Tag Archives: playwriting

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…

Going the Distance

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I am Analyn Revilla. I’ve been working on my first play for two years. I asked my writing mentor, “How long does it take to finish?” The question was posed among a group of students of varying backgrounds and writing experiences. The melange was: a lawyer and a published poet writing her first novel; a chef working on her memoir that begins with finding herself in a homeless state; an elementary teacher creating her first screenplay; an accomplished journalist reveling in her third novel; a busy actress expressing her story of an 8 year old boy in her first novel; a retired legal secretary exploring the story of an orphan seeking her birth mother in post WWI Germany; and then there’s me, an IT Specialist who has been “dabbling” in writing since I was eleven, and recently started my first play.

My co-writers and I have been gathering for the past 5 months at 9 am on Saturdays for 3 hours sharing our work and our experiences in the process of our “rewrite” of the first draft.

The question was an impulse to get the class started. It seemed thoughtless and absurd, after I blurted out the words. Then I realized it may not be as thoughtless as I felt, because I noticed the others look on with piqued interest at the mentor in front of class. As he started to speak people began jotting notes into their notepads or their laptops. He responded that he can’t answer the question in directly, but the first thing he wanted to emphasize was “There are no rules.”

As he continued to speak my mind was still resisting the idea of “there are no rules”. I can’t go on imagining the life of this story, because I could go on forever. The characters evolve and they all have their arcs and shifts in perceptions (small and big), and maybe none at all. Then he said that he’s not interested in the product. What? my mind screamed. He doesn’t care about my play? I heard his words – I am here to help you through the rewrite process and teach you to be curious and to ask the right questions about the nature of the dilemma of your protagonist.

Finally he said that it’s not any easier for a professional writer. It’s hard work. When he concluded my brain took a tangent to the idea of how marathon runners train. I followed up with a comment: When you said it isn’t any easier for a professional writer I thought about the rigorous training of the marathon runner. The first draft and the rewrite is like it is for an amateur runner learning to run a race. The expert just has more experience in the process and knows how to train to be able to complete a race regardless of whether or not they win the race. And there are varying beliefs in what “winning” is.

One of my classmates spoke up: I’ve run marathons, and it’s all about the distance.

When I got home I dug up a book I had lying around: “The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training” by Jim Taylor and Terri Schneider (published by VeloPress.)

The first chapter on Introduction to “Prime Triathlon” talks about the philosophy of “Prime Triathlon”: Before you can begin the process of developing Prime Triathlon, you want to create a foundation of beliefs about triathlon on which you can build your mental skills. This foundation involves your attitude in three areas: (1) your perspective on competition; (2) your view of yourself as a competitor – how you perform in training and races; and (3) your attitude toward success and failure – how you define success and failure and whether you know the essential roles that both success and failure play in becoming the best triathlete you can be. Clarify your view in these three areas will make it easier to win the mental race and to achieve Prime Triathlon. (source: “The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training.)

I replace the triathlon parts with writing:

My views on competition is that there are merits in healthy competition with others when it’s about improving the writing. For instance, I saw a couple of good plays last weekend, and was delighted with seeing the techniques the playwright had used in conveying the idea and the feeling. I thought, ‘Wow.’ then “How can I do that in my own unique way,’ or ‘hey, I can use something like that’. But the real competition is within myself. This answers both (1) and (2). The struggle of the balancing act to schedule the time and the energy into the writing, and being dedicated to dig deeper and deeper to unearth the subtexts, and having the endurance to rewrite and rewrite until the gem has been cut and polished to show it off at its best.

My attitude toward success and failure. Right now (and I say right now because it may change because “There are no rules”) is I will be successful as a long as I don’t give up. I may have a shift in my perception as to what success is. But only I can measure this and not allow other forces to shape my vision of success. As I heard one musician tell it to another musician as they waved good-bye after another unpaid gig, “Keep fighting the good fight.”

Going back to my mentor’s initial response that “There are no rules” is applicable in what I’ve learned from meditating on the three questions from the book on “The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training”. There are not any rules that can be applied universally to specific situations i.e. the writer. We have varying attitudes about competition, ourselves and what we define as success and failures.

Everyday as I go down this path deeper and deeper into the woods I can never ask the question if I can find my way back, because there is no turning back. That’s probably one universal rule that can apply, because I can’t undo what I’ve learned along the journey to evolve in exploring my impulse to write. I expand my heart with each step walking in the shoes of my characters as I witness their choices under the circumstances they are in. It’s that journey, though sometimes sorrowful and sometimes joyful, that has enriched my humanity.

Don’t Change…

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It’s a funny game, this game of time, writing away the hours to creative and adventurous ends.  I’ve enjoyed spending some of it with you this week as I bounce forth, furiously toiling away at my current list of projects; a rewrite, a new play, a screenplay hot off the treatment treadmill and (finally) into pages, an outline – alright, a dozen – as I try to wrangle the story ideas pounding down my door into some sort of tangible form until I can give them the attention they so deserve…

And I’m a bit tired, a lot excited, 50% amazed, and 100% thankful that I’ve got so much in the creative crock pot and that I keep on going… keep on writing… in the face of all that flies at me.

Because it ain’t easy.

Wait, let me rephrase that- (clearing throat) – Becaaaaauuuuuuse….

IT AIN’T EASY.

Yeah, that looks better.  That looks more accurate.  If I could include thundering drums and brass, a host of angels flapping their mighty wings, and a lusty Sallie Mae recoupment officer cackling at you from under a pile of Visa, Discover, and Mastercard bills, it would be closer to the point, but you get the idea.

Because why?  (say it with me now) It ain’t easy.

And yet we work, and pound away, to birth these stories haunting us, treating us to a mysterious kind of rapture that only artists understand – the drug of the creators; I made this.

And when I stare down upon those beautiful pages, those curvaceous words and fat happy brads… I feel high.

I am a creative junkie!

And I’ve no hope of changing 😉

~Tiffany

Labor Pains

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Ahh, the pains of labor… is there no better comparison for the birthing of a new play?  Late nights, indigestion, dark half-moons hugging your eyes, and a strong, unflinching desire to just get it OUT?!

For what else is writing if not it’s own sort of miracle of creation?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as a single woman who is at that delightful age when all around her is BABIES, I can’t help but wonder when I’ll get to nurse something along that talks back, spits up, and laughs at me on occasion… In the meanwhile, I get to wrestle with invisible creatures with their own amazing power of will… and it never ceases to amaze me how they do it!

What do you mean you’re a puppet?  I don’t know anything about puppets!  I didn’t imagine you a puppet when I sat down to write this thing… Are puppets expensive?

OR

Did you just hit her?  Your own mother?  In the jaw?  What were you thinking?  What does this do to my play?

OR

If you can see your own memories floating around you… I mean, like really see them… physically… then you just raised the price of go-to capital needed to produce this thing.  You need to get a job to start paying for yourself, you imaginative magical trollop!

But it always works out, because it’s this stubborn wonder that gets me going the most.  I really think that it’s these moments of “WHAT the F***” that let me know I’m on to something good… maybe even great.  It’s the muse’s way of saying “Oh, I think we can do better than that.”

And you know what?  No matter the pain, no matter the exasperation, that crafty muse of mine is usually right.

So even when the result is “I was in labor with that play for NINE whole MONTHS, and look at it!  It’s still all over lumps and bruises!”  (sigh)  At least I’ve got a good story to tell… holding the “scrapbook” in hand, proud “parent” to some crazy new world…  getting ready to send it out for all to judge.

I think David Lindsay-Abaire said it best in his forward for Wonder of the World.

Your child might swear too much, or have a funny birthmark, or an odd way of obsessing about the weather, but still he must be sent out into the world, warts and all, to fend for himself.  And you hope he’ll find friends who will love him for who he is.  I hope, dear reader, you become one of those friends to this, my hyperactive, potty-mouthed but loveable child.

Ahh, yes, labor pains, growing pains, so many pains… Indeed!

~Tiffany

The Competitive Spirit

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I had a conversation last summer with Another Female Playwright.  It went a little something like this:

AFP and ME talk about themselves as youngsters.  M(ale)P joins conversation, mentioning that he was one hell of a basketball player.  ME laughs riotously.

ME: I was terrible at sports!

MP: What did you play?

ME: Basketball.  4th grade.  I remember quite clearly the moment I knew I wasn’t going to make the 5th grade team; The biggest girl I had ever seen was thundering towards me – I’m not kidding, I can still see it happening slow motion in my memory bank- and I had the ball.  So there I was, the coach yelling at me, my co-players running amok around me, and this Giantess bearing down on me and I just… passed her the ball.

AFP: What?!  You gave it to the other girl?  The Big one?  From THE OTHER TEAM?

ME: Yup.  I realized in that moment that no ball in a hoop was worth the pain she was going to rain down upon me.   She wanted it, I didn’t.  I’m just not competitive like that.   At all.

MP laughs at this and goes for another beer.  AFP turns to me and says in a voice that reeks of disbelief and nose-wrinkling…

AFP: So if you’re not competitive, then how are you a playwright?

And that my friends, was my slow-motion realization that this woman and I would never be more than casual peers… her in one court and I in the other.

Because the only person I am ever in competition with is myself.

You see, writing is personal business.  We can (and will) all tell the same stories in our own merry ways… what the public, or that literary manager, or some regular Joe with deep pockets and a desire to get in the producing biz thinks of my work is completely independent of what he/she/it thinks of yours.

There is a much repeated, oft lasered-into-paper-weights, saying that goes a little like this:  Surround yourself with successful people and you will find success yourself.

Hard to do when you look on everyone around you as the competition.

Harder still to keep those successful people around you.

~Tiffany

What Would a Man Do?

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A while ago I was talking drinking with a dear friend, bemoaning the seemingly effortless way men “get things done”  We got a lot of laughs guffaws at their expense, coming up with all variety of jokes, but ultimately we both arrived at the same sobering moment of truth.

“They just DO IT!”

And no, no Nike swoosh went flying over our tipsy little heads… we had just struck upon some revelatory moment akin to a lightening bolt striking our now-empty bottle of sweet, sweet wine and refilling it with nectar of the Gods:  Men. Just. Do. It.

Sure, they might still suffer the same insecurities as we, but they don’t sit forever planning and preening and perfecting… they kind of just put on their swagger, strut up to the mountain and say “GIMME!”

And darn it all if that mountain doesn’t give in more often than not.

You see, I don’t think it had occurred to me (before that moment) that I could should just ask for anything.  I had to earn it.  I had to sit down to each and every task with the same dedication I imagined Van Gogh took to “Starry Night” – only, how do I know he wasn’t drunk off his noggin’ and having one hell of a good time painting that swirly masterpiece, before placing it before the masses and proclaiming it “Good.”

Because I had never felt quite empowered enough to march into a room and announce myself a writer, much less a good great Starry Night quality one.

I hadn’t felt bold enough to ask theater company, producer, deep-pocketed pirate, for anything.

Until this little humongous revelation, I had been doing everything like a polite, wait-your-turn little girl.

And I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that this is a little girl’s world.

So I adopted the following mantra (okay, pirated, altered, and then adopted from the Christians):  “What would a man do?”

And then I do it.

Because I have spent enough time apologizing and waiting.

Because this world of interconnectedness is still vastly out of whack.

Because I may be softer in the hips, easier on the eyes, and more prone to giggle than a man, but I sure as hell can write better than a lot of ‘em too– I’ve just got to remember to ask for the things I want, to demand the respect I deserve, and to take the risks necessary to reach these wonderful goals of mine.

And that ain’t ego, people, that’s just the way a man would do it  😉

~Tiffany

It Takes a Village

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I love it when people ask me “How do you do this?!”

I love it even more when it is coming from someone who does something I can’t fathom or make sense of (firemen, doctors, people who run charity organizations or fly to Ghana to teach kids…)

There are so many people in the world doing so many amazing things, and yet… we wonder at one another’s ability to do the things we ourselves simply can’t.

And to me, this is the universal proof that we are each of us meant to follow our own path… in the hopes of arriving at (perhaps) some collective betterment of mankind.

Which is why, as when those very same people ask me about the theater process, I tell them that, much like any grand accomplishment, it takes a village.

It’s not enough to have an idea, you need the encouragement to pursue it.

It’s not enough to put words to page, you need the mentorship to help you sculpt it.

It’s not enough to write a thing, you need eyes and ears to experience it.

And then you sit down and get to work at making that thing better.

Because if you’re patient, if you’re tenacious, if you keep at it and keep at it and keep at it… that thing of yours just might come to life.

A painter might get an exhibition, a cellist might get a concert, and a playwright might get a production…

…Which is when all the other villagers truly roll up their sleeves; all believing in the magic of your imagination.  This is when they commit to helping deliver this egg of yours to the masses (be it twelve noble ticket holders or hordes of Broadway die-hards)

And you sit in awe and wonder of this living, breathing, writhing beast of theater taking shape before you – a beautiful exquisite beast…

Yes, it takes a friggin’ village.

And this is why I’m so excited to be a part of the LAFPI movement.

Yes..  Movement.

A word with implied resistance to stagnancy.   It infers, no in fact, demands change…

The LAFPI is an opportunity for revelation of thought, practice, and life…

But it will take the whole village…  can you hear the shirtsleeves rolling?

~Tiffany~