E: Sit right there and listen

I believe language, both in speaking and in literature, as well as the language of film and that of bodies, is the art of finding the quickest route from the idea to the representation. The easiest way of conveying an idea. It may be one of those Sausseurian ideas I've absorbed and internalized to the point where I can't be sure if it's really me talking, but I know one thing: it's the reason why I hate a certain webcomic tat, for purposes of sentimental attachment, I can't bring myself to stop reading. It complicates not only its story, but its method of telling that story.

My belief in this concept is complicated somewhat by the fact that, in my writing: in SWP, in my prose and even my play, I often take a long time to get from start to finish, I often spin off in tangents just to see where they go (see my last post.) I'm currently attempting to build a novel around a series of related-but-threadlike tangents. A lot of my prose, especially my early stuff, invokes a number of obtrusive metaphors. Seriously, I read my old stuff and wonder to myself why the fucker that's writing it can't just say exactly what a thing is: everything has to exist as a symbol for something else. But the excessive metaphors aren't what I'm getting at. In fact, they're just a metaphor. Metaphor as metaphor. Dig it. Extreme meta-literariness.

It's the story of the shortest route from my brain to the audience. That is, the staging of my next play.

I was suffering from what might be thought of as a mild case of writer's block, although that's not something I'd ever attest to. I perceive writer's block as being something that keeps a writer from having an idea what to write. I know what I want to write but sometimes I have trouble accessing that part of my brain that knows just how to say it. I was having trouble with this particular scene between two characters, that I just wasn't finding the right voice for, the right pathway to the point. It was just spinning its wheels, and while I wanted to use the scene to change or at least complicate the audience's perception of one character, it was really just reinforcing her two-dimensionality.

They say the Coen Brothers wrote Barton Fink (a movie about a type of writer's block) while having similar such problems with their movie Miller's Crossing. I take a similar tact: I wrote chapters of a book I've been working on over and over for years, then tackled a short story I've wanted to rewrite forever. Today I set down to take on that scene, and for a while I was still getting the same nothing until I suddenly just, well, I hit the right strand. I mean, here's how it works, more or less: a line, or a monologue, or a story, occurs to you, and then you build a bridge in dialogue, so instead of making it up as you go along, you find the path. Durr. I've said it like three different times. The final outcome of this little exchange was probably not exactly what I had envisioned, but it at least gives a far more profound insight to the character's motivations. I liken it to what I call the "Platypus conversation" in Half-Past.

The "Platypus conversation" is an exchange between Beth and Perry in Half-Past (you'd know this if you'd seen the play.) It is literally a transcript (with embellishments) of an actual (and surprisingly heated) conversation I had had a few weeks earlier, with Manda, about whether Platypi were mammals or what. Prior to my writing this scene, and reaching back 6 years to the origin of the play, Beth was a non-character, an uninteresting presence that existed just to justify the scenario. No real thought went into who this girl was and why Mark might like her, he just did. Alyssa, in her turn at the character in the movie, did an admirable job sifting through regrettable dialogue (she complained to me, rightly, that the character said the word "totally" too much in one scene, that's how much thought had gone into the character.)

What the Platypus conversation did was open up the character: it became the light that illuminated who she really was. More than that, it helped inspire me to write what I consider to be the best moment of the play, Beth's "I'm fucking with you" line. So, for this character in the new play, I found what I consider to be that Rosetta stone of her personality, even if it doesn't fully explain her, it adds dimensionality to her.

I was pleased with this minor but significant advancement in the writing process, which will help the rest of the play, then broke for Lost. Awesome episode by the way. Then, something happened that kinda took the wind out of my sails. I won't explain exactly what happened, but it amounts to... this play isn't happening. Not this year, anyway.

It's nobody's fault, but it's a regrettable situation. Last summer was such a transcendent experience. Listening to those opening chords of Through & Through & Through by Joel Plaskett puts me back in that place, fills me with an almost inexplicable sense of well-being. I was understandably eager to repeat the accomplishment. I felt like I was getting near a worthwhile product with the new play (whose name, for superstitious reasons, I have been reluctant to type, even though pretty much the worst possibility has already happened.)

I was left with three options. One: do the play with another director, which I am not keen on: I don't know enough people in the Hamilton theater scene to pull that move and I'm not interested in excluding Cary from the process since this play is largely the product of his collaborative effort. Two: Do nothing, which is the most likely, and also the least appealing option, because it means there is literally nothing for me to do, nothing to show for myself, and I go back to being some other schmo. Three: Do something else, with someone else.

It didn't seem possible, or likely, that I'd go with number three, but after a bit of meditation it occurred to me that there was a very real opportunity here. Not to write something new: I started banging out a script based on an idea I had last week, but didn't like the results I was getting (and the last thing I need is yet another writing project.) I haven't killed it, because it's out there, which means it's viable. But the million dollar idea came to me after I was sitting back in frustration over my attempt to bang out a quick, quirky scenario that plays of known theatrical meta-tropes.

No. Way. My. Life.

In breaking the news about his inability to do the new play, Cary suggested I try something with Chris. And I conceded it wouldn't be a bad idea: not for this play, though. A giant ensemble in two acts isn't really Chris' speed, I don't think. Cary explained his motivation for wanting a whole night to himself (and the need to keep the population of the play up to maintain that.) I don't think Chris' take is the same, hence the two-main-characters-and-a-couple-extras structure of Now Way My Life, our highly successful collaborative effort with Pat. I asked Chris, and he was immediately warm to the idea, either of NWML or something new, so suddenly things were looking up.

And that's how you take the shortest route to the stage: by going with something you've already written. And as excited as I was to write something that would take the whole night, there's a certain comfort in being matched with another play to broaden the potential audience to include people who wouldn't have already seen it.

I won't be getting the same feeling from this project as I did from Half-Past, that's for sure. This isn't as personal or as important-seeming, it's just a jokey scene about a couple of dopey gangsters. It also doesn't need as much preoparation, as the bulk of the dialogue is handled by two of the guys who wrote and already performed it, assuming we can get Pat in on it. It's not going to hit the notes I wanted to hit with the new play, but it's a lot of laughs and a pretty decently-written scenario, and it's something I'm proud to have helped with, and would be glad to get back out there.

I'm happy with this decision. It seems like a bit of a compromise, but it works, and works well. There's still an extremely unlikely chance I'll be able to get something else written, too: I'm not without ideas, or at least, something. My main problem is that this somewhat damages my motivation to write the other play, just when I was closing in on completion. I may keep going, but I work best when I have some kind of endzone to work toward. Hopefully there's no such drop in productivity. That said, it doesn't hurt to relieve me of that pressure.

In all things, balance.

I'm done for the night. Gonna head to bed, read some. Got a dentist appointment, not psyched about that. I'm cutting down on sugar, but that was a recent decision so he's probably not going to see the full result, which means I'll be getting guilt, maybe a few fillings for my trouble. I know the fillings are my own fault. Also I ate popcorn tonight, which I know is stupid, but it was Lost, and I was hungry. So I'm gonna go floss. I've been flossing at least a bit, so hopefully there won't be a lot in the way of blood. Sigh.

I'm working on it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto