Category Archives: Uncategorized

The pebbles on the beach

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“You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist.”

– Isaac Asimov

When I was a child I was a scavenger: pebbles, sticks, feathers, dead bugs, seed pods were the coin of my realm.  The natural world was my buffet plate and I scrounged through all kinds of treasures.  I once found a completely intact dried snake skin, (and cried when it crumbled in my over anxious hands).

After struggling through a season (or some) of despair, I’m finding my way to enjoying writing again.  Maybe its more accurate to say that I’m finding ways to enjoy parts of my life again and that’s reflected in my writing.

Now I find that my kind of inspiration needs to have the same kind of guilt free piracy:  the  gifts to be found in the natural world that I can bring with me to my writing are still around me, and I’m trying to awaken the same kind of wonder and appreciation.

I’m reading more; seeing more art work, trying to see more friends and get out of the smallness of the past few months.  I especially appreciate reading the LA FPI blogs – to know that there are like minded spirits and writers here is very comforting.

Here is a website I go to for an occasional jolt of positive thinking:

Here’s to finding the feathers and sticks needed for new ideas.

How breathing shapes a character

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I’m at a business conference this week where I’m listening to speeches given by business executives.

Its remarkable to witness, that no matter how wonderful or awful the script is, if the speaker can’t use their own breathing when they’re talking – the words don’t really matter.

I know about breath control from being an actor, (and from the training in iambic pentameter), so I know about how breath illuminates spoken text (or not). But I was surprised to see how much nerves and tension and competiveness prevented a lot of today’s speakers from effectively using their words. They had some great phrases to use – but a lot of them just dumped their words out on the table like pieces from a puzzle.

One of the speakers, the CEO of the company, took his time to deliver his messages. Yes, he did seem a bit…ponderous…maybe even older in his vocal quality. But his messages had more weight and meaning because you could frame their connection to your understanding of where he was going in his speech.

I had the chance to go see THE KINGS SPEECH this past weekend, and there were some glorious moments, not just in story telling, but in the power of what words are, and how they can be used – and overcome.

I think I’ll be writing with more of a consciousness of the breathing between and in the words I write. At least for a little while.

Something About Someone Who Succeeds

LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, Uncategorized

I found that this link helps me keep the idea of success and failure in a manageable framework. And not having anything of my own to offer today, I thought I would share this:…..

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html

When A Dream Comes True At the Beginning of the Year

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This past week, I watched a friend’s dream come true. It was decades in the making and I was surprised at the emotions it evoked in me.
This seems important to remember when we’re writing plays. Or growing herbs. Or helping loved ones with illnesses.

A friend of mine has had her first book published (and yes, she already has her second book written and ready for publication) and she’s now on a publicity trail.
In our salad days we were acting students together, and she was funny, irreverent and spunky. She still is. Back then, we were cast in a rather awful play about Catholic School Girls in Trouble, and we did some Shakespeare (she played Pandarus in Troilus & Cressida). She ran a theatre company, did a lot of producing and directing.
We’ve kept in touch over the years, did a couple of shows together, and then she spent some time in London researching a book she was writing.

This past week, she gave a reading at a book store in Pasadena for the first leg of publicity for her book. I sat up close and watched her as she was introduced, and then read sections from her book. She took questions from the audience, and talked about what it took for her to begin, and more importantly, to finish this book.

This was a great experience to share – I saw her young face, her face when we were young actors together, and her face now as she read her book.
Her voice took on the characters in her book, much like a play. You could see how much she loved this book, these characters, this creation.
I was so proud of her, thrilled to hear how much the crowd wanted to be in her story, wanted to know what she had been through, wanted to live through this moment of hers.

Yes – in the car on the way home that night I did find my own monsters of jealousy, inferiority, and whatever self esteems issues I could muster up. But I also had these images of her face as she faced her audience, and that’s what really stayed with me afterwards: the wonder, the appreciation, the self awareness, that yes, here it is, the dream you’ve been chasing.

I know we all experienced that writing can be lonely business. But I did see this few hours of getting to read your work to an audience, getting to be asked what did it take, where did it come from, all that is a blip on the radar, after years of writing and writing and then the dice game of getting published. I did get to see what it feels like to have a dream take shape, and happen and go forward.

So that was a gift in the beginning of this new year. And I’ll take it, and cherish it.

the five senses

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Sara Israel, January 6, 2011

I’m in the early stages of a new writing project, and I’m thinking a lot about “the setting.”

When I was 14, I took a playwriting course where we were dropped off at various truck stops throughout rural Pennsylvania for several hours, each of us left completely on our own. (Yes.  Seriously.  Although in our instructor’s defense she did get parental permission.)  We were told to observe.

I didn’t even fully realize what “observation” could be until I was at my very own truck stop, where I witnessed the most amazing and disgusting job interview I could have never ever imagined.  I’m not sharing the details here because, though I did end up writing a brilliant (if I dare say) short play using the observations for that course, at some point I will absolutely use them again as an “adult and professional” writer.

The point is, that day I learned that something being a “truck stop” meant a lot more when you thought about the people who populated the truck stop, and why, and the small and large moments of their lives.

Ever since, I’ve been a believer.  A believer that setting greatly affects who characters are and the choices that they make.  “Environmental response,” so to speak.

Because for me, a setting isn’t simply “location.”  It really is the environment.  It’s about how a character feels about their tangible world, and therefore how they interact with it.  Feeling and interaction using all five senses.

For each setting, some senses become more prevalent than others.  A couple of years ago, and for a different writing project, I sat for three hours in the lobby of Cedars Sinai Hospital.  Sight and sound are the big and obvious senses there (as they almost always are), though smell definitely gets some serious play too when you’re in a hospital.  Touch was more “the absence of”—because in a hospital lobby you spend a lot of time thinking about what you’d rather not touch.  And taste. . . Well, if I had licked the Intake Desk I might have been kicked out by one of the security guards.

Of course someone else might choose to obsessively run his or her hands and tongue over everything in the space.  Goodness knows that would be a character choice, and potentially the launching or escalation of some pretty interesting conflict.

Some settings I know like the back of my hand; they are integral to me.  A dusty rose- colored teenage bedroom.  A New England college quad in autumn.  A parched hiking path right before the sun sets.

The challenge with these settings is to extract myself from them as much as I need to in order to be able to accommodate someone else’s (a character’s) potential relationship with the space.  (This is one reason why I think the catch-phrase advice to “write what you know” is in actuality laden with perils.)

The challenge with settings that aren’t integral to me is, well, that I don’t already know them like the back of my hand.  So I have to research.  And for that research to really count, I must be able to give all five senses the option of engagement.  Which means visiting the setting.

For this new project, I’m debating between a setting that is already very familiar versus one that would be brand new.  I’m wrestling with the pros and cons of each.  But in order to make a fully informed decision, I think some location scouting is in my future.  It means braving Orange County.  Wish me luck.

resolve

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Sara Israel, January 4, 2011

Happy 2011 everyone!

Last week was the time when many people—myself included—crafted some New Year’s resolutions.  (This week is the time when you are bombarded with advertisements and Yahoo “articles” about how you can stick to those resolutions.)

I won’t subject you to my quotidian stuff like not running yellow lights, but here are my four Writer Resolutions for this year.

Reading Is Fundamental: There is so much I am compelled to read (namely other people’s scripts and research for my own writing) that too often I neglect what I want to read just because.  You know, as a human being rather than as a writer.  But of course, being a human being and a writer are intertwined—and so when I do get to the “just because” it always infuses me with creative energy.  Why do I so often forget this?

In 2011 I will read whatever the heck I want, whenever I want.  I won’t worry about the work.  The work will get done; it always does.

Quality Over Quantity, Part One: In 2010, I attended a ten-minute play festival in support of my friend and very talented playwright.  I thought the performance of her piece went pretty well.  She saw it, uh. . . differently.  Afterwards she declared, “I’ve padded my resume enough.  I’m through with ten-minute play festivals.”

Her throw-down strikingly articulated something I had already been thinking about:  What is the benefit of having your work done if it is not done well?   For me, one of the biggest challenges of being a writer of work that exists to be performed is that typically I have minimal control over the performance.  But here’s what I can control:  Who I let perform it in the first place.

In 2011, I will continue my trend of being an informed bestower—aware of who is asking and the quality of their past work.  And I will not feel guilty if, once I think about those aspects honestly, my answer is “no.”  I will approach this on a case-by-case basis, aware that each potential situation brings with it a different cost-benefit analysis.  But I will always remember that the text is mine to give.

As writers we are conditioned to simply be grateful that anyone wants to perform our work at all.  This is ridiculous.  We create valuable commodities, and it is our right—and I think our responsibility—to share them intelligently and strategically.

Corollary: I will not pass judgment on my writer friends who do not adopt this approach.  However, I can no longer invest the emotional and literal time in nursing them back to health when they suffer the consequences.

Quality Over Quantity, Part Two: I saw more than 40 full theater productions in 2010, most of them right here in Los Angeles.  I was participating as an awards voter, and took the organization’s mantra to heart that I should use the opportunity to seek out new-to-me theater companies and artists.  It wasn’t until that experience was completed—and once I’d detoxed from it a bit—that I realized what a toll it took on me as an artist.

The truth is, with most of what I saw in 2010, the best you could say is that it was sometimes “good enough.”  A really great actor-performance here.  A really cool light cue there.  An interesting premise.  A well-detailed costume.  A plucky use of the space.

Some informative experiences, but “informative” is different than “inspiring.”

I love theater because of its ability to inspire.  But when it inspires me, it does so because everything—everything—about it is excellent, and the artists are collaborating together with a singular understanding and vision to create that excellence.

It also turns out that when you’re seeing too much “good enough,” even that starts to feel like less than “good enough.”  And that, in fact, is anti-inspiring.

In 2011, I will only see productions that I truly want to see.  I’m now confident that I am a well-informed theater-goer, and that I also know who to count on as my smart and savvy theater friends who will help me fill in the gaps.  Of course, not everything can be inspiring, but I can make my 2011 yield far, far better.

Dish-Pan Hands: In 2011, I will wash my dishes every single day.  This sounds quotidian, doesn’t it?  And I promised you I wasn’t including quotidian here.  But, for me, dishwashing is really fertile creative-thinking time.  I’ve known this for years.  So why don’t I already do my freakin’ dishes every day?  It’s probably because, unlike tennis, regardless of the benefits, washing them is still a chore.

Here’s to creativity and success—in both writing and chores—for the coming year.

Musing…

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I’ve noticed that women write about themselves in relationship to others, and men write about themselves in relationship to the world.

As a consequence it seems that women and children are often secondary in stories written by or about men because women and children are peripheral to the male experience.

I have a suspicion that the only reason women are included in plays written by or about men is because plays have to be transmitted verbally through language, and women are often a requirement when men wish to express their relationship with lust.

Am I way off?

“Women must find the courage to be.”

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I have striven for the last thirty years of my adult life to make worthwhile contributions to society and have for the most part supported myself and my interests financially. Certainly there have been times of illness when my family provided food and shelter above and beyond their obligation. Some generous organizations even allowed me use of their facilities to self-produce my own dramatic works, and in some cases actually partially participated in their financing.

However I have only recently discovered using the criteria set down by our multi-millennia-old patriarchical mythologies that I am actually a failure. I.e. I never had children, never married, and as was retold to me in October after my name was dropped in an argument to provide evidence of my lack of worth that “I will die alone.”

That came amidst several other major life disappointments. I promptly followed up by abusing myself with food and gained twenty pounds. The effect of which elicited words to the effect, “Go see a doctor; you don’t look good”. Not “What’s wrong? How can we help alleviate your stress?”

As I reflect back on the year’s events from my place of apparent worthlessness, I can’t help but wonder (with some amount of glee) what’s next for me? I mean to write, since I have realized that it doesn’t really matter what I do – outside of my reasonable obligation to my household and responsibility to continue to honor my employer’s requirements of me, of course – I throw off the shackles of the Judeo-Christian-Muslimologies and reject all gynocide. And with this I hope to honor the work of Mary Daly.

On January 3, 2010 Mary Daly died at the age of 81.

Ms. Daly strove from within her faith to find a place for herself. However ultimately “she gave up the futile project of criticizing and seeking reform of a fundamentally corrupt and corrosive institution. Her attention turned instead to the Spinning of new tales, new ideas.”

Here’s to new tales, new ideas, the New Year and freedom!

Going With the Flow…

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 In my everyday life, I must remind myself to go with the flow and to not talk myself out of the adventure.  It is quite difficult to do 52 percent of the time.  I always feel as though I am wandering around in dimly lit forests without markers or roads, finding it hard to trust “the flow” of the thing.  The trees are so tall and closely set that I can hardly see the sun.  And, if I can’t see the sun, I can’t see my way out of the dark.  When I do trust the flow; it is always an amazing journey.  One would think that I would learn by now but I’m human and I like to have plans that work – most of the time – as opposed to having so many “go with the flow” moments. 

In my writing, there is no other way but going with the flow – regardless of the trees or the dark – the voices of the characters do not speak when tampered with and they have their own rhythm…  I have to be open when I write or I’d never be able to write.  Personally, I cannot do the “not writing” thing – must be writing, always writing…  And, I have come to rely on being open to the processes I use for writing my plays and have spent the last decade plus honing that sensitivity. 

With poetry, I have let it come in when and where it can find a space between plays and work mostly for special occasions like birthdays, holidays, and deaths.  For the last few years, I have been working on a book of poems for my mother – gut wrenching stuff to write but she says it’s like I’m her memory.  I did intend for it to be personal to my mother but did not expect it to take so long and be so emptying.  I literally have to take breaks after every few poems.  Because of that, I had started to think that putting a book together unlike just collecting poems was virtually impossible for me.  I have been planning to submit to a certain poetry contest for a few years but every year, the play submission deadlines overlap with the poetry manuscript submission deadline and in the time before and after submission periods, I was always writing another play.  This year, by some miracle, the deadline was extended two weeks.  So, I figured I would go with the flow by trying to submit something.  I started going through my stash of poems looking for a theme that jumped out at me – a daunting process to say the least as some of my best poems were off limits for this project.  I had to find an “in” so I wrote a poem about whatever it wanted to be about, was completely honest – no secret codes.  It went boldly to the scary dark place and said, “Now what?  You game?”  Suddenly, I knew what the theme was and how to pull poems I had already written into the pile, one being “Before the Red” and I knew I was going to have to keep going back to those scary places to write the manuscript right.  But even knowing that, time was running out.  I was going to have to write and rewrite a total of at least 50 poems in less than two weeks now.  It was new to me; I was completely terrified…scared…”afeared”.  I was traveling into scary dark places at a pace I didn’t think I could keep up…  I was writing through the night, writing through my lunch, writing while trying to get dressed for work…just writing and editing like a crazy woman…  Every time I would get overwhelmed and say, “Lord, I can’t do it.  I can’t finish in time.”  He would say to me, “But, what if you can?”  After a while, I found myself echoing, “What if I can?”  It was the million dollar question that I needed to have an answer to.  So, I continued to push hard; not making it when all I need to do is push hard a little bit longer is the worst kind of not making it.  I told myself I would push till the last available minute and just see what happens – just see if I can.  I could and I did.  I uploaded my finished manuscript with fifteen minutes to spare…New York time.

I had gone to the THERE space to the scary dark place and I had written it scared…but I had written it.  The flow of that thing was like being caught in the swell of a wave that refused to break.  I told a friend that I felt as though, I had become myself….nothing broken…nothing lacking…

Now…I am planning to start a new play to submit before March.  I have two weeks off from my day job and I ain’t scared to go wherever…because  I know I can go to the scary dark places…and still go with the flow…

WRITER’S BLOG 4 – CONNECTIONS

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Happy New Year Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative!

I can’t believe it’s been a year since instigators Laura Shamas, Jennie Webb, and Ella Martin told me about the formation of the LAFPI. I’m so happy to be part of it.

I’ve met so many women who really do support each other and care passionately about playwrighting. I’ve been introduced to some excellent work and have made connections that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

I love writing and reading the blogs. Thanks so much Nancy, for your comment on writer’s block about the necessity of being emotionally connected to one’s characters. It put my problem in perspective. If one isn’t emotionally connected, something is wrong. I think I have been utterly lost, casting (flailing) about, looking for inspiration from “subjects” or “big matters” or “issues,” and hadn’t recognized that until you commented on my blog! Thank you again.

Thinking about that further, I wonder if looking for something, I don’t know what the word is, maybe it’s “important”, to write about, comes from the frustration of trying to get produced. That thought probably proceeds from the effort of trying to be noticed and the thought that those in power are not interested in plays written by or about women and what follows becomes, “How do I write something meaningful that will knock people’s socks off?” rather than, “Oh, that tickles me. Let me get it down!”

On reflection, I think, too, that the ideas that came to me on Thanksgiving were more ideas about weighty matters, and I’m going to let them sit. Instead, I’m going to step back, reassess, and with luck, recharge.

Happy Holidays to everybody.