I've discovered something recently. My subconscious mind doesn't register the novel I'm trying to write. All the time it wants me to work on plays. It doesn't think I'm a novelist and so it is not impressed with time spent working on the novel.
i'm not sure what to do about this. i could try and convince it i guess that novel writing is writing too but it may be a hard thing to convince it of. Especially since noveling doesn't offer the form of thearapy that writing plays does. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's more work or maybe somewhere so deep in me i have told myself i have to be writing a play all the time adn now that's all I can accept. It's like there is an invisible tattoo on all my organs that says playwright and subsequently the novel writing does not feel like progress.
Or maybe I'm just in a funk again because I just finished a play and i forget that i always have this moment of happiness followed by a funk that the play is over and exists and by existing some of the doors of what it can be have been closed and it just is something now.
in any case, i want to start another play right this second to get out of this funk and that may be what i do. because writing a novel is not helping. although i don't want to stop the novel so i may take on the dubious task of trying to write a novel and a play at the same time.
i'll let you know how it goes.
Nov 6, 2006
PLAYWRIGHT
I've discovered something recently. My subconscious mind doesn't register the novel I'm trying to write. All the time it wants me to work on plays. It doesn't think I'm a novelist and so it is not impressed with time spent working on the novel.
i'm not sure what to do about this. i could try and convince it i guess that novel writing is writing too but it may be a hard thing to convince it of. Especially since noveling doesn't offer the form of thearapy that writing plays does. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's more work or maybe somewhere so deep in me i have told myself i have to be writing a play all the time adn now that's all I can accept. It's like there is an invisible tattoo on all my organs that says playwright and subsequently the novel writing does not feel like progress.
Or maybe I'm just in a funk again because I just finished a play and i forget that i always have this moment of happiness followed by a funk that the play is over and exists and by existing some of the doors of what it can be have been closed and it just is something now.
in any case, i want to start another play right this second to get out of this funk and that may be what i do. because writing a novel is not helping. although i don't want to stop the novel so i may take on the dubious task of trying to write a novel and a play at the same time.
i'll let you know how it goes.
Trade novels for plays and you have my situation. ;) Except I don't think I'll fight it anymore.
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes I just wish my organs had any sort of tattoo like that at all.
ReplyDeletehuh. that 's so interesting.
ReplyDeleteyup, it's a muscle.
Laura, you subconscious wants you to write fiction? Or am I misunderstanding?
ReplyDeleteJaime, are you sure your organs aren't tattooed with dramaturg? Perhaps you should check.
Thanks Boo, I don't know what it is but it's taking over.
Dude,
ReplyDeleteThink outside the box on what a novel and play can be. Like House of Leaves. Some folk (about three, including me) think that plays are literature, much like novels, just the way Johann Wolfgang Goethe did. Just write and figure out what you got when you be done, baby!
One more thing...
ReplyDeleteLook at theonion.com's AV Club this week. They ask the question "Do Screenwriters Matter?"
I was just talking the other night to someone about how I was sad people didn't read plays as much as they used to. They stopped being literature for people besides me a couple people I know. I read lots of plays.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem is I want to write a play and a book but I don't really have time to do both but I am finding joy in the fiction writing now. also I cna't wait to get to writing the next play. I may drop out of life and write all the time---not out of my day job because I can't, but perhaps not see a play every day like I am now.