I have been whining about Writer’s Block for a couple of years. Whining, fretting, raging – in despair. I’ve tried everything – exercises, games, ten minute nonstop unfiltered writing, resting, relaxing. Nothing. Zip.

In September, Valerie Ruel, an actress with the Kentwood Players, asked me if I had a short play she could look at. She was auditioning to direct at Kentwood and had to bring in a more or less full production of a short play for a one night workshop, which the membership would attend.

I gave her my favorite one act play, a comedy called Rondo a la Condo. It’s a forty-five page, one set piece with five characters. And she liked it. Not only that, she asked me to play a part in it. “Well,” I said, “Yes.” I think I may also have said, “Yippee.”

We rehearsed for a brief couple of weeks. Valerie was efficient and well prepared, the actors were fun and enthusiastic, and the stage manager transformed the existing set into a condo balcony in about ten seconds flat. On performance night, the audience loved it.
We all had a blast!

After it was over, one of the actors, Ted Pitsis, said, “People don’t put up one acts. Why don’t you turn this into an evening?” “Impossible,” I thought and put it out of my mind.

Then, walking down the street, the other day, I suddenly had a “What If?” Out of the blue. What ifs came tumbling after what ifs. What if this one act is actually the second act of a two act play? What if the first act took place fifteen years earlier? What if the one actor plays two different parts, one in the first act, and one in the other? Etc.

I made some notes and have made some more and I’m hope, hope, hoping that the note making continues and the lines start to flow.

It could happen. It’s happened before. Yippee.

This is a blog post about an acting class, a play being turned into a screenplay, and some flying Chihuahuas.

I had acting class two nights ago.  I love my acting class.  My acting class is my therapy, social hour, Barbie dream house and spiritual retreat in one three-and-a-half-hour time slot.  When I come out of my acting class all I want to do is act, but the next day, well, I have to write.  Correction: I don’t have to, but that’s what I do, right?  I’m a writer.   And yet I crave that instantly gratifying experience that gets me out of my head and ends with people applauding.  Or saying “Cut.  Nice job.”

I am turning a play of mine into a screenplay.  It’s not easy — and by that I mean the writing.  Any writing, lest we forget.  To sit alone and let these characters of our own making speak, especially if no one really cares if they do or not — no easy feat.  And this has been particularly tough for me.  It’s not just that I’ve had a taste of a storytelling process that doesn’t involve one of the most dangerous people I know (me) playing with one of the most dangerous weapons I know (my brain) — it’s that I’m still waiting for that flow, that zone.  And forty pages in, it’s nowhere to be found.  The usual sinister ramblings of the writer mind whisper in my ear: the character is boring.  The story is boring.  The tone is off — one minute flip, the next maudlin, depending on my mood.  And the worst: how does this in any way contribute to the general good of the world?  Particularly if this gridlock puts me in such a crappy mood that I’m pissed off at everyone I come into contact with?

So yesterday, having had one too many of such moments, I decide to shake things up and really contribute.  Give back.  I don real clothes, as opposed to sweats, and head to the animal shelter to volunteer.  This is where the Chihuahuas come in.  I go to help an organization fly twenty of them to New Hampshire where they’ll be adopted as opposed to euthanized.  On the car ride over, I consider the possibility of “taking a break” from writing and devoting my life to being of service full-time.

Anyone been to the county-run animal shelter lately?  Let’s just say it’s not for the overly sensitive and highly hormonal.  But I help.  Get my clothes dirty.  Give and get love and do my best to implore each of those little creatures to hang tight, because a beautiful life is on the other side of six hours in a cargo hold.  I also run into the bathroom every half hour to sob my eyes out.

Three and a half hours later — as long as an acting class but not quite as euphoria-enhancing — I come home.  I uncork a bottle of wine to put things in perspective.  It dawns on me: Who am I kidding?  I can’t put the pen down.  I’ll wrestle this script to the ground if I have to.  Besides, while I certainly think volunteering is a fantastic way to spend time, isn’t this my contribution, my gift to the world?

If I had to find a moral to the story — and being a writer I always try to — I’d say that in some way we writers are like those flying Chihuahuas.  We sort of have to sit with the discomfort and understand it’s not a permanent state.  Somewhere on the other side lies something beautiful.

Or not.  But we have no choice but to go through it.  Or we die.

Reflecting this morning after the Thanksgiving I enjoyed with my family yesterday, I realize November is my favorite month of the year. I love the colors, the scents, the food, the California weather, and coming together.

November feels different than other months to me. I love the symbolism of the coming winter solstice. For although I wish the days lasted forever, I feel an ache of anticipation for new beginnings.

New beginnings, November leads to December. Then, because my school calendar breaks for winter, I look forward to being at home writing the rough beginnings of a new play. Other months do not seem to gift me the same opportunity.

New beginnings, as I realize I’ve got a 10-minute play selected for publication and a second short in consideration for another. I’ve got a musical (or play with music) in consideration for a 2013 production. Another play is being read by two theater companies.

Many of my bounties are dreams and will remain there of this I am quite aware. However, I have been writing plays for over ten years now, and I’m getting better at it. My themes are expanding beyond myself and beginning to take on a global scope.

I haven’t met up with most of you for a while due to time, distance, and disability. However, I always look forward to my turn as blogger so I can in some small way communicate with you. I write this post with the hope that your Thanksgiving is as quietly joyful, reflective, and filled with a million bounties.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow performed by Carly Rose Sonenclar, X Factor 2012

It’s been four years since I last directed a stage production, not counting working with students. While I received excellent reviews back in 2008, the experience itself was questionable. Since then, I have been fortunate to participate in the process of several staged readings of my works and I am eternally grateful to the directors, Tam Warner and Cyndy Marion, for those wonderful experiences.

After pronouncing I would dedicate myself to writing only full-length plays, I wrote a 10-minute play, “A Waffle Doesn’t Cure Insomnia”, in the summer/fall of 2011, and promptly forgot about it. I did remember it in time to revise it and submit it around this fall.