Being a playwright I like the thing, as in Hamlet’s sage words, 'The play is the thing..."
I am an American and like any good God-fearing American I love the product – the finished play. Shiny. New. Accomplished.
However, I don't recommend you try my method of play creation...not that there’s much of a method.
There's a lot of craziness.
My method?
If you wanna write: sit down and write. Here’s how I do it…
1. Fragments of Brilliance.
This is my favorite part: The spark. The request. The idea that floats down from the great idea warehouse in the sky. It's the first look across a crowded room. The scent of brilliance.
The spark comes in various forms: a snatch of dialogue, a notion that has been swimming in my internal ether, a passage from a book, a refrain from a song, something in a movie or TV, the way an old woman walks across the street.
It reaches me and I greet it with enthusiasm. The possibility for greatness swells. Yes, this will be the perfect play. The play to end all plays. It will be met with acclaim. It will garner for me prizes: Nobel, Pulitzer, a tiled roof home in a Mediterranean climate, deep spiritual insight and a level of enlightenment that transforms life into a blissful paradise, more dick than I can shake a dick at.
I outline, sketch out scenes, research: books, movies, photos, newspapers...everything is relevant, everything can be culled for information. The world is a beautiful creative place!
2. The Horrible Realization of Work
At some point all the pink sky bravado and certainty turns black. The voices of optimism begin to scream. The work – and my desire that once flowed like an ancient majestic river – dries the hell up.
At this point I go on a procrastination binge. I retreat to my couch. I could take this pause in momentum as a refreshing respite. A time to marshal energy for the big push. But there is no solace in this pause. For my companions on this mini-holiday are: shame, fear and self loathing.
Everything I do...all the movies I watch – cuz that's what I do, lay on the
couch and watch movies and smoke – every book I read, all the emails I answer,
all the inane websites visited, everything I do is clouded by the fact that I
should be working and I am not working cuz EVERYTHING I DO SUCKS. After about a
few weeks or days or months (depending on how long the project is) of this crap,
I have to kick my own ass or I will never get off the couch. I drop some
discipline.
I go back to my outline. I make a calendar. I break down my outline into small tasks, usually scenes that need to be written, and give myself one to do everyday. It is then that I realize, horror upon horror, that the play is not gonna fall from the sky or outta my ass. I'm gonna hafta *gasp* work?! This realization isn't the low point of my process, it is the beginning of the descent.
3. Exhaustion on the fucked up coaster of discovery and frustration.
I've got my calendar. I have my assignments. My days of work laid out before me. No need to think, just to do. My days play out like this:
Wake up. I have set my alarm to 5 AM so that I can knock out some scenes before I go to work. I crawl out of bed at 9:30. Shower, hate myself. Have coffee and haul my ass to my Joe job.
Job. File. Type. File. Get great ideas. Jot some down. Wish I was home writing.
Back Home. Eat Dinner. The question arises: “Do I watch a movie?” Now rational people, more disciplined people, better writers will eschew frivolity until work is done. I am not one of those people. So I watch a movie (God help me, two.). I have a couple (God help me, four.) glasses of wine.
Work. I finally sit down. I begin on the designated scene of the day. I write. Delete. Write. Delete. Time drags.
I have an egg timer and I usually will go on 30-minute jags. The pressure of
time running out sometimes blocks the inner critic and allows me to get
something down. I do my 30-minute dance for about 2 to 3 hours.
Sometimes things click. I find a refrain and jam on it for the whole time. Mostly I sit. Check the timer. Type something. Get stuck. FYI: there are many handy ways to get unstuck. Pulling a book off the shelf and picking the first line you come to and shoving that in is a good one. Of course I don't think of that at the time. I smoke. Check the timer. Get up, look at myself in the mirror, pick a few zits, get a drink of water or another glass of wine. Check the timer. Type. Hate it. Delete. Get up. Go to the bathroom. Have another smoke. Check the timer.
On good nights I get frustrated and cry. I finish the scene with any manner
of contrivances I can think of, just to get done and away. On really good
nights I get hammered and try to take a nap at 9pm. I wake up hung over at 3 in
the morning, my computer screen black. I click it back on. The cursor
winks at me from the same fucking spot I was stuck on 6
hours earlier.
My days go on like that, till there is nothing but the play, the frustration of the writing. A good day is a flow of work. A bad is drunken 3 AMs and incomplete scenes. I am weary. I am ready for step number 4.
4. Self Immolation.
Much self pity, recrimination and hatred finds me figuratively lighting a fire under my own ass. I burn myself out of my own way. The self-saboteur is exhausted and out of neat gadgets. I sit down to write my scenes. I take what comes. If it flows, it flows. If it doesn't, it don't. I am too tired to care. The harpy critic in my head is ash. I follow the pictures in my head. I just do what I am told.
Step 5 is coming and I try to hold off my excitement.
5. I'M DONE.
Pretty self explanatory. I have finished the last scene. I have put the play into some kind of order. I print it out. I put it away.
If it is something I am working on for a deadline. I give it a day or two, send it out to trusted comrades, give it a read myself, and then begin the re-writing journey. If not, I set the script aside till I can stand to look at it again.
Do I like it? Is it good? Sometimes and sometimes. But it really doesn't matter. I am serious, here. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Cuz I have finished. When all the fucked up voices in my head were telling me I was a fool for even beginning, for even daring to think I had something funny or interesting or - holy shit, no! - moving to say, I kept going.
When all I wanted to do was crawl in a ball and feel sorry for myself, I kept going. So whether the play is good or bad [Insert ego here: They’re good!] it don't matter. It's here. I made it. It's fucking done! And I am hard-fucking core! I bask in my own magnificence for a while; then I begin on the next one, which I have been having great flashes of brilliance about since step three.
That's how I write a play.
