All posts by Robin Byrd

Focus and Windowpanes…

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In art, there is a technique called “Windowpane-ing” used to help the artist focus on the details of his/her painting.  The artist creates a windowpane – an actual square or rectangular cutout.  This windowpane is placed on the canvas and only the part seen inside the pane is worked on to bring out the color, shadows, light, accents, etc. of the picture.  Working within the pane intensifies the focus of the artist.  As the pane is moved across the canvas, it is overlapped to create uniformity in the changes made until the entire canvas is completed.  Finally, the last portion of the canvas is done resulting in a finished picture that is well balanced and well expressed.

I use this technique as I write not only for the sake of what is on the page but because there have been several times when the world around me – the one I live in – is in a whirlwind.  In that sense, I use this technique to help me tune out the extras.  I don’t get writer’s block but I do have to work on focus in the middle of tornados.  Being from the Midwest, tornados hit pretty often during my childhood.  We spent many days and nights in the basement waiting out the storms.  I remember the sirens would go off letting us know to get to safety.  Because we had to stay away from windows during the storms, we didn’t move much – there was a lot of sitting still.  While the storm was raging, my mother and father would have us do other things like read books, tell stories, or sing songs to get our minds off the weather. 

Writing through a storm requires one to sit down and to focus.  So, for me, as long as I can calm myself enough to sit down (at the computer or a tablet) and not move, I can get something in written form.  And, since physically writing also calms me; it is to my benefit to focus and get at it.  Writing is an excellent way to express what one is feeling and getting it out is good for the soul.  A nurse I know once told me that what she tells her patients regarding gas is that “it’s better out than in.”  There’s not much difference between gas and stress; they’re both upsetting to the stomach.  Thus, stress-related trauma/drama is to gas as burping is to writing “the end.”  Better to get that story out than to suppress it.  There is always going to be a reason to not write but a little focus and some work on the windows can fix that…

The Winepress (stretching)…

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I don’t know about you but with me, every time I hit another level/dimension in my writing, I feel like I’ve been put through a winepress then stretched out like taffy and thrown back into my mold.  It’s as if all the pieces and parts of me get re-blended back into themselves in different proportions.  I am momentarily left somewhat disoriented and completely vulnerable to self-doubt.  Then, the last of me gets pressed through and suddenly the execution of a story that seemed to be a fleeting vapor in my mind materializes and I am able to embrace the change in myself.

Recently, I have been on a mission to stretch – to consciously grow in my craft – to be more uncompromising when I write.  I can’t think commercial; I have to think timely.  I have to continue to write to my rhythm and submit from what I have rather than write to submit.  Although, it is very good exercise to push oneself to write a play specifically for a certain conference or contest; it can get in the way when one needs to revisit a story but writers learn by writing so the time is never wasted.  When stretching, I like to read/see other playwrights’ plays which help me dissect my own work (written, in progress, even in the idea stage).  I have been telling myself to stretch for about seven months now…  I wasn’t quite sure how to do it so I figured that if I spoke it to myself long enough, it would materialize somehow.  By speaking it, I would be able to reach from where I was to where I wanted to go.  Seven months ago, I thought it was possible.  Today, I know it is possible because I am seeing a change in myself and my writing.  I know now that I am ready to revisit pieces from my back burner and work through them.  I’m not the same person I was when I put the pieces on the back burner; I’m more open to bending form to tell the story.  I’m more confident that I can create something new out of vapors –  the same way I become new each time I go through the winepress…

Write It Scared…

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I’m pretty fearless when writing but there are still instances when I am not (two to be exact).  I was writing a one woman show for a friend some years ago.  It started pretty crazy with the voices coming out of my mouth while I was driving – always as I neared or left the Post Office.  This happened for a few days before I realized the voices were characters in a play and not me losing my mind out loud.  There is a poem in that first scene called “Before the Red”; I felt and still feel that the piece should have explored that specific subject matter but I ended it when the voices quieted enough for me to go on to write the other monologues in the piece – maybe because I was tired of those strange characters blurting things out of my mouth – maybe because deep down I knew I was not ready to go THERE…  Individually, the monologues work but the collective piece is not a conclusion to the matter.  And, though I did not censor myself in writing the monologues, for whatever reason, I did fail to push into that first world I found – the THERE space…  I know the exact point I decided not to write the whole ugly truth…when those darn girls stopped blurting out sentences.  It’s at that point where I decided to write a variation of that truth – a modified portion of it which merely scraped the surface – the almost whole story.  The meat of it was left in the quarantined sector in my story bank – in the scary dark – THERE…  Though I am not easily jarred, with this piece, I was scared.  Scared that to really tell it, I would have to go deep enough to hit oil.  Would I be able to survive the gushing out of it?  I was scared to find out and I was scared that if I could survive the gushing part, I would put it out there before its time…  I am a firm believer that “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…Ecclesiastes 3”  Baring “uglies” for no purpose other than to bare them is not part of my makeup as a writer.  Perhaps it’s all those Aesop’s Fable cartoons I watched as a kid or the Twilight Zone episodes…  I sort of let myself down by writing an alternate piece and it’s stuck in my head (annoying me with thoughts of – “You know you still have to tell that story ‘cause you didn’t really go THERE… and you know you didn’t.  When are you going to write that story?  Soon, I say, right after the submission period is over and I have more time.”). 

I had been able to push the first instance to the back of my subconscious for a few years until I met playwright Will Eno who wrote “Thom Pain: based on nothing”.   I met him at a conference and he knew at once when I read the girls’ scene that I had failed to let that play go where no play (of mine) had gone before…all the way to the scary dark THERE…  The conversation went a little like this (because this is how I remember it):

Me:  “I think I failed.  I think I edited myself in some way.  I think the play wanted to say something else.”

Will Eno:  “You’re right.  You failed.  You have to throw it out and start over.”

Me:  “But, what I ended up with – the monologues are good.  I can’t throw them out.”

Will Eno:  “Then keep them but you still have to start over.  Trust that the thing that originally motivated you will motivate you again.”

He’s right.  I started over.  Since I never actually kill my darlings, I have them on standby to recycle/rework into other pieces.  When I sit quietly enough, the girls start to chatter again, taking me back to those moments when the sparks of their voices made me shake…

More recently, the second instance came about when I decided that I did not want to write a piece too close to the occurrence of the current event that inspired it.  My preference…  Again, I was scared that the timing was not quite right to go THERE … so I wrote something else.  A good piece but not the project I should have tackled.  Then I went to see “Stoop Stories” by Dael Orlandersmith.  After the talk back, I mentioned to her how her play “Yellowman” affected me.  Profoundly.  It made me shake…made me remember the girls who have been stepping aside for all the other plays I’ve written (funny both plays involve just girls/women).  Dael’s work makes me think about those two pieces on my back burners; it makes me want to revisit them now;  it makes me want to tackle the scary dark…just get right in there and look around.  I asked her how she was able to keep from editing herself.  I asked if she cared about what people may think or how they would respond when she’s writing.  I asked her if it scared her to be so open and honest.  She said – (and this is what struck me the most and this is how I remember it) – she said, “I care but I can’t do that to myself.  Do you understand?  I just can’t do that to myself.  Of course I’m scared; it scares me but I have to do it.” 

She’s right.  I just have to resolve it in myself that I will always write everything as open and honest as I can.  Otherwise, and I’ve learned this over time, I won’t give myself a pass because I can’t do that to myself either… 

As a writer one owes it to oneself to go to the THERE space… to the scary dark place and write it…just write it scared…

Study to Show Yourself Approved…

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“Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  2 Timothy 2:15.

The above is one of my favorite scriptures.  I hear it in my head when I am chug-a-lugging along pushing against the stones.  It is a sort of affirmation for me; encouraging me to continue the study of seemingly unconnected things – dirt, music, planets, etc…  I am always reading tidbits here and there about this or that…studying…to release stress or because I run across something that gets my attention.  The information bits always come in handy especially when I need to meet a deadline and don’t have time to research (because the play I just spent all my time researching is not ready to be written so I have to write something else and write it quickly).  I notice that my subconscious will unflinchingly pull a tidbit from the annals of my mind that will fit…perfectly…into whatever I am writing.  I used to think that I had all this useless information in my head and what wasn’t useless was so disconnected that finding what to connect it to would be a serious challenge.  Except…when interpreting dreams, I find the tidbits come in handy.  In dreams, all information is relevant as it can reveal the unknown, all that disconnected information finally serves a purpose.  I believe that is why dream sequences show up in my work; it’s part of who I am as a woman, part of that “write what you know” thing.  I know dreams, flashbacks, and things of the spirit… 

There is a play, Body Indian, by playwright Hanay Geiogamah.  In this play, Geiogamah uses the sound/symbolism of a train; his notes set up the business of the train. 

“6. There should be a loud, rushing sound of a train starting off on a journey to signal to the audience that the play is beginning and Bobby’s entrance can be emphasized by the distant sound of the train.” Hanay Geiogamah

I could hear that train for months after reading the piece; it was haunting… moving…beautiful.  It affected me.  It made me want to create moments like that in my own writing.  As long as I am stretching myself as a writer, I know that eventually I will be where I envision myself.  When I write, I hear sounds in my head sometimes but I had never thought to make the sound a character until I read Body Indian.  Perhaps that is just my response to the piece but the train was a profound presence.  An acting instructor of mine told me that if I could see it so would the audience.  I could see that train as I read; I must admit, I have been devouring Geiogamah’s work ever sense.  How to make the sounds visible — that is the question.

In the night, as I write, I like to listen to music, especially violins. I have begun a play called Fiddler’s Bridge; it is my hope to make the sound visible in this piece.  I am listening — as it finds its way to the page — for the sound of its song…

Those of us, who ride the night winds and the morning breezes, who straddle the fence of crazy and sane, must study…always…at our craft.  Earning the “wright” in playwright through diligence and preparation…unashamed and unapologetic for the feats we attempt.  We are the catalogers of our time and must all play our part in marking his/her/our/story.  We must continually grow as artists so our gardens are full of fresh vegetables and herbs and words…that communicate humanity or if so be inhumanity…

On the Matter of Subject…

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I’d like to think that I am open to write about almost any subject matter.  The journey from a thought to choosing the angle to take and researching any unknowns is never the same with each piece I write – always fascinating but never the same.  What can be the same are the moments before I reach page four — those tense moments when I am feeling like a complete fraud and I’m kicking myself because I had the audacity to think I could write that story that way.  I have started a task and it seems daunting.  Those moments I get a little stuck on rewind and time constraints can make it worse.  There is nothing as intimidating as knowing that the play in your head is the one you need to submit and the deadline is nearing and you haven’t gotten to page four let alone gotten to the middle of page three.  Stopped, right at the top of the page, with an air bubble stuck between the period and the next line.  Those are “playwright quote times” which for some reason, reading blurbs about writing calms me down enough to allow my germinating time to finish up its odds and ends.  I tend to forget that I tell myself I will write two or three pages — just to get started — and then let it germinate a while longer before I really get into it.  I usually remember after I have calmed down.  When writing my last play, I remembered…then forgot…then remembered again.  I felt like I was stuck in that Groundhog Day movie.  I should probably paste a note on my mirror but I probably won’t read it because I’ll be busy trying to get to page four from the “first words.”  And, who knows, Groundhog Day might be a needed part of my germinating process from time to time.  I am so preoccupied with getting past page three that my subconscious is free to organize information and listen to the other voices – the ones with the secrets.  I must admit, I am most intrigued by the secret things…and the layers that cover them.  Traveling into the unknown to find out the “why” and “how” of it all, is worth it every time.  It is during these journeys that I truly find out what the subject matter really is…  By page four, I know from what depth the play is coming and whether or not the subject matter at hand is what I thought it was when I began the piece.  By the end of the first act, I will be able to write a brief outline for the rest of the play and gauge how long it will take to reach the end which may mean submitting it the next year.  I used to think “next year” was so far away but there is so much to do in between now and then, it turns out to be just around the corner…

Knowing Your Place and Your Story…

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Most of my life, people have tried to put me in a place.  This place is usually wherever they think I should be based on who they think I am.  In my quest to know myself and to know my voice as a storyteller, I have had to make it a point to stay true to who I know myself to be.  Round pegs don’t fit into square holes; square blocks don’t fit into round holes, nor, do 41-inch hips fit into a size 4 pair of pants.  Tried it.  You might get in them by some miracle but you aren’t getting out of them without a fight or a pair of good cutting shears.  Lost a favorite pair of jeans that way…oh, the memories…I had purchased them when I was stationed in Germany, they were black and had straight legs, and – I digress.  I was stuck in them for two days, thank God for undies that snap.  There is nothing like a jolt of reality to make you pay attention to what happens when things don’t fit which is why one must know one’s own place in this world.  The wrong influence can send you off on a wild goose chase or land you in a pair of pants that you have outgrown.  Growing, in itself, is not a bad thing but ill-fitted clothing can be a hot mess.  Knowing yourself as an artist will help you navigate the waters no matter what changes around you.

Some years ago, I attended a conference where the playwrights were assigned directors to direct the reading of their pieces.  One of the playwrights at the conference got a director who chopped her 20 minute scene up so bad; we weren’t able to give her any feedback on her original scene.  The whole purpose for the playwrights to attend the conference was to hear their work read.  I had to stop the same director from adding lines that did not belong into my 20 minute piece.  I explained to this director that I wanted to hear what I had written; if, after hearing it read, I wanted to change something, it would be my choice.  I knew my piece.  I knew what I had written and why and I wanted to hear it as written; I also knew my rights as a playwright (see Dramatists Guild Bill of Rights http://www.dramatistsguild.com/files/DGBillofRights.pdf) so, I spoke up – not only to the director but also to the conference runners in the “after conference” survey.  The magic that is supposed to happen when a piece has the right director is something to aim for (I’ve had it and oh, the ride is rich and full of surprises, confirmations, and just out and out joyous moments.).  Twenty minutes isn’t a lot of time; it wasn’t a showcase on directing though a reading done well does just that, it was a snippet of a play read for the playwright’s benefit.  From my 20 minutes, I was able to tell that the audience liked my story and wanted to hear more which let me know I was on the right track.  I asked the other playwright why she allowed the director to move things around in her piece (which even with the disjointing of the scene we could tell she was an excellent writer, we just didn’t know what her story was supposed to be about); she said she didn’t know she could stop the director from making changes.  I told her to join the Dramatists Guild www.dramatistsguild.com .  Information is liberating. 

As a playwright, collaboration with other theater artists will enter the process; it is a given.  Part of what makes theater so powerful is the collective gifting of the playwrights, directors, actors, set designers, costumers, lighting and sound techs, etc. who all add to the theater experience.  Just last August, I had a play read in North Carolina.  The group of actors and director who came together to breathe life into my words were so phenomenal.  A character thought to be unnecessary (by panel members) at a previous reading proved to be quite necessary in this one.  The director understood the character.  The director, also, knew how to pull this character out of the actress portraying the character.  The actress knew her craft and knew how to stretch…  Where I was unable to hear the true voice at the previous reading, I was blown away at the second one.  I had suspected that Indigo had something to say and am eternally grateful to the actress, Antonia McCain, who gave Indigo her moments.  I am, also, grateful to the director, Melinda J. Morais, and all of the other actors and actresses who contributed to that reading for list see http://ladybyrdcreations.com/byrd_sightings.  I could hear the harmony building from page to voice, hinting at the stage…

The quest for harmony is an intricate part of what I do when I create.  I try, with each play, to access the artists circle – a place, my place, where all things are equal.  There is neither male nor female in my artists circle – only songs of the soul and rhythms of the spirit – and that circle is sacred.  If I did not know what my place/purpose is, I would never be able to regulate where I should be at any given time.  My journey would be undefined.  I would not know which stories are mine to tell and which ones are for some other writer.  Knowing my place in the artists circle helps me stay focused on keeping the “waste of time factor” out of the equation – out of the place where stories are born…

 

Waiting…

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In 1986, I enlisted into the Army, going through Basic Training at Fort Dix in the dead of winter was a shock to my system to say the least.  “You have three orders soldier:  1. Do as you’re told.  2. Do as you’re told.  3. Do as you’re told.  Stay alert, stay alive!”  An onslaught of training, 4 am wake ups, alerts, and “hurry up and wait” was the norm.  It seemed that we waited forever for everything and when we weren’t waiting, we were training…hard.  Once while waiting in line, I asked a drill sergeant if I could sleep.  “Sure, as long as you remain standing.  Do not lean on the wall.  Do not lean on your buddy.  Stand ‘at ease’ the whole time; you can sleep all you want.”  He laughed and walked away.  I promptly went to sleep standing two inches from the wall in the ‘at ease’ position just about to start snoring when….  “Is she touching the wall.”  “No, she’s about two inches away from it.”  “Is she sleep?”  “She looks sleep.”  “Byrd.  Byrd!  Are you sleep?”  “Yes, drill sergeant.  I was sleep.  You said I could sleep as long as I didn’t touch the wall.”  “How in the ___ are you doing that?”  “I don’t know drill sergeant.”  “Well, wake up.  Looks weird.”  “Yes, drill sergeant.”

Sometimes, waiting looks pretty weird when you have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice and you can’t lay down on the job, when you are training for action behind the scenes, and the dedication it takes to wait is as draining as the training itself.  Catching a quick rejuvenating nap with your boots on takes skill and focus.  Like waiting for transition as a writer, it can take years.  You must be diligent; you cannot lose focus.  Normally, people don’t wait more than a decade to be able to do what they have been doing all along.  Artists, however, wait for as long as it takes.  It’s hard to forget the dream when it makes up the very fiber of your being.  So, you hurry up and meet those deadlines, finish that play, get to that conference, sit in on that workshop, study that master playwright; you hurry so you won’t be lacking and you wait…  You wait on alert status because it’s nearly impossible to put a dream on hold when you can’t go very long without doing that thing you do.

When I wake up in the morning, after my ‘good morning, Lord’, I think about writing.  On my way into work, in the middle of Los Angeles traffic, I think about writing.  I’ve got a cart I drag into the office full of my research, snippets of plays, and books I may need ‘just in case’ — just in case I should get a moment to write during the day, just in case I get that next line for that piece that’s sort of on the back burner but can’t seem to wait it’s turn; all to do with writing, all to do with who I am as an artist.  I am constantly being asked, “What’s in the bag?  What’s in the cart?  Are you a student?”  I’m a writer; I write plays and I don’t give them timeouts for bad behavior, they don’t get vacation, and I don’t have daycare.  Every day is “Go to work with Mommy Day.”

Does it matter to you how many perplexed looks cross the faces of people who ask what it is you do when they find out you haven’t had a production in a while but have just started a new play, again?  Do you become self conscious, or simply, stand at ease?  Because, that is what playwrights do, we write plays, in season and out of season, we write creating worlds peopled with all our good intentions.  There is no rule that says, if we don’t get a production every year we must stop and do something else.  My thought is that one must be ready, be on alert because one day your gift will make room for you and bring you before great men (male/female) and you would want to have a lot to offer.  So, while you are waiting…write….  Build your repertoire…be about the work…  Hone your craft…stay on alert status, the alarm will sound and you will need to have your boots on and laced all the way up…

The Thing About Names…

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When my mother named me, it was not to match my last name. I was the third child and the second daughter. She said I was red all over when I was born but the next morning when she lifted my shirt to examine me again, only my belly was still red. She thought I looked like a robin red breast – the bird; my last name was pure coincidence. I have read that “the robin symbolizes poetry…and finding the personal song of the soul” (All About Symbols – Andrew T. Cummings) among other things.  I‘ve written poetry since I was eight years old and a few songs sung from the soul have found their way into at least two of my plays – not intentional just something that happened. As I examine my work, I find little pieces of me here and there in some form or another – not always recognizable but there… if only in how I approached the piece and why. As a child, I wanted a different name but a different name would make me a different kind of writer. Of course, I realize now the significance of having the name I was given…

I take great care when giving names to my characters the same way my mother took care to make sure my name fit me. Even WOMAN and MAN are names given with care. Usually, after finding names for my characters, their personalities readily reveal themselves. Often, the name even moves the story. Rarely have I been able to start a piece without naming the characters first. Character names are as important to the piece as the story and taking the time to find the right one always helps me to find my way into their worlds…unless they just want to tell me which has happened a few times. Nothing like driving down the street and having a character just start to talk. If I wasn’t a writer, I would think I was crazy – for sure. None of my plays have written the same way the last one did, possibly because I am never the same when I sit down to write them. Each project is a new adventure, a new opportunity to tell the best story I can and to learn how to tell even better stories in the future. It’s exciting, it’s scary; it’s altogether lovely and well worth the ride… It’s the joy of my life to always be writing…

Voice…

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“It’s the sound, the sound, the sound. I dance the sound.” Luigi

On purpose or by accident, there are things we do to the page when writing that are filled with the inner pieces and parts of us, all the subtle nuances of our voice. Learning to trust what is inside is a continual journey as we are always growing and must adjust and bend and stretch to that point that feels right…or not. Sometimes, it just sounds right and is hard to get that sound out of our heads until we get it down on the page. It surfaces like magma on occasion, uncharacteristically us. Do we keep it or discard it? Do we edit it or let it be free? Part of being true to the work, to me, is letting it speak…however, barbaric, refined, agnatic or matrilineal it is. It’s the pieces and parts of things that make the whole so interesting.

Once, while trying to write a play about a woman, the woman refused to speak. She would show up, press her lips together tightly and not say a mumbling word. After a few weeks of this, I tried to trick her by backing into her story. I wanted to find out her secret and why she wasn’t talking. I did her bio, assembled her family, I did their bios, then started writing the backstory. Since the woman wasn’t talking I thought perhaps her grandmother, Mama Lee, would. Mama Lee did speak but only to inform me she was looking at her son, Huron, and that I should look too, if I wanted to know about that sound I was hearing in the background – that chanting… So, I peeped and the sound started coming in louder and clearer…till those first words… It had begun – I was writing a play…Dream Catcher. This play I had never planned to write was teaching me so much about writing… I started settling with that play – settling into my voice. Dream Catcher showed me that as I evolve as a person and writer, how I approach the work also evolves and I don’t have to apologize for the backstory becoming a play. I don’t have to apologize for the subject matter, the characters or the setting. I don’t have to apologize for the spirits. I learned that my tendency to include spirits/memory is not a fluke nor is it a set thing. I learned not to apologize for my style. I learned that not only do I write from the voices that I hear but I write from the sound, the cadence. If Jazz is the cultural cadence then let me dance my dance to its rhythms, to its sounds… Let me have my phrasings and improvisations. Let me birth my pinks and greens and Blues… Let me have my language – my musical conversation – on the page and hopefully, on the stage…

I am still listening for the woman; she shows up every now and then to remind me that she’s gonna tell her story…eventually. In the meantime, I am learning to embrace my whole voice…every wonderful colorful octave…in pitch or not…

Going At It…

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There is a rhythm – an inner rhythm – that bears witness to the deep things that move us… This rhythm keeps us going at it even with all the jolts and pot holes we must endure. It can put us in cruise control and get us there – to that next play that wants to be written. The play, like a baby due to be born, does not consider extenuating circumstances that may be in the way; it is oblivious. It just wants to be born at its appointed time. So, we honker down, raise our collars against the wind and go at it…rocking to our rhythms, keeping time, listening to our inner beats…writing our stories… At times, we must remind ourselves to shake off the lulls and keep pushing against the stones. Other times, we must remind ourselves to go into the meadow to rest a while before that next big PUSH – because we have to push…

I have been told that “crazy” is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. As a playwright, I tend to do just that – I start a play that spends all of me to complete – yet I expect not to be so utterly exhausted each time I type “The End.” I expect to stretch, take a day off then pull out my next project and get started right away. Instead, I am so spent; I have to take a moment. And, I have to be careful to take enough time to really rejuvenate my “self”, depending on the subject matter I was dealing with. I have to understand that “going at it” includes making sure I am squared away and ready for action. I have to exercise my body, relax my mind, and eat good healthy food especially after I’ve pulled marathons at the computer with less than adequate food and stretching breaks. I used to feel guilty about taking that time like there was some invisible code that prohibited rest breaks. I would put myself on rigorous schedules of write, submit, research, write, submit, research, research, write, write, submit – et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… The only time off I would take would be to see a play or read a play. Since I started exercising, my mind is clearer; I sleep better, feel better and even lost a few pounds. Now all I have to work in is just a little more “pamper” time that includes spas and long walks on the beach… There is something about the ebb and flow of the ocean that gives me strength…maybe it’s the rhythm – that whole “going at it” sort of rhythm…