A New Idea

Oh, dear. It's happened again. I can't get anything done. I'm late everywhere. I'm making bad decisions. I'm crying a lot. And why, you ask? Did something "horrible" happen to me?

Yes. It did.

I have an idea for a new play.

I know there are those of you out there who are saying, "Okay, you've finally lost it altogether there, Noble." But let me explain...

It is truly horrible. A new idea. Someone once said it's actually the greatest form of procrastination...which could be what's happening, but I don't think that's it, because this idea is...well, it's STICKY. Meaning, that my brain and it, are stuck together. Like a couple of teen-agers in a movie theatre...ah, high school...

But I digress.

So, an idea for a new play. What a delight, you say! What a joy, you say! How empowering, you say!

The writers among you will understand that that is not what it is at all. What it is is what young parents experience when they're told they're pregnant. And they weren't planning on it. Suddenly, EVERYTHING CHANGES. And what changes most? It's the THINKING. We Parents-To-Be are not thinking about the delight or the joy that is the impending child, we are thinking about: "How the hell am I going to pay for their college?" or "I'm never going to fit into my skinny jeans again!" or "We're going to have to MOVE!" or, the most common exclamation of all, "We're never going to have sex again!" And these fears pervade EVERY WAKING MOMENT.

It's the same for the writer with the sticky new idea, only the exclamations are different. It's more like: "I can't go to work today, I need to get this idea for the second scene down!" or "I'm sorry, what did you say, I was thinking about where the act break should be" or "I can't possibly help you with your wedding, I have to figure out if the play's going to be set in London or Paris!". Then, of course, there's the inevitable near misses on the freeway and the sleepless nights, and, my personal favorite, the standing onstage in the middle of my current play wondering if one of the characters in the new play should have an upper or lower class British accent...it's really pretty awful. Kind of like not paying attention to your teen-ager, because the new baby needs to be changed.

So, what do I do? What do we do, we writers? We do what we've always done. Our lives be damned, the play must get written. The baby must get changed.

Sigh...

Rewrites...Grrrrr

So, I'm doing some more rewrites on my play, Sidhe this morning, before rehearsal this afternoon...yes, I know, always waiting until the last minute...

I don't know what it is. Is it just plain arrogance? That I'm far too important to work on projects like normal people, in a regular fashion, meaning a little at a time, progressing diligantly forward to a designated goal a day at a time until said goal is rewardingly achieved? So important that I must waste time THINKING about the project a little at a time, progressing obsessively forward, a day at a time, until the last possible moment where the actual execution of the project becomes decidedly limited to the specific amount of time necessary to get the work done without ANY glitches or mistakes happening.

You know the drill: I can get it done, let's just hope my printer doesn't run out of ink, or paper, or...God forbid, jam (shudder, shudder).

If that is indeed the case, it certainly suffers from a lack of rationality. Especially since I've done it MANY TIMES before. Perhaps it is not just arrogance, but mainly ignorance...

Although, I do take comfort in the fact, that I have NOT actually, this time around, "waited until the last minute", I have allowed for things like...paper jams (shudder again) and the inevitable "writer's jam" which always rears its ugly head in times like these, so I think I'm actually making some progress. I have actually taken "notes" earlier in the week and have listed the sections/pages that need to be rewritten, so I have laid out a wee framework from which to embark on this mini-journey this morning...however...

The fact remains that I indeed could have done this last night instead of watching Season Two of Family Guy...and the fact also remains that I am indeed still arrogant. And ignorant.

Again, sigh...

Welcome To The Madhouse

So, I've recently learned this past year that...uh, well...in a nutshell...I'm insane. The good news is that most people are insane to some degree, and my particular kind of insanity has the surprisingly delightful benefit of attracting a rather creative yet intense cadre of personalities into my midst. I am grateful. For both their creativity and their intensity. However, being immersed in all that creativity and intensity does require that I rest periodically and do something benign with my brain like...uh, well...count the whiskers on my cats. Or something like that.

These days it seems the only mind-numbing activity I find at all intriguing is consuming a pint of Haagen-Daz Vanilla Ice Cream. Which does happily lead to a brief cessation in my obsessive manner of thinking, however, that luxuriously peaceful--yet somewhat frigid--state is inevitably followed by a state of being which can only be described as...uh, well, the "sugar high". The "sugar high" as many of you know tends to lead rather rapidly to another state of being which can only be described as "delusions of grandeur".

For the physicists in the bunch: Vanilla Ice Cream + Consumption = Pleasure. Vanilla Ice Cream + Consumption + Time = "I Can Write The Great American Play In A Week" Theory.

So, my first goal of 2010 is to continue to acknowledge on a daily basis that I am indeed insane, and that Vanilla Ice Cream is not the answer to my problems, and that, in fact, I have very few problems, the least of which is that I do not, in fact, know how many whiskers are upon the faces of my cats.

Until we meet again...