I still had Writer’s Block just prior to Thanksgiving. I read several articles about Writer’s Block and learned that nobody knows why it happens, that there is no known cure and that it happens to most writers during their writing lifetime.

I read the responses from the ICWP list and what disturbed me were the number of people who talked about how many ideas they had and how swiftly they arrived. Pam said “Do any of you just wish that your mind would STOP? I have so many ideas rumbling through my head at times.” Shirley said, “I have ideas coming at me all the time.” Robin said, “When don’t ideas insert themselves? They come too often and from too many places and at too many times to list.” Sandra de said, “One time I was walking across the street and I was hit by an idea in the middle of the crosswalk and stopped dead in the middle of the street.”

Without an idea, I spent my time trying not to worry and not to obsess about not writing and that took up a lot of time, of course: the trying not to worry.

I tried taking a break and doing something entirely different. I looked forward to Thanksgiving which would let me to just that. I spent Thanksgiving dinner with my family and about a dozen people whom I’d never met before. I listened to conversations about how to grow macadamia trees and how to teach yourself to play piano. I learned about chicken tractors, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, the Jacobson gland, and the mating habits of elephants.

During dessert, while I was listening to talk about folk art in Oregon, I had a glimpse of an idea. Then in the car, during the long trip home, I had another, and then another. I was shocked and not quite sure they were real. I don’t know if any are or if they will stay with me but at least I have something to noodle around with for a while.

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there,
written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~Vladimir Nabakov

Looking for help, I went to the International Center for Women Playwrights, which is always supportive, and asked the list:  Where do your ideas come from?  I got many different responses.

Many people are most receptive to creative thinking when in motion.  Ideas come to them while they are driving.  Susan said, “Mine is in the car on the highway when I am alone.”  For some ideas come when they are doing the dishes, picking up the mail.  Deb said, “Mine is on my feet:  I do some of my most creative work on my daily walk.”  Angelina likes a “reasonably quiet public place, or at home.  I like seeing trees and a wide sky.”

I understand that. When my husband and I wrote screenplays together, we took long walks, got lots of exciting ideas and shed pounds.  I continue to walk, love the rhythm of walking, and find the quiet surroundings soothing, but for a long time,  I’ve thought only about my daily to do list when out for a stroll.

Water is a powerful muse.  Hindi wrote, “My muse is water…especially the ocean.  I look at it and it is so much bigger and powerful that my little writer worries disappear and I’m able to write.”  Others like to think in the bath and shower.  Lori combines motion and water.  She says she gets ideas  “during my daily walk on the river.  Occasionally, when I swim.  But as I live in Seattle, these often feel like the same thing.”

I understand that, too.  Ideas used to come to me when I was in the bath but in the bath now I can’t hear anything but Edie Brickell singing “In the Bath.”

People find sleeping and dreaming productive.  Ideas sneak into the brain when one is half-asleep or lucidly dreaming.  Letitia said, “I get my most creative ideas in that half-sleep as I’m waking up in bed but not quite awake.”  Sandra keeps post-its by her bed to capture those ideas that come in the middle of the night.

Some people are alone when musing.  Some get their best ideas in company, people watching and listening.  Martha gets ideas “from watching actors I know that I’d like to write parts for.”  Meg’s ideas come when she is working on something else – “Right now I’m working on a travel blog from our journey 2009-2010 to India, France, and Morocco.  Each picture helps to bring out thoughts not only on the moment, but also deeper or analytical questions that I’ve studied or thought about for years.”

I thought that knowing how and where people write could help.  Most said they sit at a computer, some daily, some not.  Some need only a computer, quiet, and coffee.  Pam wants a one room cabin up in the mountains, Sandra has a 1940’s oak teacher’s desk.  Letitia “may be on a velvet sofa or on the leather sofa depending on my picky mind-body moods.”

I’ve been writing in longhand.  I work at the office rather than at home.   I’ve been writing in my car, in the laundry room, desultorily, or with what Alan Bennett calls, “grim application”.

Maybe, trying to write short pieces could help, I thought.  Ann said, “The “sprints” somehow help me with longer pieces, even though they have nothing to do with one another. For example, a memory piece on my grandmother’s kitchen preceded an academic piece on deconstruction and Pinter!”

I took several stabs at ten minutes plays but nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

However, I did get some excellent advice and was pleased to connect with the creative women on the ICWP list, which I recommend to all.

The International Center for Women Playwrights – http://www.womenplaywrights.org/

I had Writer’s Block for a long time and it drove me crazy.  Over a year ago, I had an idea for a terrific play about a meeting between Albert Einstein and Paul Robeson.  I spent months and months researching and thinking.  I made hundreds of notes, copied dozens of quotations, read several books, even outlined the play, but I couldn’t hear their voices and couldn’t shape the piece. A friend suggested that I rework it as a vaudeville sketch but I couldn’t get my mind around that one either.

All that work is lying in the Mac land of the lost.

I worked on a project involving music and history which I loved doing.  When that fell apart, I hit the wall.

I tried the writing exercises.  I wrote about a painting, an object, a conversation I’d overheard.  I wrote for ten minutes without stopping.  I did it again.  Nothing.  Again.  I stared at the computer waiting for something, anything.

One day, I found myself clicking on dozens of youtube versions of Casta Diva.  I listened to Rosa Ponselle, Marian Anderson, Maria Callas, Renee Fleming, and more, and was beginning to memorize the words, when I thought, “You’ve already written a play about opera singers!”

What I did do is improve as a cook.  My basil chicken with parmesan and tomatoes is tasty, the carrot muffins are nutritious and moist, and one day, when doing my staring at the computer, I remembered an old recipe for a really good meatloaf.   I watched more episodes of Top Chef than one can safely do without permanently impairing her worldview and I can now chop onions with the best.

The rugs were vacuumed, the closets organized, and the bookshelves dusted.

And the mind was swept clean.

MARIAN ANDERSON SINGS CASTA DIVA

The Huffington Post story was headlined, “NASA Discovers New Life:  Arsenic Bacteria With DNA Completely Alien From What We Know”

The words “completely alien” are incendiary, because anything alien is really degrees of differences in colors, or shades of grey.  After reading that story that NASA has discovered a new life form that is “unlike any other living lifeform on the planet – from the simplest plant to the most complex mammal”, I felt a great sense of hope.  I am not alone.  I am not just a black sheep after all.  This newly discovered lifeform survives off arsenic, known to be  toxic to all other life forms.  GFAJ-1 (a microbe that is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria).

When I was a kid I loved eating the apple cores my mom threw out whenever she made pie.  Later on I learned that apple seeds and other stone pitted fruits (peach, nectarine and plum) have naturally occurring arsenic.  I still chew on the pit till it splits open and exposes its soft almond-tasting seed.   

This story brings to mind my Halloween costume.  I was Poison Fairy.  The idea of the costume literally was a bulb that turned on a half hour before going to work.  The incentive to dress up was a $100 VISA gift certificate.   The fun of it was to come up with an idea that would cost me nothing more than resourcefulness and imagination.  (The night before I had the idea of going as Woody Allen’s character in the movie Sleeper, but I couldn’t find a pair of “IRS” type glasses at the thrift store.  That costume would be fun to put together for next year.)

That morning I also had to make an emergency trip to the vet to havedog’s floppy ears drained of blood.  She had hematoma.  After a haranguing experience with a cab company I got home in time to shower.  “Hmmm… what to wear? what to wear?” I pondered as I shampooed and scrubbed away.  This meditative moment gave birth to nada.

I flung open my closet door and saw a sea of black clothes:  black t-shirts from rock concerts, black jeans, black or dark blue motorcycle gear.  I push to the back and saw this sparkly green ball gown.  “Oh this…”  I meant to tear it apart and use the material for curtains.  I pulled it out into the light.

Possibilities:  I have a shiny strappy silver high-heels and shimmery sequined purse.  I can go as a princess.  Nah… ho hum boring.  Then out of the blue a flash:  “Poison Fairy!”  I have a bottle of “Poison” (a la Christian Dior) and vase full of Thistle thorn flowers.  I slapped on some thick make up and got dressed. 

The gown was at a yard sale from a young English gal who was leaving LA to go home.  When I told her about my plan for the dress her pretty face fell to a sad expression, “Oh… Maybe you could try to tear it at the seams so it doesn’t ruin the dress, in case you decide to put it back together again.  I meant to wear it to a party as a fun thing, but there was never an occasion.”  I bought the dress for $2 and it hung once (intact in its form) against the window pane.  But after I got some proper sheers it got stuffed at the back of the closet.)  Now I wish I would’ve kept that woman’s email.  (Claire was her name.)  She would’ve been happy to know that the dress did find an occasion to go to.

At the costume judging event, I threatened to poison the judges if I didn’t win with a big squirt of “Poison”.  (We all know that a squirt of any perfume is enough to give almost anyone a headache.)  A stem of thistle served as my scepter.  (I even researched on the net if there is such a thing as Poison Fairy and indeed there was.)  How did my ancient brain come up with this idea?  I marvel at our imaginative capacity if when we allow ourselves to play and daydream.

As Poison Fairy I was 1^st runner up to Benjamin Franklin.  During the final judging I was dismissed by one of the judges.  She said she’s been poked with enough needles and poisoned with enough drugs from her radiation and chemo therapies that my ploy to “kill ‘em all if I didn’t win” did not scare her.

What’s poison to some is medicine for others.  I truly believe this.  Many people in our society is conditioned to believe that the traditional medicine manufactured by pharmaceutical companies that synthesizes the real thing can’t imagine to try something different prescribed by the doctors.  However, it’s sometimes not until someone is at the threshold of death that they might consider an alternative source of cure.   Pharmaceutical giants have acquired massive tracts of the Amazon Basin. There are in-depth considerations for citizens of this planet to find out the motives for this act.  (Too much to get into in this blog, and the seriousness of which takes the lightness away from my intention.  I need to lighten up!!) 

Thank you NASA!  My tax dollars are finally being put to good use for my own purpose.  Thanks for finding my family.  In the Huffington Post article the agency stated that with the discovery of the new life form “will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”  (i.e. – there is a greater possibility that there is more of my kin out there and on this planet too.)  I’ll be making plans to drop in on family this coming holiday break.  I love arsenic opium-poppy cakes. 

And the moral of the story is… a whole apple a day keeps the imagination at play!

(Here’s a link to the Huffington Post article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/nasa-new-life-arsenic-bacteria_n_791094.html)

December 1^st, 2010 is rent day and I wrote my last rent check for this year.  Seeing the date with the passing of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and beginning the preparations for December festivities and more time off, I reflected upon the events of the past year. 

On my desk is a picture I took of a special tree in Vancouver that I saw everyday for three years.  One day the tree looked different.  Its limbs were decorated with an assortment of clocks and watches.  It reminded me of the Pink Floyd’s song, “Time”:  the shrill of the alarm bell then the chimes and ticking seconds… “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day…Fritter and wastes the hours in an offhand way.”

This picture is a reminder of how I fritter away the minutes in an hour; how readily I take for granted that the sun comes up and around everyday bringing in a new day, a new week and a new year.  During the reprieve from the routine of working in the office and doing chores to maintain life, I finally acted on a project I’ve been considering for sometime.  I started my “dream board”/”vision board”.

A dream board is a collage of images and phrases/words that represents a visual map of your goals and dreams.  Sunday, I sat on the living room floor, and it was a patchwork of pictures, captions and words I had cut out from magazines and other periodicals.   I started late in the afternoon and thought I’d be finished by the time I got to bed.   That was 3 days ago, and I’ve been up early yesterday and today putting together my dream board.  It’s not as simple a task as I had thought.  Once I got my heart and imagination into it I was immersed in more possibilities than I originally started out with; and also further introspection and clarity on what it is I really want to create.

I don’t have nearly enough pictures to express my dreams, and I’m still collecting catalogues, and I have asked the mailroom guy at the office to recycle the old magazines my way.  As I flip through pages of advertising, articles and cartoons of magazines I’ve developed a keener sense of screening what magazines best reflect who I think I am and where I want to be.  An hour intended for collecting pictures is not enough.  I am building, taking down, re-shaping and molding my dream board.

This morning I woke up at 1 o’clock in the morning, put on some coffee and thought of putting an hour into the dream board.  By the time I’ve exhausted my resources of pictures and my being it was already 5 o’clock and the phone alarm goes off in a half hour.  I set it forward to 7:30.  I rested and felt elated.  My half-sleep state brought up more rich images.  I got up again and got through my day with surprisingly little fatigue and I look forward to going back to building more layers to my dream board.

I love the work.  It engages every fiber of my being down to my core and provokes me to poke the smoking embers of the fire within to a flame.  When the flame is exhausted I know I will be empty like that feeling after a long 8 hour hike – summiting and coming down.  Ah…I did it and how much I saw and learned.   

I created a dream board for a character I was playing in one of my acting classes.  It was shortcut way of getting to know this imaginary character.  The exercise opened up images, in a visceral sense, the dreams, fears, hope, joy sorrows and inspirations of that human being that was a part of me too.  It really stretched and strengthened the “empathetic heart”.

The dream board communicates the words and thoughts of our visions, and it’s an effective tool for planting the seeds of change in our subconscious.  By the way, I put the picture of that tree with the clocks and watches in the middle of my dream board.

In closing I want to quote a visionary…

“Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Recently I was looking through the guidelines for a play contest. Play running 90 minutes. Check.

Actors must play only one character. Ouch. That hurt. One of my aesthetic pleasures of theatre is watching actors play multiple characters. It’s like watching a trapeze artist go from bar to bar. First, he’s a butler, then he’s a doctor, then he’s an undertaker. Watch him hurl himself from one role to another role and another and another.

Okay, so I wouldn’t be entering this contest.

Then, the final requirement for the play was: The play must exist in reality.

Don’t all plays exist in reality? There’s a reality called a stage. It’s the place where actors come out, do stuff and create. That reality could be centuries before now or centuries after now. It could be another country, or it could just be a reality never seen before. 

Nowadays I feel that with everything being filmed and videotaped and photographed, we are becoming too literal about reality and losing our collective imagination. What is our reality these days? 

Yes, I am not totally naïve. Obviously the theatre company is looking for kitchen sink naturalism.

I recently wrote a kitchen sink play. The kitchen sink spoke. It said some interesting stuff.

And on that note, it’s been a pleasure blogging this week, and I’ll see you all next year.

Jen

Today is Black Friday in States. This is the day where all the good little consumers get out and spend, spend, spend in order to keep the economy afloat one more year.

I thought this playwriting quote would be appropriate for today.

Recently in a room full of playwrights and directors, a wise old playwright stood up and said this:

I don’t like my plays to be called material because I’m not a tailor. I’m a playwright. I write plays. 

This led to a round of applause from the playwrights in the room. A few directors looked baffled. 

Please directors, it’s a play. It’s not material. You’re not making a dress. I made the dress. Now, you get to style it. 

I might be a material girl, but my play is not a material world. 

Gosh I love the old school Madonna references. HeeHee!

On this Thanksgiving day, I want to say a public thank you to my playwriting mentor. 

Yes, I have a playwriting mentor. We’ve known each other for years, and I still go to him for advice. He still gives me books to read. He was reading my work when no one else was. 

I won’t embarrass him by giving out his name. I’ll just call him The Coyote (not Coyote—that’s a Joni Mitchell song—The Coyote). I hope he gets a kick out of being called The Coyote. It reminds me of a 1960s British spy thriller. Beware The Coyote.

Back when I was a young playwright learning to walk, I gave my first play to The Coyote. This was the play that blew it all open for me artistically. I threw everything I had into the play. A week later, The Coyote told me he had read the play several times, but he didn’t have much to say about it.

–You should get it produced, Jen. He said.

–But what about the ending? And the beginning? And the middle? I asked.

I had questions. Lots of questions. I was young. I was supposed to have questions.

–No Jen. GET IT PRODUCED. The Coyote howled.

The play was produced, and The Coyote was right. All my questions were answered in rehearsal.

Fast forward to now. Or this past June. I mentored a young playwright for the Young Playwrights Festival at the Blank Theatre.

I read her beautiful play over and over again. I had no notes for her. We needed to get it into rehearsal. I spoke with the playwright on the phone and asked her where her play came from. She sounded older than her years as she talked about her inspiration. She knew what she was doing. In fact, she could teach me a few things about playwriting.

Still, I felt like I was a bad mentor. I supposed to help her. I was supposed to give her guidance. I was supposed. . .

Then I remembered The Coyote.

Sometimes mentors mentor by not mentoring at all.

And I hope the Coyote gets to eat plenty of turkey today.

If you want to see what works in a short play, be part of a short play festival and watch your fellow entrants (or sit in the lobby listening) over and over. By the end of the run, you’ll know.

I had the good fortune a few years ago to have a piece in a Christmas monologue event sponsored by my then-group Playwrights 6. I was at the theatre every night because I was helping set up or selling tickets etc. All of the pieces were stage-worthy… but the one I made sure to catch every night was by Gib Wallis. His character, a charming and gregarious immigrant named Alfredo, relives his first Christmas in the U.S. and his first-time meeting a guy under the mistletoe, told in fractured English. My heart never got tired of going on that journey with him.

A couple of weeks ago I had a short play in a weekend of shorts sponsored by my current writers’ group Fierce Backbone, and this time the piece that grabbed me was Ten Hours by David Watkins. In brief scenes it told the ten hour journey of a man and woman meeting, getting to know each other over some meals and in bed… And then it ended in a heart-breaking moment of the man saying to the woman, when pressed why he doesn’t want to date her, “You’re fat.” I knew how it ended and yet I got pulled in every time.

Neither of these short plays were clever or flashy. Both of them allowed their characters to be vulnerable, to let me see inside their hearts. My favorite type of theatre.

I recently had new business cards made.

I’ve had my old ones for 15 years or so. A friend designed them in a very clever way: all they say is (in a font reminiscent of a manual typewriter): Nancy Beverly writes for a living and then my phone number.

I justified changing them because a) I was almost out of them b) they don’t have my cell phone number c) they don’t have my email and d) they don’t have my street address. I did love the simplicity of them, though, and they always got a smile from people whenever I handed them out. But it was time to let people know they can get in touch with me via the other modern ways of communication.

Overriding all of those justifications, though, was e) the fact that that simple sentence on there – Nancy Beverly writes for a living – has been eating at me for 15 years.

My graphic artist friend must’ve been inspired by my spirit guides to write that sentence because that’s why I moved out to L.A.

To make a living at writing.

I’ve actually “made a living” at it for only a couple of years. The rest of the time I’ve worked a number of show biz jobs, while continuing to write.

Part of me felt I was lying on my business cards by saying I write for a living.

It doesn’t mean I’m not a writer. I live to write. Since I was a kid.

My new business cards list the space-age ways of getting a hold of me… along with a beautiful lake and mountain landscape background… and these words:

Explorer/Writer/Photographer

They feel like a better fit.

And yet, I feel as if I failed the big goal I set for myself.

And yet, I’m still pursuing my other big goal, which is to be a good writer, and I practice that daily.

And that feels good.