Late last year I remember blogging about how much I look forward to January, when I am able to start a new play. I finished one yesterday. That isn’t, in itself, remarkable, but what was eye-opening to me was the experience of writing the first fourteen pages of the third act.

To explain, I was intent on writing three stand-alone one-acts that if performed together, could be an evening. I wrote the first act, first as an exercise in regional dialect, and then got serious. I struggled through the second act… I took myself out to dinner a week or so ago and outlined it and the third act, so what I found difficult was writing toward a determined end, and not just free associating.

I wasn’t supposed to write on Friday. I was supposed to take a break and do housework. However, I sat down at lunch, transcribed the bits I’d written on the back of envelopes and scratch paper and before the evening was out, I had fourteen pages.

I’ve never experienced a fourteen page day before. I don’t know what to think about it, except, maybe, those pages needed to be written. I’d elaborate, but I would just be putting words on a feeling that don’t need explaining. It’s enough that I wrote them and I’m glad the laundry could wait.