Sorry, My Banana Wasn't Ripe Enough, So I Won't Be Able to Write Today

My roommate is kind of a big deal. She writes copy for a DVD distribution company where they love and respect her for something I've known about her for years: she's a damn good writer. You know those blurbs on the backs of DVD Collection covers describing 8 hours of content in three intriguing sentences? She writes those. She can make a companion pamphlet to a documentary on Darwin clever and entertaining. Her work is often laugh out loud funny.

And it always starts with the first sentence.

She and I discussed this phenomenon recently (and not for the first time). She was working on an assignment that only had to be a few paragraphs, but it had taken her a week to get it done, because she couldn't think of a good opening line. Once she finally came up with a pleasing starter, though, the entire project seemed to write itself in two short hours. She and I are very similar in that respect.

Writers are funny creatures. We all have our own methods for getting the work done, and often without the method, there's no writing. It's an equation with 16 different variables that can only be solved on a Tuesday when there are nimbus clouds present. And that's provided the neighbor's cat didn't give you stink-eye the night before.

I've had two posts for the blog rattling around in my head for the last three weeks, and I'd really like to see them written. Every time I sit down to work on them though, I'm stymied by that intro. I try to write an opening that will grab our readers, but I keep ending up with clunky sentences that I hate. I cannot stand the thought of exposing them to public assessment.

The rational part of my brain tells me that it doesn't really matter all that much. This isn't my job. It doesn't have to be perfect, and I don't have to love it. It's just a place where I can express my thoughts. Provided I post them. But before I can post them, I have to write them down. And to write them down, I have to start with a good opening.

And so I sit silently. Stuck. Bah.

Pulling the Trigorin

For the last month and a half I've been immersed in the world of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, having served as Assistant Director for Theater J's brand new adapatation of the play, The Seagull on 16th Street, which just opened. (Click here to read a very nice review of the production care of The City Paper, and here for info on how to order tickets at the Theater J website). For those of you who haven't read or seen the play, a brief synopsis - Konstantin Gavrilovich is a young writer and the son of famous actress Irina Arkadina. He is also most in love with his youthful muse, the beautiful Nina from across the lake, and the actress in his debut performance. Along for the ride is Irina's consort, the famous and established writer Trigorin. Nina falls for Trigorin and we're off to the races. This particular adaptation includes an added layer of Judaism to the show, entirely absent from the original, portraying Treplev as not only an emerging artist but also a young man trying to find his faith while his mother has abandoned hers.

But what struck me is a very specific moment in the play on a topic that Chekhov knows more than a little about, and is present in any version of the play you may read or see. And while watching the play on opening night, my friend Elan heard the exact same lines that I respond to, and looked over knowingly at me without prompting.

Finally alone together, Nina has begun to ask Trigorin how it 'feels' to be so famous, to have such a wonderful, brilliant life - which catches Trigorin entirely off guard. As she pushes and prods on how incredible his life must be Trigorin finally unleashes one of the most brilliant monologues I have ever read on the subject of writing and the incredible weight it puts on writers - from the obessesion to endlessly continue; the overwhelming need for approval from a hostile, faceless audience; to the constant pressure from both oneself and one's loved ones, real or imagined, to create the next literary gift from god. The entire thing is incredible, especially as performed by Jerry Whiddon, but this excerpt speaks to me and my experience especially - courtesy of The Seagull on 16th Street by Anton Ckekhov, translated by Carol Rocamora, and adapted by Ari Roth (the most important part highlighted in Bold):

TRIGORIN: For example, here I am with you, perfectly intriguing, and yet the
whole time, I'm also thinking about the unfinished work that awaits me at my
desk. I'll see a cloud, up there, the one that looks like a piano? And I'll
think: "Hmmm. I've got to put that in a story somewhere; how a cloud was sailing
by, a cloud that looked just like a grand piano!" Every phrase; every
word you and I are uttering right now, I'll snatch them up as fast as I can and store them in a closet: Perhaps I'll use them one day - I'll use this entire conversation! And when I'm done working, I'll run off to the theatre,
or go fishing, to rest, to lose myself - but no, there it is, already casting
about in my head like an iron cannonball; a new plot, and already it's pulling
me back, and I'm racing to write it down; write it down. And that's the way it
always is; I have no peace from myself and feel like I'm devouring my own
experience, cannibalizing it; and what's left? Who knows? Who can tell?

Every word of that is true. Absolutely true. And especially - "Every phrase; every word you and I are uttering right now, I'll snatch them up as fast as I can and store them in a closet: Perhaps I'll use them one day - I'll use this entire conversation!"

I'm letting all of you know that right now.
It will happen.
If I know you, if you read this blog, chances are one day you'll be reading and you'll find yourself in here. And if not in here, certainly in a script, or onstage. Just the tiniest piece, or an entire story - traslated, adapted, transmuted into someone/something entirely new and yet exposingly familiar.
It will happen. If you didn't already know, I'm telling you now.

I was hanging out with a girl once, a girl I don't even know all that well, and there was a pause. She looked at me and said "You're just writing a play in your head all the time, aren't you?"

I am.

And I'm sorry. But everything you say, everything you do, every worthwhile line or thought or conversation, everything my friends are, their ticks and habits, quirks, catchphrases, and mannerisms - every single bit is stored away for use one day. Some of it is written down in endless half filled journals, most of it is kept conciously or unconcsiously in my head until I have to write it down. I lay at night mezmerized by a simple sentence - haunted for days, weeks, or months by a simple toss off until I have to write, simply to process, simply to deal.

I wrote a play a year ago, a one act, inspired very much by the relationship between me and my ex. The characters were not us, the dreams and images were inspired by songs, the plot of my own invention.
But I took the words. I took a lot of words.
And I regret it. I wish I had never, ever written it. And if I had to write it, I wish I had locked it away. I put too much on the page that time, too much too soon. I feel like I betrayed a trust, the most important trust I've ever had, a trust I know I've kept in every other way. That was a valuable lesson. It is, quite possibly, the greatest regret of my life.

But make no mistake, I will take words again.
Deep, personal words. Experiences. Lives.
And none more than my own.
Every time I sit down to write I feel fear because I'm not quite sure what part of me I'll be exposing once I actually start to type.

That's what writers do. We do cannibalize ourselves, our experiences - we tear into every aspect of the world we know and rip it apart looking for a shred of truth or beauty to share.

It's a terrifying, painful process.

I've been having trouble actually calling myself a 'writer'. Identifying myself with that craft, that title. It has felt arrogant to do so, above me, something I still have to prove; to work to become. A mantle to claim.
But in Trogorin's lines, in Chekhov's words, I saw myself.
I'm a writer. Maybe more of a director, certainly a storyteller in all it's forms first and foremost.
But I am a writer. Blessed and cursed. And so -

I will give, and I will give, and I will give.
I will be respectful. I will honor trusts. I won't betray, I won't mislead, I will use judgement.
But I will take, and I will take, and I will take.

A promise and warning.

Fear and Loathing in Rockville (By Way of Konstantin Gavrilovich)

(To be read tongue firmly in cheek - lest you start to drool.)

I just got caught in my own trap.

We've been having a bit of an issue with posting on the site - mainly that we want something new up every day, and that hasn't been happening. So at our last TG meeting I suggested the position of Assignment Editors to the group - two people who would help keep us all on task and accountable for providing content individually on a weekly basis. They'd suggest ideas, monitor the output, and give those of us that need it a kick in the pants. The group agreed, names were nominated, and all was quiet in the kingdom.

Until tonight, when I just got a call from my editor asking for a post by tomorrow. Given the inanity of my current schedule that means tonight.

Fuck me, I'm my own first victim.

So here I sit, in my empty new room, struggling in front of my computer screen with one overwhelming problem staring me blindingly in the face -
I have nothing to say.

Which is of course, a lie.
I have a lot to say.
But very little I feel comfortable saying.

And suddenly something becomes very clear to me. Time has obviously been a factor in my lack of posting.
But so has fear.

Boy does that suck.

It's a deep and multi-layered fear too. Sometimes I feel I've lost faith in myself as a writer - both in terms of the quality of my prose, but also the strength of my voice (which sounds distant, forced, and formal) and my ability to make a point. Which ties into my One Kiss post - when I was so proud of this beautiful, metaphoric language (one clenched fist rises triumphantly into the air) I had come up with to describe the act of a first kiss and the possibilities contained...
and yet the conversation basically devolved into "Ew! Kissing can be icky."
Not quiiiiite where I was going.

So I have this need to write things I think are important, whatever that means, and so as much as I love reading about comics and music I feel like my writing about them now would be a waste of time. Insignificant. I should be using my writing to create beauty, or tragedy, or insight - an anecdote that Shines A Light on some part of the Human Condition.
There needs to be a point. (Imagine a really big hand gesture here.)

What an inane amount of pressure to put on a blog post, you know?
But there it is.

Stupid deadlines.

So again, here I sit, pontificating on my own neuroses - which is so self-serving it makes Emo look like Art.

But Steve's the one who called me so blame him instead.

The Engine Driver

I year or two ago I was rummaging through the things left in my old room when I found my sixth grade journal.

Sixth grade was a lot like the rest of my elementary school experience. I was pretty much an outcast, with a group of friends that treated me terribly and a substantial number of socially inhibiting habits that I'm embarassed about to this day. There's only one person I'm still friends with from before my epic summer before ninth grade shift - where I took a summer, sat down, and made a literal list of every negative aspect of myself that I could find and tried to systematically rid them from my system, improving and reinventing myself into someone likable. I got rid of a social circle that did nothing but drag me down and became friends with a group of incredible people that I still consider some of my closest family. I went from being the unabashed loser so one of the most social people I know, a lynchpin of several circles.

But if you ever wonder why despite all that, I'm still constantly trying to prove myself to each and every one of you it's because i'm terrified that you'll see or remember the terribly lonely little boy who had a teacher put tape over his mouth in the third grade because he chewed his shirt, and had his desk moved from facing Rebecca Fox because it disgusted her so.

So it's impressive that I've stayed such good friends with Elan, who I met in sixth grade, sitting next to each other in Ms. Fechter's english class. I had a HUGE crush on her, and thinking about it now she's probably the genesis of my steadfast attraction to girls with red hair. In that class Elan, Jessie Fox, and I would sit next to each other - and on the days she decided to eat with the girls, and he ate with the other guys, I would have lunch with Ms. Fechter.

And every day we would write a journal entry, and kind of amusingly since I'm writing all this in a blog, I hated writing journal entries. We either had to write about the topic of the day, or have a fictional story. I don't know what I wanted to write about, but it wasn't either of those. So I found a way around it - I wrote a fictional journal of a different kid, every day from his perspective. Technically it was a fiction story, but serialised in the form of a diary. It was my first time writing character.

I read the journal again when I found it, and this is what I wrote about - a kid with two friends, his best friend and the girl he has a huge crush on. Over the course of the story his friend gets into trouble with drugs, and "Harry" helps his friend with his addiction while the girl he likes falls for his friend. In the end he steps out of the way, bittersweetly happy that they can be together, but sad she doesn't like him instead, helping to engineer them living happy ever after.

I wrote that in 6th grade. How screwed up is that?

Cause I've spent years of my life living some variation of that story over and over. I wrote the story of my life years before I lived it. And reading it, years later, after high school - after tina, after laura, after the ranch, all of that - it hit me hard.
In acting class last year our teacher said "everyone thinks they're the star of their own story." Before I could think about it I said "what if you think you're the supporting character?"
Someone whispered that was the most depressing thing they'd ever heard. But it turns out I'd been thinking that for years. Maybe I see something honorable in sacrifice. Or maybe I've never felt like I deserve it.

So I believe in the power of writing - it's power to change the lives of the people who read it, and it's power to guide the life of the person writing.

There's a line in Woody Allen's Annie Hall - a film Elan reccomended to me of course, where Woody writes his play within a film with a happy ending, the ending he wanted. He says - "What do you want? It was my first play. You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art, because it's real difficult in life?"
Amen.

I've started writing a new story - it's not perfect, and there's still a lot of selflessness and sacrifice because they ARE honorable, and it won't ever be easy, but this time the guy gets the girl.

Cause fuck y'all, I'm a star.

Random Thoughts

Another in my series of things that needs to bite the dust with this recession - Buying diamonds at all holidays. Much like Christmas Lexuses, this seems to be a case of advertisers trying graft something onto a holiday. You have Valentine's Day, you evil evil conflict diamond selling war criminals. Please stop trying to corrupt Christmas. Other people are already doing a fine job of that.

...

I've been pondering William Kristof v. Thomas Friedman. I know that Kristof is better, and not just because he travels the world freeing child slaves, but I haven't quite pinned it down yet. Maybe it's just different styles, I will return to this at some point.

...

Also, I just read Deep Economy by Bill McKibben and Girlfriend in A Coma by Douglas Coupland back to back. It was an unexpectedly brilliant choice. I don't think in my life I've ever paired a non-fiction and fiction book so elegantly, and it was completely by accident. Read both of these books.