Death of a Muse

Oh no! That's awful! But I can believe it. I don't know how many I have, but it would be a similar number to you. Is it just lack of motivation? Or is it a block of some sort? Either way, I think all you can do is just get down and get something on paper. Anything. If it's no good, you can go back later and fix it, but sometimes I think it's better to at least have something down. Easier said than done though, I know. Or maybe you just need a break from them for a while?

As for alcohol - hmmm - I don't think that will do it. At least for me, I can't string three words together when I've had a few drinks.

All I can say is, I hope it comes back to you soon. Really.

It has happened to me so many times that I gave up writing full length plays and went to ten minute plays instead.

Here are a few observations by others:

Romulus Linney: Playwrights who really work at this (writing) often have works around in many states of completion, in various stages. So when you're working on one and you hit a stone wall or need some distance, you put it aside and you say, "All right, what else is around here?" And you pickup something else. It's a never-ending process.

Michael Weller: Half of getting through a first draft is just being too stupid to know how bad it is and to just keep going and going and push through to the end. Then you go back and say, "Okay, how can I persuade myself that this thing really happened.?"

For me it's been one of two things: Either a problem of not having something that excites me at the end of the play. Each play needs a magic moment. The single beat in the play that has the audience so enthralled that they stop breathing. Putting it differently, if I'm not excited about getting to my destination I can't get excited about the trip. My best work is when I have something that really excites me at the end of the play. It may be a great climax or a wonderful denouement or, in a recent play, a single pistol shot that actually happens in the dark after the play has ended. Each of these excited me enough to make me slog through all the dialog to get there and to set up the magic moment.

Or it might be what I am writing: I have three kinds of plays: Plays I like, plays others like and plays no one likes. So far I don't have any that I like and others also like - well that may be a bit of an exaggeration but the plays that mean the most to me are the ones that others don't like. I write them because there is something that I need to say but I haven't figured out what it is yet. When I am writing them, I find out that what I am writing is not what I want to say so I put them aside and start on another play. The unfinished ones are not failures but things I've learned about what I need to tell people. As I work on this unknown message, my plays are getting longer and more complex so it is an overall gain.

I also use the trick of putting the play away for some time and thinking about the play and what I want to say with it. I usually wake up with some ideas that gets me back to the play again.

Don't give up.

Doug

Good luck with it all bison. I know it's difficult.

I would love you to come and meet me, but don't go to the UK. I'm in Australia!

Keep working on it.

That's why we're all here.

People are plumbers because they want to be plumbers.

We write because we HAVE to write.

I tried to stop but I can't.

I'm happy about that - at least most of the time. I look at all the people who don't have a burning need or passion to do something and think how much they are missing of life.

Revel in the need to write. Don't fight it. You are lucky.

When the time is right, it will be there. At least that's what I tell myself when I doubt my writing.

Be happy. Don't worry. Write. Write menus if nothing comes to you.

Last June I spent three weeks at Lincoln Center Theater doing a Director Laboratory. I got to meet and spend some time with David Grimm - a published playwright. He said that when he gets stuck he keeps on writing even if it is the same sentence or even the same word. That helps clear his mind then he writes whatever comes into his mind whether it relates to what he is writing or not.

Sometimes he can tell that his writing is going in circles - he make an effort not to try to judge his work while he is writing it. If he can't get it to break out of the circle, he introduces a new object or person to see what it does to the scene. His first drafts run over 300 pages. Then he looks at it to keep what is good and get rid of the rest. I always have trouble with circling around an issue. I just don't have his ability to recognize and throw out the bad.

Hang in there. You are lucky. You have a great passion and most people are not that lucky.

Doug