of them as goofballs.

 Besides, I don’t have time to be jealous. I’ve got writing to do.

The Kobayashi Maru Scenario

 Or my Kirkian response to the Who Gives A Sh*t Question

I do read this blog when it’s not my week. Recently, Tiffany Antone raised the all important Who Gives A Sh*t Question. I could also call it, do people really want to see another play about characters sitting in chairs and talking about their issues?

Or I can ask, should I write stuff other people want to see? Should I play to the mob? Or should I challenge audience expectation and possibly never get produced? How do I keep the audience interested? How do I keep myself interested? I’m not interested. I suck. I can’t go on, I shall go on.

The no win cycle of writing new stuff-will the audience dig it-but needing to write it- but no one will get it (I’m paraphrasing) kept repeating in my head.

This led to the inevitable playwriting funk which sent me crawling back to prose-writing while watching movie star interviews on youtube.  

Then I was rescued by basic cable. One night, as I surfing channels, I came upon Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn. Ahah! The Kobayashi Maru Scenario.

In Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn, a Starfleet cadet has to take a simulation test. She is the captain of a starship and receives a distress call from a civilian freighter (called The Kobayashi Maru) in the neutral zone. If the captain goes into the neutral zone, it would mean war with the Klingons. The purpose of simulation is to test the cadet in a no win scenario.

Captain Kirk’s solution to the no win scenario was to reprogram the simulation, so there was a solution. He cheated. But he won.

Maybe the solution to the Who Gives A Sh*t question is not in the answer but in the question itself. Change the question or make the question irrelevant. At the same time, there’s an audience out there in the dark. Show them something.

At the end of Wrath of Kahn, Kirk faced a no win scenario, but Spock saved the day and sacrificed himself (although he came back in Star Trek 3). So another question about the no win scenario, is what will you give up to win? Sometimes, the cost is too high.

Then again, that’s just a movie. And all we’re doing is writing plays. Or are we?

Maybe it’s time to become more Kirkian in the playwriting. Live long and prosper.

Texting the Play

Way back in April, Kitty Felde wrote on this blog about the audience texting during performances of bad plays.

This led to me thinking. What if it were possible for the audience to text the play during a performance and see their texts scrolling above the stage? It could be the next step in theatre watching. Folks comment on the blogs and articles on the web. Why not a play?

A performance of Hamlet could yield some interesting commentary:

Ophelia’s da bom!

2b not 2b woohoo!

Is that a real skull?

Why are they talking funny?

Or maybe during a performance of Waiting for Godot, the audience would get to see the following scroll:

When’s Godot gonna show up?

I don’t get it.

That’s cause you’re stupid.

No you’re stupid!

Why did we come?

Why are we here?

 Maybe the audience could text the playwright directly:

 This scene is totally not working for me.

 She DIED?????? Why??????

 Your actors are hot!!!!!! Yum

 That character is sooo based on me.

 Maybe members of the audience have their own drama to share:

 My blind date is an asshle!

 My blind date won’t give out

 Will u mrry me Sara?

 Which Sara?

 Sara T.

 No! —Sara T

 In the spirit of audience democracy, comments are welcome.

The Paper Toss

I love paper.

That’s a good love because I write on a lot of it. Even in this age where I can work on my cell phone, I prefer the pen (black or blue) and paper. I love the immediacy of putting pen to paper. I look at a blank sheet of paper (preferably with lines but I can work on blank stuff too), and I see possibility.

Through the years, I’ve written in notebooks and journals, on legal pads and post-it notes, around envelopes and folders. I don’t write on skin or fabric.

I now also write while typing into a keyboard. However, most of the time, I’m typing in something written down.

I also love doing rewrites on paper. I love crossing out and drawing arrows and making inserts and spreading several sheets on the table as I change around a section.

I have accumulated a lot of paper through the years. Even though my papers are organized in boxes, I felt like I was drowning in it, so this past holiday season, I did a huge paper toss.

Over the course of two nights, I hauled out the boxes and dove into two decades (I’m old) of paper. I swam through pages. Sometimes it was a script, sometimes a story, sometimes a love letter.

Sometimes, the pages were stiff from age and moisture. Sometimes, they were fragile from too much writing on them. Page by page, I kept or tossed, and my toss pile got larger and my recycling bin got fuller. 

It was time to let go. Let go, let go, let go.

It was time for the paper to go, get recycled, and become something else.

I kept the love letters though.