The shocking thing is just when I start to believe I understand, I realize I know nothing. To me experiencing growth feels like bits of candy exploding on my tongue after a quick chew; sweet and tart. Bittersweet.

I’ve been pondering, gnashing my teeth, and thinking aloud over dinner with a patient friend for months over Water Closet, and yet, I’ve rewritten not one word. I realized this week I may have learned a bit or two from the Waffle experience, so it is possible I may reshuffle and rewrite WC before I’m dead from trying. It feels as much like a roll of the dice, although I know it is supposed to be craft. I hope that I’m up to the task. For it’s due in New York by September 16^th.

I began the night with a bit of bubbly caffeinate. However rather than keep me awake, exhausted by my work week, I am headed for bed. In the morning I work in the garage and get the roomies car washed, and have to get to the Grand Opening of the museum exhibit by 4pm where my film Mendez v. Westminster: Families for Equality is being featured through June 2012. How can I write when my job consumes my days?

Then I remember. Sunday is September 11^th. And I think how pitiful is my complaint.

I had an extraordinary experience last weekend. I brought in a new two character, ten-minute play for a first read at an Orange County Playwrights Alliance meeting. However the experience wasn’t extraordinary only because of the two amazingly talented actors who read. What was out of the ordinary was that my little play was without exception well-received. I never thought that possible with a play of mine. No joke. I was encouraged to submit it to the Actors Theatre of Louisville, which I have done.

If you don’t know, I am a librarian by day, and I am paid (essentially) to find stuff. I’m pretty good at it, because (I believe) I am curious and I love my job. So it’s my nature to try to figure out ‘why’ A Waffle Doesn’t Help Insomnia was successful with this group of playwrights first time out. Waffle started out as a funny Facebook thread I wrote with a friend who lives in Kentucky. We just happened to be awake at the same time eating, yes, wait for it – waffles. Friends who read the thread encouraged me to include the dialogue in a play. I decided to write one instead. My Kentucky friend read the play last Friday and loved it; he told me to take full credit. I have dedicated it to him.

I am also attempting to figure out why this play struck my audience’s core when so many others of mine haven’t, because, frankly, I’d like to hit a ball out of the park again. The comments I received were essentially it’s a relationship play. Yet I disarmed them with wacky, likeable characters, and when they were least expecting it created a life-and-death reality both in the text and visually; our ‘waffle twins’ were a hit.

Perhaps I learned a lesson in dramatic irony?

You’ve written a youthful male character (30s-40s). However the director casts a youthful actor (mid-late 50s). Significant or not?

You’ve written a jukebox musical using music in the public domain, and the “old-time” music vs a 21^st century high-tech world theme is embedded into the text. The music director decides to modernize the sound of the music. Significant or not?

You’ve written a drama about the nature of love. However the actor playing the love interest decides to portray his character as if mocking his female love interest. Significant or not?

You are invited to a rehearsal of a play you wrote. You are invited to provide feedback to the actors. You do. The next day you find out that the actor couldn’t reconcile your feedback with the way he had chosen to portray the character, and the director told him to forget about what you said. Significant or not?

Is it better to have your play produced for the sake of being produced even if it doesn’t look or sound like what you wrote? Or not? Please comment 🙂

I recently read words to the effect, “Submit your polished play. Must work as a reading”. The rational me asked myself, “How does a play get polished, if it’s never been read?” The irrational me got pissed. The rational me asked myself, “How does a play which is meant to be staged, “work” as a reading?” The irrational me decided not to submit… It seemed the best solution at the time.

I recently participated as an audience member at a staged reading of five short plays. The rational me asked myself, “Why did the director choose to direct this drama, as if it is a farce? The irrational me wrote an email to the playwright expressing my outrage on his/her behalf. The rational me regretted sending my unsolicited opinion. The irrational me worries that I never received a reply… It seemed the best decision at the time.

I got pneumonia again.
This time I refused hospitalization.
And it was like I imagine hospice care
Should be.

My parents did not smell the smells.
Did not wear the gowns.
Did not wear the masks.
Did not grow ever depressed.

Instead they fussed and tended,
While my sister and girlfriend shopped,
And my pups and housemate worried.
For this, my sixth bout in five years.

My body is completely unrealiable.
My mind knows that time, or lack thereof,
Is pressing me on.
I write between afflictions. You?

I just posted.
Then read back two weeks.
Seems there are questions
On our minds.
My friends and I.

How is it I was not influenced
By pre-reading and yet, we,
Those of us in May,
Are pondering, seemingly,
Identical questions?

One cries to be allowed, finally,
To gift us with writing full-time.
Or me, writing all the time
Just in my mind,
Because I cannot write all the time.

Asking big questions.
Answering big questions.
I am struck by the kinship.
And regret when on that rainy day
I missed Topanga with them.

Low potassium,
Little oxygen.
My body jerks,
Realizes I must write.
I am late. Late. Late.
But for what?

I cannot remember.
Yet persistent am I,
So I check my email.
Yes, I remember:
My friend, blog. Blog! Blog!
This is my week!

The end of my fourth day of summer and these are the first words I have written, and that is okay with me. Last year, January, I had an idea and wrote two scenes, about nine pages; inspired conflict, but completely lacking in defined characters and storyline.

Later I wrote more on the theme, and still lacked defined characters and storyline. Since I restrict my outside influences when writing, it was odd, but I did allow myself to watch a DVD of Bigelow’s HURT LOCKER. All three pieces of the puzzle came together after some intense research.

In the spring of last year I sent out the script to several theaters and festivals, and two weeks later I received interest from one, as well as notes framed as questions. I pounded out a revised draft in a week and sent it back. From the one I received more interest, and more questions. Nine months later I read the play again, and discovered I might have some answers. So I rewrote the play and sent it back again.

I received more interest, and more questions. Two months later – a Friday afternoon – I took a nap, and in my dreams I believe that I heard the faint mutterings of dialogue. I could not discern the words, but ‘felt’ it was time. I got up and sat down and handwrote a new Act I, Scene One; handwriting multiple pages of text is something I haven’t done since 1981.

The next day I went through the entire fourth list of questions, and sent out the revised play. This time I received more interest, and five tweaks! Who is to say whether I should be writing all of the time? Maybe I am; just in my head. I have discovered when the words are ready for the page, I write them down.

Honestly when I (pretend to) watch television or a film on my television set, I’m usually doing something else. I’m not mult-tasking, I’m just bored. 

I do watch Glee on Hulu (commercial-free). I also admit to watching tons of 2-5 minute videos on YouTube, and have even been sucked into multi-part series on such topics as religion, mathematics, and evolution. Okay, I admit it. I’m a geek.

However when I witness a movie or a play in a theater I do expect to engage; become completely and emotionally involved with the story to the extent that I may lose myself in it.

I believe that if I commit as deeply to the script, direction, and performances, as the production does itself, my experience whether good or bad, will have done what I sought when I purchased the ticket; I will have been moved.

Have you ever not gone to the theater because of subconscious or conscious emotional and physical trauma directly related to the world of the play, and going there again is too frightening to contemplate?

Last year I actually got lost driving to go witness a local production of Edson’s WIT. I mean, I literally drove around in circles. Of course it was night and I was glasses-less; my stigmatisms made being lost even more surreal. Of course it was the year of my ten-year-cancer-free mark, and I guess I was too freaked out to witness somebody else’s cathartic moment.

The first time I experienced this type of physical reaction of “do not see that play” was around 1991. The event that I am currently avoiding closes this weekend. How do I explain to a respected colleague that his highly-touted and “fun” theater event is actually a traumatic reminder of something that I remember happening to me when I was five-years-old? I can’t and I probably won’t.

While I admit to feeling perplexed when I read about writing from a consumerist point-of-view, I do understand their motive. I just happen to want to write plays that address great trauma with humor, because that is my life experience.

For even as much as I attempt to avoid reliving these events as an audience member, these are the stories that pour out of my subconscious through my fingertips into my computer. I write plays even I don’t want to witness. Ah, the irony.

A couple of weeks ago I realized I’m lucky that I’m not living in my car due to the state of this economy. No joke. I often marvel how a bout with cancer eleven years ago led me to a profession I love, and which provides me with some measure of security today.

After my 50+ work week, I often make time to write. Sometimes I do dare dream what my art and craft might be like, if I had more time to devote to them. However my situation is simple. I need to support myself. I live with two dogs, and share some marvelous friends and family. I am surrounded with more love than I can always bear.

Yet I’ve been investing in myself as an artist for over thirty years, and have received no dividends. I haven’t received a cost-of-living increase from my full-time employer due to the California budget crisis for years. However a couple of weeks ago, a two-hour union contract negotiation meeting finally put my economic situation in perspective.

As I began to look around me, I realized that with the high cost of gasoline and groceries among other things, I actually have less spending power now than I did three years ago. And things only look like they’re going to get worse. Yes, I waited a year to purchase a new pair of glasses, but had to buy them on time; as with everything else, I am still hopeful for a happy ending.

So it was an agonizing decision, but we put our home up for a standard sale last week. We are not underwater, but have lost a lot of dollar equity in the last five years. I am holding my breath at the hope of financial freedom that may come as early as mid-summer. However ironically, my need to not be at the mercy of a cruel economy makes me dependent upon home buyers, who haven’t yet called our agent, as they said they would.

We’ve already made an offer on a short-sale, and we’ll find out Friday, if they’re taking our offer to the bank. I’ve got to do my taxes on Saturday to find out, if I’ll get enough back to pay my property taxes. I know that I’m dancing as fast as I can, but I sense that the sharks are waiting for us to drop our selling price, which could affect the extent of my freedom. I prefer to defy them, but must be sensible.

I can’t read the news for weeping; oh Japan. If I write the truth, does it mean that I’m a bitch? What do I have to complain about? On Sunday I finally have time to take another pass on WATER CLOSET. Then I get to visit my mom, who has been shopping for winter clothes for my New York “debut”.

Yet I have still have choices. And that is my point. Don’t be a victim. Don’t wait for somebody to bail you out. While you’ve still got choices, make them. Buy extra water and food stuff, and an emergency kit for your car; whatever it takes. If you’re like me, once I’m over the paralysis, taking action helps me deal with the fear.

A year ago I sat on my glasses at a reading of the first 10 pages of WATER CLOSET, my two-act drama. For the rest of 2010 I drove in fear due to what I have since learned are stigmatisms brought on by my football-shaped eyeballs. See, I really am a Bruin through and through.

However I like my glasses less because their frames are the same name brand as my favorite perfume, and more because not only can I finally see, but I also feel more rested after a nights sleep; strange how that works. Behind me is a bookshelf, what we librarians call a “stack”, holding rows of printed words of the mostly male playwrights whose words I don’t read anymore.

I cite this image because I shot it in February sometime shortly after the glasses and hair, but during the middle of my faculty librarian contract negotiations; Accreditation visit preparations; the usual turmoil associated to a weakened economy and whether or not I could take a trip to LA: the gasoline versus groceries question; sometime before the real tragedy that the people of Japan are suffering through even as I write this; sometime in the little short month of February, I rewrote WATER CLOSET.

This rewrite is not my first. Not my second. Not my third. But the third based upon notes of an intelligent, intuitive, and highly-trained director, who also happens to want to develop female American playwrights writing about the American experience.

I did receive more notes and have a lot of work to do, but I would also like to announce that on 11/11/11 from 7:30-9pm WATER CLOSET will be read in New York as part of the Dramatists Guild of America Friday Night Footlights series. Cyndy Marion, Producing Artistic Director of the White Horse Theater Company, is directing.

After all these years I am finally going to New York City. And even though you may see me taking the harbor cruise and crying at the sight of the Statue of Liberty and the rising Freedom Tower at ground zero, I am not really going as a tourist, but as a playwright; a female American playwright who is damn proud of us all. Go LA FPI!