Thurs. June 23, 2022: Shaking Up the Process

image courtesy of Nat Aggiato via pixabay.com

Thursday, June 23, 2022

Waning Moon

Pluto & Saturn Retrograde

Partly cloudy and mild

Yesterday was a struggle early, and then blossomed into something wonderful.

In the morning, I slogged through a lot of email and got the inbox back down to something manageable. Dealt with a few things that needed dealing with. I still have some correspondence to get out today, mostly follow up to some of the recent art experiences. I also need to knuckle down and get my profile(s) up on the Creative Ground site. Every time I start, I get overwhelmed, which is ridiculous, because I can toss of bios and profiles in my sleep. But all the form-filling restrictions to get to the bio paragraph throw me off. I have to figure out how to make them work WITH what I do, not against it.

I did a good chunk of work on the anthology story, and it’s chugging along the way it should be. I also got another section of The Big Project done. I’d hoped this would be the end of the first big arc, but I need a few more sections.

In a week or two, I will make the public announcement about The Big Project, and some of this will start to make sense. If you can’t wait, I’m doing a reveal in the newsletter going out this afternoon. If you’re not on the newsletter list, you can sign up here.

My body and psyche fought me most of the day, remembering the stress of the movers last year at this time. I kept having to stop and lie down, or sit on my meditation cushion to acknowledge and release what was going on, while reminding myself that the reality of last year is not my reality now.

I should have turned around a script, but I knew I couldn’t give it the attention it deserved, so I did not, and will do so today, instead. I’m still fine, as far as deadlines.

In the afternoon, I drove down to Pittsfield, to the Berkshire Atheneum, to participate in a playwrighting workshop hosted by the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The guy who organized the World’s Largest Poem over in Lenox in which I’m participating is the one who sent me the information.

There were only 10 of us in a large space, and everyone was respectful and diligent about masking.

The workshop was fantastic. One of the reasons I wanted to attend was that I feel my stage playwrighting has gotten stale, and I wanted to shake up my process. Well, the workshop certainly did that!

We were given 5 titles and had to write a sentence or two about what our version of the play would be, inspired by that title. Basically, a logline. Then, we mixed and matched with different partners on each title to share what we’d come up with.

As someone who usually puts the title on near the end, this was definitely a way to shake up my process. It was a ton of fun. Then, we went around the room and shared the one we’d come up with that resonated the strongest. I was gratified that the one I felt the strongest pull from was something everyone in the room really liked, too, and several of my colleagues, at various points, encouraged me to write that play.

In the next exercise, we were given a character/set sheet from an actual play, with the character breakdown and some set notes, and had to come up with a quick outline of beginning, middle, and end. Then we broke down into groups based on which set sheet we had, and talked about what we’d come up with. That was a ton of fun, too.  That was more natural for me, since I tend to work from character first. And it wasn’t completely out of my wheelhouse as someone who’s done for-hire work receiving material like that from a client and having to create around it. At the same time, it was different enough to be a stretch.

The final exercise was to create a title and then a character/set sheet and build a rough idea of a play from there. I grabbed a prompt out of the “wild ideas” bin (and it was one), and built from there. That one, I think, will wind up being a screenplay rather than a stage play. It’s gravitating more naturally to that form, and the concept chooses the form.

It’ll be a while before I can write it, because I promised my friend Paula to write a script inspired by the short story “Floral Arrangements” first!

Anyway, the creative experience was terrific, and my fellow playwrights were all wildly generous and creative. I hope they follow through on some of the ideas generated in the workshop, because I’d love to see/read the results. I felt very lucky to land in this specific group of creatives.

The playwright who led the workshop is also going to be in the World’s Largest Poem (so I’ll actually know someone there).

It also made me realize that, because I do this (writing) everyday for a living, I can get stuck in systems and processes because they’re safe and easy. To an extent, one has to do that in order to get the work done and keep a roof over one’s head. But it’s important to shake up process and not get stale.

I left the workshop with 7 viable script ideas. How I will fit them in to the rest of my life is a challenge, but I want to play with at least some of them over the coming months and see where they lead. It also might give me something to bring into the LAVA playwrighting circle, if I can ever remember that it meets the second Monday of the month! I signed up for it a long time ago, and have yet to make a meeting. I wasn’t comfortable bringing in the material for the radio scripts, because they are done to specific needs of various companies, and without knowing the specs, the people giving me feedback could throw me off the needed track. But bringing in material begun in this workshop, that doesn’t have a set venue yet, gives me room to incorporate the kind of feedback I’d get in a playwrights’ circle.

However, the first session, I will just sit and listen, to see how they work.

Anyway, it was a great experience. This facet of Williamstown Theatre Festival hopes to do a workshop every two months or so, and I hope I can participate in more of them. I loved the way the workshop leader created creative space and led the experience.

I’d hoped to order from Meng’s Pan Asian, but they were closed. Instead, I ordered an overpriced pizza from one of the pizza places we hadn’t yet tried, and it was mediocre. But it was food.

I’m working on the notes from yesterday’s workshop. I want to set up the files and information, and expand on some of the initial notes while they’re fresh. That way, when the idea’s turn comes up, I can drop back into it without wondering what the heck I meant.

This morning, I woke up with a new idea for a comic mystery radio play. I will make some notes on that, too, and it will have to take its place in line after the four radio plays already promised to producers.

Hopefully, this surge of creative energy can also feed into the anthology story and The Big Project. Based on yesterday’s work, I will re-post, each day of July, the 31 Prompts that I did a few years ago. I have a lot of followers I didn’t have the first couple of times I did them.

There’s a garden post up on Gratitude and Growth.

If you missed the short story “Discoveries” on Ko-Fi yesterday (as Cerridwen Iris Shea), it’s here.

Meditation this morning, then I have to do some writing, organize the books for donation, and do a library run. After that, it’s back to the page. I have deadlines.

A year ago today, we were on the road a little after 4 AM with screaming cats, got here a little after 8, and then waited for the movers to show up. Thank goodness we are here.

Have a good one!