Tag Archives: writing

Study to Show Yourself Approved…

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“Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  2 Timothy 2:15.

The above is one of my favorite scriptures.  I hear it in my head when I am chug-a-lugging along pushing against the stones.  It is a sort of affirmation for me; encouraging me to continue the study of seemingly unconnected things – dirt, music, planets, etc…  I am always reading tidbits here and there about this or that…studying…to release stress or because I run across something that gets my attention.  The information bits always come in handy especially when I need to meet a deadline and don’t have time to research (because the play I just spent all my time researching is not ready to be written so I have to write something else and write it quickly).  I notice that my subconscious will unflinchingly pull a tidbit from the annals of my mind that will fit…perfectly…into whatever I am writing.  I used to think that I had all this useless information in my head and what wasn’t useless was so disconnected that finding what to connect it to would be a serious challenge.  Except…when interpreting dreams, I find the tidbits come in handy.  In dreams, all information is relevant as it can reveal the unknown, all that disconnected information finally serves a purpose.  I believe that is why dream sequences show up in my work; it’s part of who I am as a woman, part of that “write what you know” thing.  I know dreams, flashbacks, and things of the spirit… 

There is a play, Body Indian, by playwright Hanay Geiogamah.  In this play, Geiogamah uses the sound/symbolism of a train; his notes set up the business of the train. 

“6. There should be a loud, rushing sound of a train starting off on a journey to signal to the audience that the play is beginning and Bobby’s entrance can be emphasized by the distant sound of the train.” Hanay Geiogamah

I could hear that train for months after reading the piece; it was haunting… moving…beautiful.  It affected me.  It made me want to create moments like that in my own writing.  As long as I am stretching myself as a writer, I know that eventually I will be where I envision myself.  When I write, I hear sounds in my head sometimes but I had never thought to make the sound a character until I read Body Indian.  Perhaps that is just my response to the piece but the train was a profound presence.  An acting instructor of mine told me that if I could see it so would the audience.  I could see that train as I read; I must admit, I have been devouring Geiogamah’s work ever sense.  How to make the sounds visible — that is the question.

In the night, as I write, I like to listen to music, especially violins. I have begun a play called Fiddler’s Bridge; it is my hope to make the sound visible in this piece.  I am listening — as it finds its way to the page — for the sound of its song…

Those of us, who ride the night winds and the morning breezes, who straddle the fence of crazy and sane, must study…always…at our craft.  Earning the “wright” in playwright through diligence and preparation…unashamed and unapologetic for the feats we attempt.  We are the catalogers of our time and must all play our part in marking his/her/our/story.  We must continually grow as artists so our gardens are full of fresh vegetables and herbs and words…that communicate humanity or if so be inhumanity…

On the Matter of Subject…

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I’d like to think that I am open to write about almost any subject matter.  The journey from a thought to choosing the angle to take and researching any unknowns is never the same with each piece I write – always fascinating but never the same.  What can be the same are the moments before I reach page four — those tense moments when I am feeling like a complete fraud and I’m kicking myself because I had the audacity to think I could write that story that way.  I have started a task and it seems daunting.  Those moments I get a little stuck on rewind and time constraints can make it worse.  There is nothing as intimidating as knowing that the play in your head is the one you need to submit and the deadline is nearing and you haven’t gotten to page four let alone gotten to the middle of page three.  Stopped, right at the top of the page, with an air bubble stuck between the period and the next line.  Those are “playwright quote times” which for some reason, reading blurbs about writing calms me down enough to allow my germinating time to finish up its odds and ends.  I tend to forget that I tell myself I will write two or three pages — just to get started — and then let it germinate a while longer before I really get into it.  I usually remember after I have calmed down.  When writing my last play, I remembered…then forgot…then remembered again.  I felt like I was stuck in that Groundhog Day movie.  I should probably paste a note on my mirror but I probably won’t read it because I’ll be busy trying to get to page four from the “first words.”  And, who knows, Groundhog Day might be a needed part of my germinating process from time to time.  I am so preoccupied with getting past page three that my subconscious is free to organize information and listen to the other voices – the ones with the secrets.  I must admit, I am most intrigued by the secret things…and the layers that cover them.  Traveling into the unknown to find out the “why” and “how” of it all, is worth it every time.  It is during these journeys that I truly find out what the subject matter really is…  By page four, I know from what depth the play is coming and whether or not the subject matter at hand is what I thought it was when I began the piece.  By the end of the first act, I will be able to write a brief outline for the rest of the play and gauge how long it will take to reach the end which may mean submitting it the next year.  I used to think “next year” was so far away but there is so much to do in between now and then, it turns out to be just around the corner…

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Attitude is Altitude.

Give this some thought before you continue.

These words sprung up at a time when I encountered a moving incident that shook me through my core and tore me away from my good intentions of being conscious and aware of my thoughts, words and actions. An anonymous neighbor had tampered with my motorcycle to send a message that they wanted me to stop parking at a spot that the building manager had designated as my parking spot.

This anonymous person refused to identify their name after a series of notes exchanged. He/she was engaged vigorously to their idea that they are right to ask me to move or make arrangements to move. When I didn’t follow their bidding they resorted to passive violence by tampering with the motorcycle.

One morning I got on the bike and rode to work and found the side mirrors were loosened. I couldn’t repair it without stopping and without a tool. The side mirror dangled loosely and uselessly when I sped up, and my emotions rose higher as I revved the engine louder. In my anger and pain the words “Attitude is Altitude” came to me while sitting at a stoplight. They were a salve to my emotions.

When I got to my computer I e-mailed to my friends the words only, the responses were:

“It means that your attitude can be a conscious or unconscious decision. Preferably conscious. If you are aware enough, even if you are in a negative mood you can choose to have a positive attitude. Then eventually through self fulling phophecy your mood will change to positive. But if you are not aware your mood & attitude will just stay negative. It’s sounds simple, but not always easy to do. The first step is being aware.”
– Steve (Technical Consultant)

“This lovely quote that you’ve sent me, I’ve heard it a couple of times. And it is a quote that has made me think. I do agree with it…and can mean something different to everyone. To me attitude plays a big role on how far we get in everything. Whether it is on your goals in life or just getting through the day… Attitude is a choice. A choice between proscrastinating or not. A choice between being thankful about everything that comes our way or not. A choice between taking action or not. So it is a choice, and only when we make the right choices than we grow and reach a great altitude in our souls, which is the most important thing, and also in our goals and our “success”.

I can see this quote in different ways. But ultimately our attitude is definetely the place where we should begin in order to reach the altitude we have in mind.”

-Evelyn (Actress/Film Student)

“That’s awesome, our belief is what breaks down our limitations.”
– Terry (Business Analyst)

“am not sure about the meaning of this…From the point where Altitude means elevation I agree, the energy required for the elevation of ourselves implies attitude (i guess)…Now, if Altitude refers to something related with a high rank , superiority , I disagree”
– Diego (Musician)

The Beauty of Mathematics – a powerpoint presentation
– Michael IT Consultant (See the attachment.)

Beauty-of-Mathematics-Jan02-1

I had decided, after cooling down, I don’t have to be right. If this person can resort to indirectly trying to hurt me by putting a stranger’s life in jeopardy then I will concede and look for a different parking spot. Still, I felt indignant. Another neighbor recommended legal action. I weighed the gravity of that action, and decided it’s not worth anymore of my time and effort to pursue being “right”. My final action towards the anonymous neighbor was a note. I said “Thank you for being my teacher in the nature of humanity.”  A distant observer of the events told me I was also being passive aggressive by writing those words, and I explained that I didn’t want to raise the stakes higher that could lead to further violence which would be a no-win situation for either side.

Sometimes I find in my writing that I have an agenda and I am forcing my idea onto the page rather than letting the nature of the dilemna rise up from the rich earth of the subconscious. In writing my first draft, my subconscious created the scene with the characters and the circumstances. Now in my rewrite I am scrutinizing closely what they are saying and doing. And for me, the writer, it’s often that I am in the way and have to remind myself to get out of the way. Get my idea of what it is the characters are saying to each other out of the way, and allow them to talk,  like human beings, in a situation.

“Attitude is Altitude” in my writing means – get my ego out of the way.  I don’t want to be right. I want to express rather than impress.

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 POLISH

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I didn’t blog yesterday because I was polishing Wind in the Willows like mad. It’s to be given to the cast on Saturday, ready to go. I should have been looking for typos, misspellings, and incorrect indentations, but couldn’t stop myself from tweaking. I tightened a line, took out a word, added a word, then took out the line, etc. At one point, cross-eyed, I thought, “I’m changing the ending. Why am I changing the ending!?” A small voice said, “Because this ending is better.”

Maybe.

I could find out. One of the amazing and wonderful things about living in L.A. is that actors are everywhere. They fall out of trees and into the arms of aspiring playwrights and if lured with wine and cheese and crackers, they will read their plays for them. They will read in Starbucks, in living rooms, in church basements, in recreation centers, and they help the play to change and grow.

I am grateful to all those kind people who have read first, second, and third drafts of my plays. Actors always bring something to the table and just to hear the words is so instructive. You can hear where the holes and missteps are, can hear what is overwritten, can smell the filler and the false sentiment.

The theatres that offer staged readings are invaluable. The Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series, Seedlings at Theatricum Botanicum, New Works labs, ALAP’s In Our Own Voices, Live@the Libe, to mention only a few, are worth submitting to and offer great staged readings for works in progress.

The Q. and A.s are always bracing. My play, The Last Of The Daytons, was read several times. At one reading, an audience member, another playwright, said after a long silence, “I think you’re missing a scene.” The light went on. That one comment transformed the writing for me. I added the scene and learned a lot that was new about the characters and the play took a different turn. Beautiful.

Not everybody is helpful, of course. I can always spot The Spoiler, the man or woman who comes to all the readings for the joy of cutting the playwright down.

I enjoy going to readings by other playwrights, too. It’s like going to a club to hear a fellow musician play. Here’s two coming up: The Happy Wanderer by Nancy Beverly at the Celebration Theatre, June 1 at 7:30 pm, and Sara Israel’s Bad Art at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica, June 6th at 7 pm.

Next week, the kids will start studying their parts in Wind in the Willows. Rehearsals begin after school ends and I hope to be back to share what comes next.

COLLABORATIVE WRITING

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Working on Wind in the Willows made me think about collaborative writing. During what is called (by whom we don’t know) the Second Wave of the Women’s Movement, I worked with a cast to write a play about the Canadian suffragists, during what is called the First Wave of the Women’s Movement.

I researched, decided on the characters, wrote an outline, and sketched out the scenes. Then, I joined a cast of five actors and we improvised. The dialogue and eventually Nellie! How The Women Won The Vote, grew out of that work.

It was often exciting, sometimes very frustrating, and in the end, truly rewarding. We learned a lot about Canadian history of that period, beginning with this: No woman, idiot, lunatic, or criminal shall vote.

We also learned something about our own assumptions and prejudices about gender roles. In 1915, the suffragists held a burlesque of Parliament in which the roles of men and women were reversed. We wanted to recreate that but I couldn’t find a copy of the piece. Nobody seemed to have written it down. (Nothing changes in experimental theatre.)

So, we tried to improvise one in which giving men the right to vote was debated. We assumed that when they were in power, the female members of Parliament would smoke cigars, shout “Har, har,” clap each other on the back and talk about backroom deals and money. In short, they would act like men. It didn’t work.

Then, the penny dropped. If women were in charge, their values and attributes would be respected and they would treat men the way they were treated. Men, those second class citizens, would have to be taken care of, treated with chivalry, and ultimately dismissed. It worked like a charm and the Mock Parliament debated questions in 1915 that were still being debated in the 1980’s.

Here’s a bit of it:

LILLIAN (Government)
“Madame, Speaker, it’s a well known fact, and I speak as a mother, that the male child is more difficult to toilet train than the female child, and the same would undoubtedly hold true when training men in parliamentary procedures.

CORA (Opposition)
Speaking as one who is rather keen on men, I submit it is poppycock to shut out half of the world’s population simply because of a minor biological difference.

LILLIAN (Government)
This difference. A minor one, you say? Let me appeal to your finer sensibilities, woman to woman. Would you want this room, this very room, filled with the reek of cigar smoke? Would you want to hear the clink of brandy glasses in caucus? Would you want the halls festooned with spittoons, echoing with ribald laughter? Think. Can you, in all honesty, still say a minor difference?

And have you considered the suggestive nature of male attire – the colored waistcoats, the embroidered suspenders, the bay rum behind the ears, the waxed ends of moustaches and the tight trousers?

FRANCES (Opposition)
My husband doesn’t want the vote. He’s the power behind the throne. That’s good enough for him.”

I think we’re in what’s called the Fourth Wave of the Women’s Movement now and the debate about gender roles and women in power isn’t over yet. Hillary Clinton might have a lot to say on the subject.

There’s a one woman play if I’ve ever heard of one.

This American Life

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Saturday I was listening to This American Life on KCRW, my favorite radio show since way back.  It was a re-broadcast of a live show that featured a variety of guests telling stories and being entertaining.  One of them was Joss Whedon, the uber-talented writer-director-mad genius behind such TV shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Dollhouse.  The reason for his radio appearance:  Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, his Web sensation – which may have caused computer servers to melt (or whatever they do when overtaxed) because 200,000 people an hour were trying to download it.  Joss-on-the-radio sang a very amusing song about doing commentary for a video release of this musical.

I knew Joss way back.  He was a young whipper snapper writer on a little TV show called Roseanne.  You may have heard of it.  I worked on Roseanne, too.  I was a writers’ assistant.  It was Joss’s first TV production job.  It was my first TV production job.  He went right out of there to a gig writing on Parenthood (the first TV version; why did they resurrect it recently?  Were there no original ideas this season NBC thought worthy of broadcasting?  Hmm, apparently not…) and then to the movie and TV versions of Buffy… and fame and fortune.  I did not.

I almost turned my radio off Saturday so I wouldn’t have to listen to the clever song – not because I wasn’t amused by the song and not because I don’t like Joss (he was a smart, kind, and funny guy when I knew him and still is, as far as I can tell).  It was because of the jealousy thing.  Joss’s professional life took off like a rocket and every time I see him or his work, I am reminded my professional life is more at a steady hum.  It’s a nice hum but it’s not a rocket and is not accompanied by the cascades of cash that one can have in Hollywood.  I sometimes just turn things like this off and get back to work.

But by keeping the radio on, I got to hear the next piece – a story by Dan Savage about his mom dying and his grappling with being a lapsed Catholic.  It was hilarious and sad and I sat glued to the radio, laughing and milliseconds later crying.  Stories like that remind me why I like to write – to connect to people, to move them. 

So THEN I turned the radio off… and got back to work.  Feeling inspired instead of jealous.  A much better place from whence to write. 

I’ve finished the first outline of my new full-length play this weekend.

Drive, She Said

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When I’m not writing regularly, I get a little cranky.  If I’ve just finished a large project and I’m tired and the well is empty, then, yeah, I’ll take a few weeks or a couple months off.  But after that time, I go stir crazy if I’m not working on something.

Why is that?  On the one hand, I do feel I was placed on Earth to create (write, photograph, and on the rare occasion, perform my words), so, there’s that Destiny thing.  But that’s only part of the puzzle.

After hearing a report on NPR’s Morning Edition this week about a new book entitled Dorothea Lange:  A Life Beyond Limits, I started contemplating the driven life.  Here’s the section of Steve Inskeep’s interview with author Linda Gordon about Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange that caught my ear:

STEVE INSKEEP:  Was she obsessed with her art?

LINDA GORDON: Absolutely. She had a hard life in many ways. She was a disabled woman. She’d polio at age seven and she ended with a withered, lower right leg and a kind of twisted and crabbed foot. She could not put her heel down as she walked, but she was an incredibly strong woman physically. She could hike for days. She climbed on top of her car to photograph. She was really a very ambitious and driven woman about photography at a time when women were really not supposed to be that way.

INSKEEP: What were the affects of that on her family?

GORDON: Well, when she took this job for the Farm Security Administration, she had to leave her children for long periods of time, even for a couple of months, and Paul Taylor was her partner, as well as her husband. And whenever possible, he was on the road with her.

She knew she sensed as soon as she got this job offer that it was the chance of a lifetime. And she was correct because if it hadn’t been for that federal government job, we would have never have heard of Dorothea Lange.

INSKEEP: Who did take care of her kids when she was gone?

GORDON: She placed them in what we would call foster care, something that was very haunting to her all her life, because her children were very young when she began to do this. But I think we have to understand it in terms of the context of the times, when it was not quite so shocking to use foster care.

INSKEEP:  You know, as you describe her personality, I’m reminded of another figure we’re discussing in this American Lives series: Theodore Roosevelt, who was considered a weakling as a child and was driven to great exertion and he was so incredibly ambitious that he left his family behind to go to war even though his wife was ill and he wrote later that he would have left her deathbed. I mean it seems like that same kind of ambition drove Dorothea Lange toward photography.

I’m driven and driven to write.  I’ll cop to it.  The second and equally powerful piece of my drive – OTHER than the Destiny thing – is that I write to prove my worth.  I discovered the depth of that drive when I realized that my last two full-length plays had main characters who were trying to prove their worth through their work – with nearly disastrous consequences.  I  started to use that theme again on the current full-length I’m outlining but stopped myself when I saw I was doing it again.  I’ve consciously chosen a different theme this time ’round. 

But can I stop myself from using my writing as a vehicle of self-worth?  It’s been my identity since I was in grade school.  If I’m not writing, who am I?

I don’t know if my drive is on the scale of Dorothea Lange’s or Teddy Roosevelt’s.  I don’t have a club foot and I wasn’t a weakling as a kid.  But I have my vulnerabilities, my childhood internal injuries.  So I keep writing.  The next play, the next piece, is gonna get me that validation I want.  Except that it won’t or it’ll go away or I’ll find fault with the script.  So I’m back to square one.  Except that I’m not because I keep having realizations about who I am and what my motivations are.  Just like my characters.