Happy New Year Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative!

I can’t believe it’s been a year since instigators Laura Shamas, Jennie Webb, and Ella Martin told me about the formation of the LAFPI. I’m so happy to be part of it.

I’ve met so many women who really do support each other and care passionately about playwrighting. I’ve been introduced to some excellent work and have made connections that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

I love writing and reading the blogs. Thanks so much Nancy, for your comment on writer’s block about the necessity of being emotionally connected to one’s characters. It put my problem in perspective. If one isn’t emotionally connected, something is wrong. I think I have been utterly lost, casting (flailing) about, looking for inspiration from “subjects” or “big matters” or “issues,” and hadn’t recognized that until you commented on my blog! Thank you again.

Thinking about that further, I wonder if looking for something, I don’t know what the word is, maybe it’s “important”, to write about, comes from the frustration of trying to get produced. That thought probably proceeds from the effort of trying to be noticed and the thought that those in power are not interested in plays written by or about women and what follows becomes, “How do I write something meaningful that will knock people’s socks off?” rather than, “Oh, that tickles me. Let me get it down!”

On reflection, I think, too, that the ideas that came to me on Thanksgiving were more ideas about weighty matters, and I’m going to let them sit. Instead, I’m going to step back, reassess, and with luck, recharge.

Happy Holidays to everybody.