by Jennifer Bobiwash

As I continue on my journey to be a playwright, I try to surround myself with like minded people, so I can ask questions and pick their brains.  I started writing my first play by accident.  I was trying to work some stuff out and would write random thoughts, collecting stories, and poof a play.

Ok, not exactly poof, more like a volcano that has blown and the lava is slowly inching its way to the sea, and when it hits the salt water a cloud of volcanic yuck fills the airs with a sizzle.  That’s where I’m at.  Volcanic yuck.  My first play completed, workshopped and performed but no idea what to do next.  The sequel that I had started hangs over me like ashfall, with no end in sight.  I have been again collecting bits and pieces of writing as I try to figure out this next show.  Trying to write for a specific topic to be performed in a specific venue.  So many options for stories to be told, where do you start?

Sitting alone at my computer doing endless research, I am no further along, with the exception of a few dozen avenues to explore.  My goal is to find a writers group to just sit with and write.  I don’t have to share with anyone, I just need to feel the pressure of others actually writing and I think it would work.  When I do have the opportunity to sit with real writers, I feel like a fan girl gushing and asking non-stop questions.  Writing with other writers and then sharing is a an opportunity to understand the process of writing by their comments and how they ask questions.  They don’t offer up suggestions for your characters or “maybe you should change the location so then your protagonist escapes the bad guy, you can change this and you can change that”.  They tell you what they liked and what they didn’t understand and what they wanted to know more about and it makes you want work harder.

I can feel the tradewinds blowing and the ash lifting.  The only way to get past the yuck is to just keep writing.  Sit down, turn off your internet connection, so you won’t be able to do “research”.  Or better yet, go old school, grab your notebook and find a comfy, place to write, and just write.  Don’t worry if it’s good, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be.

keep writing!

Well yes, I’m always stuck in my own head, that’s how I write.  I work it all out in my head before I commit to paper.  Not the best way to do it, but I work out the problems I think I’ll have then I write.  But the stuck in my head I’m talking about is a song.  You know, you’re in a store shopping and on the overhead speaker some song comes on and you start bopping to the tune.  Next thing you know you’re walking to your car and now you’re full on singing that same song.  I hate that when that happens.

But today, I used this mild annoyance as a writing exercise.   It was a song from when I was in high school.   After I sang myself horse, I sat down with pen and paper and tried to recall where I was the first time I heard the song and all of the sights and sounds of the day.  It was the summer between 10th and 11th grade.  It was a Friday night in July.  The air was hot and muggy and my friends and I contemplated what to wear to that night’s dance at the community center.  Wendy’s parents were gone for the weekend and we had the whole house to ourselves.  Shanon was in the kitchen mixing drinks, while I turned on the tv to MuchMusic.  I could smell the sweetness of Shanon’s latest concoction as I brought it my lips, she had a thing for blue drinks and this was just the latest in a rainbow cocktails.  A warm breeze blew through the screen door.  The metal frame tapped as a reminder that we had to go.   Outside, the blue sky was fading into burning shades of red and orange as the sun set.  A chill filled the air.  I could feel the goosebumps popping up on my arm.  The mile walk to the dance felt like an eternity, why did I wear heels?  After paying our money at the door, we found our way to the dance floor.  I took off my heels and felt the cold concrete under my feet.  The light from the disco ball caused prisms of color to bounced through the fog.  Even though there was a chill in the air outside, the heat from all the bodies inside made the air inside heavy.  The DJ called the last song of the night.  There is was.  The song.  My friends has deserted me for dance partners.  I sat in the bleachers as he walked over to me.  He had finally made it to the dance.  He stretched out an arm as an invitation to the dance, a feeble attempt at an apology for being so late.  The only saving grace was that it was our song.

That’s what I had written about the song.  Memories of a distant past that brought back emotions long forgotten.    No recollection of the boy, he’s just a shadow in the memory now, but when it originally happened, my teen heart was in conflict and full of drama.  But today as I listen to the song again, I think of the sunset, the sky, the warmth of the air.

This writing exercise made me rethink how I listen to songs and the memories they evoke.  So much material to choose from when you consider whose perspective you’re writing about.

Oh, those endless summer nights.

by Jennifer Bobiwash

Goodbye, farewell, au revoir  and ciao.  To express good wishes when parting or the end of a conversation.

Saying a goodbye.  An ending is sometimes a good place to start. To help get me started on my writing, I like to get inspiration from a quote, but while searching for a goodbye quote, all I found was sadness. My current thoughts about saying goodbye are about going on a trip.  More “see you soon” than “have a nice life”.  Quotes about goodbye left me with a finality of never seeing the person again.

I guess I’ve never really thought about what goodbye meant.  In my head the characters were just going away on a business trip, but in truth, that feeling of leaving someone behind is a lonely and scary thought.  As much as I want it to be a happy, freeing release, it’s really more like your guts are being ripped out and you’ll never feel whole again.  Your life is ending, you cannot go on.

Ok, I’m a bit dramatic, but in truth you are in a way moving on.  Leaving people behind.  Growing. Learning.  Rambling.  Oh, wait that’s me.  To me saying goodbye at the airport was sad, but I never thought of it a solitary moment.  They give their hugs and kisses at the curb.  One trying to hold the feelings in to be strong, the other a blubbering mess that cannot stop.  But as I think of these characters saying goodbye, I feel a loss.  It’s as though their lives are headed in two different directions.  The person boarding the plane has to go.  They don’t want to go, but must because they have obligations and that’s what grown-ups do.  It’s supposed to be a happy moment because they are doing what they love and are fortunate that someone is paying them to live their dream.  The person staying behind is living their dream as well though.

I want there to be a winner.  Someone who comes out ahead.  Someone who feels better for the choice of having to say goodbye.  I’ll have to think about this one a bit harder.  My flight is leaving.

Goodbye, farewell, au revoir  and ciao.

by Jennifer Bobiwash

After the last performance of my solo show, I was spent.  I couldn’t believe that I had written this piece, then performed it for an audience.  There are still parts of it I am trying to refine, because even after workshopping it, having someone else perform it, it took me finally performing to see the holes.  Of course these realization occurred while I was on stage mid-performance and by the time I got to the end of the show, I’d forgotten what the change was.  So I moved on to part 2 of my show.  Writing and re-working the beginning.  Trying to capture that magic that I felt during the first show.  Bad thing about that was that it took me quite a while to actually muster the courage to complete the play.  Filled with mixed feelings and emotions about the truth of a solo show pained me at every turn.  Show #2 is going to be completely fictional, what are the craziest, most outlandish scenarios I want to discuss, that was going to be this show.  So here I am, 3 different beginnings and no further than 10 pages in.

As a new writer, I am still making discoveries on my writing style.  I contemplate the correct way it should start.  My mind gets caught up in getting it perfect the first time around, instead of the messy first draft it should be.  To help me with this, I attend table reads and writers groups to help me feel inspired.  While listening to the works of others, I learn different styles and ways of telling a story.  During the discussion after the read, I listen as playwrights and audience share their opinions and thoughts.  I watch the writer during the comment section.  I take note at how they  take in each statement, nodding their head, taking notes.  From being in the room, I know what types of questions to ask and how to ask them when asking for feedback.  What drew you in? What took you out? What do you want to more about?  It’s somewhere to start.  So I guess I’ll get back out there and write.  I have a million ideas and some great opportunities coming up.  No time to waste.

When you’re listening to a script for the first time, what’s the first thing you comment about?

by Jennifer Bobiwash

I have been trying all week to explain my first Fringe experience, but the words are jumbled and come out in a string of disjointed sentences. Which, truth be told, is how this whole experience has been making me feel.

My first show was a preview on Sunday. I have been fighting with the words that make up my play. As I try to memorize them for my show I wonder why the heck I wrote these things and why I want to share them with the world. As I sit on the stage, in an empty theater, running through my show. Pencil in hand, I cross out sections of text that will be cut next time. Right now my brain is settled in to the story, however repetitive the text is.

I try to distract myself by writing other things, poems, writing challenges on hitRecord, and random postings about how to use social media.  My brain seems to be distracted for a bit. Shhhh! Don’t tell it I’m blogging here.

My play has been workshopped on a few occasions and I’ve sat and read it to remind myself of the story, but it wasn’t until I had to perform it off book that I could see the (w)holes.  For as long as I have written and re-written the same circumstances with different characters and locations, it was always the same story.  After I had resigned myself to finally putting it to bed and completing it, I pulled together stories that would best lead to a completed play.  Workshopping it allowed me read the play for an audience, solicit feedback, see what was working and wasn’t.  I sat in the back of the room listening to the words I had thought were brilliant when someone else was reading them.  I explained to the dramaturg, director and actor about my thought process.  We spent a day with the timeline of the main character.  Me answering questions about the backstory of the story.  At the time not understanding why they were asking.  It was only later after I had a quiet moment that I could reflect upon their questions and why they mattered.  My story was missing the tiny details that gave color to the who and why.  The moments I took for granted as just knowing they were there, and when I read the lines I could see them.  I’m reminded about seeing the forest through the trees and I never understood the meaning of it.  Being in the thick of the action, but knowing what’s going on.

But now as I reviewed the lines and tried to commit them to memory, these tiny details are getting in my way and tying my tongue.  Alliteration and repetition fill my story and at times as I try to say the lines, I lose the poetry in an effort to just say the lines.  I can see the trees.

That’s where I’m at now.  I just have to be the performer and forget the writer. As much as I have been trained to honor the writer’s words, it’s time to trust that I know what I’m saying and just do.

I’ve taken so many different writing classes, but each instructor has said “go see solo shows”!  Luckily Fringe is filled with them and each offers me more insight into the writing process.

Now go out there and see some shows!

by Jennifer Bobiwash

Every December I begin my shopping spree for a new planner.  Ok, who am I kidding, I usually start in the summer when Student Planners come out and I long to be back in school.  Yes, I still use paper and pen, but I also keep track of things online, but since I am a planner, I plan for the event that I lose power to my electronics or can’t access the cloud and then I will be lost and not know where I am supposed to be for that day.  Yes, it does take a bit more effort, but it’s like a double check so I know where things are.  This year, I’ve decided I am going to try and make my own.  I say this because after spending hours in the office supply aisle at several different stores, I always end up walking out empty handed.  So instead, I am spending hours sifting through my collection of downloaded planner pages in the hopes of creating a useful book.

When I’m at meetings I love to see what other people use and how they stay organized.  Right now I’m reviewing my blogs (it’s a long list) and creating editorial and content calendars, wondering how I can put all the required information on one sheet per day, as well as other additions I want to monitor, like social media stats.  I also need a place to take notes from my variety of meetings and room for a to-do list of the items that pop randomly into my head.

December also signals a time for review and reflection on what you’ve accomplished from the year, so you can begin planning bigger and better things for the next.  Planning your “season” if you will.  When is the deadline for that play competition? When is Fringe?  What holidays or events are coming up that I want to discuss or work on?  When is so-and-so’s production start and end so I can help out on that?  These are just some of the things I need to think about.  A planner is also a great place for all your worlds to collide.  I use it as an opportunity to look at the different jobs and events that I have planned and see how they can come together to help out one another.  If I’m working on so-and-so’s production, how can I use my time there to help out another production. 

A planner keeps me on task and keeps all my to-dos in one place.  As the year slowly comes to a close, my January and February are already filling up.    Now it’s only a question of where I’ll be writing everything down.

I’m hoping Santa brings me this planner so I don’t have to think about it anymore.   I’d love to hear how you stay organized, where do you keep track of everything?    My quest is never over.

by Jennifer Bobiwash

I mean, I am a playwright?  I know.  Strange title to start off with LA FPI, should this be one of my first blog posts?  Especially on a playwriting blog.  To me the term/title playwright is just that.  Something that identifies you to a particular segment of the population.  What’s in a title?

When I was approached to contribute to LA FPI I happily said yes.  That’s what I do.  I say “yes” then after it sinks in I wonder “what the heck have I done”.  Trust me, if you knew me, you would know that saying yes first and asking questions later is so not in my wheel house.  Most decisions are well researched with lists and talking to people and several lost hours on the internet.  I need facts before I make a life changing decisions.

Where is this going you’re wondering?  For me it begins with the title of Playwright.  You see, after saying yes, THEN doing my research on the other women of LA FPI, I felt out of my league.  I am still playing house-league hockey, the ladies of LA FPI are truly NHL material (yes, I’m a hockey fan).  I have a problem with titles.   When you’re a college student you are dreaming of the big corporate job you’re going to get after graduation, you do job searches based on the title the job carries and once you get the job, you are defined by that title on your business card.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted a big fancy title and a stack of business cards to hand out to say “look at me”.  But it wasn’t until I went to work for a non-profit I realized how difficult and pointless a job title can be.  I was listed as Director.  That meant that I was in charge.  Ok.  But what the people I was talking with didn’t realize that I was also the Executive Assistant, Public Relations, Fundraiser, Social Media Manager, Volunteer Wrangler, and IT.  I was a staff of 1, reporting to the President and Founder.   Knowing this secret, I always smirked when someone asked for my card, like I was part of an inside joke they would never know the punch line to.

Networking events are the worst for me.  The inevitable question “So what do you do?” is a tough one.  I’m not trying to be evasive you see, I do a bit of everything, so it takes me a minute or two to decide what to say (I really need to work on my elevator pitch).   Ever have that problem?  But, the addition of playwright to my ever growing resume is a hard one for me to wrap my head around and I am always forgetting to tell people about it.  I love to write.  This past year has been filled with “writer” me.  My play was chosen to be workshopped, where I got to sit back and just write.  An actor performed my words.  I had conversations about the theme of my play and how people related to it.  When I began writing my show I never thought of the ramifications of it.  I just wanted to write.  Now, I’m an artist-in-residence (another interesting title) and working on my next show that will be workshopped next year.  What does it all mean?  I guess for once I just don’t feel worthy of the title.  A playwright to me is this deep thinker of a person, they know stuff (oh, I am sensing a theme in my life).   I’m just a perfectionist and I want to make sure everything is perfect before I send it into the world.  Structure, storyline, character arc, all that writer-y stuff.  I guess that’s why it took me so long to finish my one-person show.  That and after awhile I just wanted to complete something.  I had to let go of all the crazy thoughts in my head that were stopping me from writing and just write.  I am a playwright?  Yes, yes, I am!

How many titles do you have?