I have been working on writing “crazy”.  There has to be a way to write it where it can be intense and alive off the page.  Not the crazy way out there kind of crazy but the almost perfectly sane, breaking beneath the surface kind of crazy.  I have been working internally on this for over a year now because I don’t really rewrite and know that if I haven’t solved it inside, it ain’t coming out any time soon.  Yes, I said it.  I am one of those.  I am not completely averse to rewriting but I haven’t had a play to date that has warranted me rewriting it.  I do tweak here and there.  My plays live internally so long that by the time they come bursting out I am in need of some serious Kegel exercises to get myself back to the place where I can begin again – conceiving/growing another play…  I have never seen a parent of a new born cutting limbs and shoving things in odd places on their newborn so I can’t see doing it to mine…  The sheer exhaustion of pushing out a play is enough to make me feel “crazy” without reorganizing parts. Never apologize for how you get the words to your page.  I am a firm believer that one of the things that makes Art – art, is how it is filtered through the artist…

I have heard Edward Albee say the following in person regarding rewrites:

Edward Albee: I don’t rewrite. Well, not much. I think I probably do all the rewriting that I’m going to do before I’m aware that I’m writing the play because obviously, the creativity resists — resides — in the unconscious, right? Probably resists the unconscious, too — resides in the unconscious. My plays, I think, are pretty much determined before I become aware of them. I think they formulated there, and then they move into the conscious mind, and then onto the page. By the time I’m willing to commit a play to paper, I pretty much know — or can trust — the characters to write the play for me. So, I don’t impose. I let them have their heads and say and do what they want, and it turns out to be a play.

You can read the rest of this interview at the Academy of Achievement website : http://achievement.org/autodoc/page/alb1int-4

I adore Edward Albee.  He’s a big reason why I work so hard on my craft.

Back to writing “crazy” – I saw “Silver Linings Playbook” today (David O. Russell, screenplay; Matthew Quick, novel, also directed by Russell).  What awesome writing! What a story…  The different levels and forms of crazy that people can be…it was like being in a “how to” seminar. And, the actors were phenomenal – all of them. This film answered a lot of questions about how “crazy” can be realized through story fearlessly.

Regarding my story — the one I need to write crazy in — I was afraid to let Valpecula have her full say…afraid I would edit her before her words could find air — something I never want to find myself doing because then, I’d have to rewrite.

Here’s to “crazy” and writing it fearlessly…