so what. it's a string.

I think the reason I'm having problems moving forward with my new play is because I'm not done with my old one; I keep wanting to write but every time I put my fingers in front of that new world, they seem to tense up. I learnt this in January when I re-read my first script; why did I think it wouldn't apply to my second one?

I'm relieved as a cat that sees something important and then shortly thereafter thinks, "Well, I could just sleep."

nothing more than a spectre, floating.

It’s times like these I understand the melancholy anguish of Sherlock Holmes and why he resolves to whittle away the dead space between cases with drug. Cocaine. Transcendence. He brings his mind to another plane because anything, anything is better than the monotony of daily life arguing (paraphrasing): If your mind is not preoccupied with something of meaning should you waste and potentially damage it by being preoccupied with something mundane?

Or is it that, after a worthy cause, even the mind of the great Sherlock Holmes has spent all of its creative juices? I wonder how he would fare if his cases were one after another, back-to-back, instead of spread out, allowing him to recover in between and act at the peak of his power when a new one arises?

It’s been a week since I finished In All Kinds of Weather. Four days since I finished editing. With the close of this play, my reason for getting up in the morning (in a timely/productive fashion) has finished as well. My drive is deflated. For now, at least. I’ve created a cocoon around me, fallen into hibernation to prepare my mind for the change it’s undergone. I’ve picked up an old project and am slowly getting it to a place I’m comfortable with, but my drive isn’t there. It’s not immediate. In other words, I’m spent. I find myself catching up on movies and readings I’ve been meaning for too long. I’m consuming so much of this escapist entertainment and all the while leaving my own creative juices to recuperate you can almost see the track marks on my arms.

I’ve realised this happens every time I complete something. In the past I would become restless, impatient with myself during this period -

JUST GET UP! STOP WASTING TIME!

But now I understand it needs to happen, that my passion will come back. That my ideas will begin to generate again at a new pace, with a new vision. So I’m trying to let it go. I keep reminding myself this happens, over and over, and will continue to as I grow older. And I guess it makes me feel a bit better.

I’m still anxious as hell, however -

WHEN’S IT GONNA END?

they've stopped talking.

I've been away. Busy busy busy, what with rehearsing for the New Ideas Festival, generally being unemployed and worrying about finances, and writing the ending of In All Kinds of Weather. Yes. That's right. It's done.

And that's a weird feeling. I mean, I've finished plays before and usually feel somewhat regretful that it's over; I don't want to say good bye! There's so much more I could write about them!


But not this time.

I said good bye.

Rather: they said good bye. They grabbed the till and the most marvelous thing happened: they accepted their fate. They knew it was time to go. I saw them, each of them, that look in their eyes. As I was writing, I don't know where exactly but they would each turn to me, in their own time, and look straight into my eyes. Unquestioning. Almost nodding. This is it. We've had our time.

I have never been so satisfied with ending a play before (which makes me wonder if those other plays I finished actually did end...).  Maybe it was because I knew the ending before I began. I knew their images: how I wanted them to be remembered and what I wanted these characters to stand for. Their images were already inside from the top, fermenting (an image which explains, pretty accurately, the story of writing this play, with all the unpredictable alleys it brought me down. It felt, at certain times, that something else was guiding me). The ending aged as I wrote. It was ready last Friday. I have never been so content.

I still have a lot of reflection concerning the creation of this play, but I think the most immediate, stark lesson I've taken from it is the importance of that final image (or those final images). You can't just pick an ending out of the air. You need to find a picture (not literally), study it, then figure out how to re-create it. All the ingredients are there, you just have to look for them. A picture has many layers and it's your job to explore each one. In time, you'll have all the ingredients to make really good beer.

Maybe now I'll stop writing about them like they're real...

time for a little self-exploration.

I am alive. Just drowning.

Seems I’ve needed to occupy my brain with amusements instead of puzzles recently.

I don’t want to say Act Three is overwhelming or scary. It is. That shouldn’t have to be said. They always are, aren’t they? What I do want to say is that my drive is... muddled. As my mind fills up like an unskimmed, neglectfully chlorinated swimming pool, I find the need to resort to the many other things I have seen as not worth my time, namely time-wasting.

As much as I pride myself on using the internet for productive means (watching TED lectures, keeping abreast with the theatrical blog-o-sphere, and the next art and design developments) I can sure as hell use these to no productive end as well as the next man (if not better because “I’m learning”).

And while exploring my own creative imagination requires intense focus, a focus I’ve come to love and welcome with a lover’s embrace, I find myself opting for the less regimented realm of another’s.

After all, how can I become a good writer if I don’t know what else is being written?

So I occupy my time with stories, with books, with images and music. Anything to overcome that bubbling voice drowning in my pool telling me I’m only hurting myself by postponing the inevitable.

And yet I can’t be too harsh on myself because I have been productive. I have seen theatre. I have seen movies. I am reading literature. And most importantly I am unconsciously picking up the parts I enjoy most and storing them in my pool house, in the toolbox right next to the pool skimmer so in a few hours when I skim and chlorinate the rotting thing I can feel confident the next time I want to go for a swim because I have new tools that will help fill up all those cracks in its damn foundations.

the clear twilight of mind.

 

So much time spent organising
With a day off thrown in,
Here and there.

Getting back into the mind of my others
(Sometimes I think of them as personalities,
Or friends even)
Is like I never left.

Like picking up a beautifully written novel,
And knowing exactly what happened
All those weeks ago.

The distance from here is great,
But the clarity is even greater.

I think I know how it all ends.