I finished writing a rough draft of Circus this past week. This is one of my favorite parts in the creative process when the first draft is completed on paper and now it’s time to type it onto the computer. When I move to the computer, the play will no doubt transform and it should. I always look at the rough draft as the blueprint. Once you have the blueprint, anything can happen. Circus is a challenging piece which needs a lot of work but the potential is there. I look forward to typing it unfortunately this next stage will have to wait as there are other pressing deadlines to meet. I wanted to get a completed rough draft of Circus finished before moving onto anything else otherwise it would be very difficult to come back to it once having left it for awhile.

I have now moved onto writing the Christmas production for my church. This has been a rather lazy week of writing and I’ve had trouble focusing in on this script, in part due to the fact I just completed Circus and my creative juices are lacking juice. I should mention that in-between staging Blue and writing Circus, I wrote another play about the youth culture. This play was for a gentleman I worked with years ago. We recently got re-connected and he wanted me to write a script based on a thesis he wrote about the youth culture today. I used as many ideas from his paper for the script and I completed the play a couple weeks after Blue closed.

I guess what I’m saying in all this is that maybe I’m a little tired and the motivation is lacking. I guess what I’m also saying is that maybe I’m making a lot of excuses and just have to get myself re-focused as I write the Christmas script. It’s important for any writer just to keep writing. It’s like exercise, the more you do it, the better you get at it and the better you feel. I know when I haven’t had a good day of writing, my motivation is out the window and I don’t feel much like writing the next day. Writing is cathartic – I want to be in that place where I’m connecting to the emotions of the work.

Speaking of emotions, I also received four big fat rejections from different screenplay contests. One of the rejections was from Page International where my scripts placed in the quarters, but did not make the semis. These rejections naturally made me feel down and they happened over a span of three days. Despite that, I finished Circus in the midst of feeling sorry for myself. The best cure for pity is dust yourself off and keep writing.

…or maybe read a great play. I just finished reading Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. I hadn’t read (or seen the play) for a few years now. It reminded me of how much my work resembles that of Miller’s writing. If you have not read Death of a Salesman, get a copy and do so. It’s one of the best American plays written. One of my favorite lines in the play comes from the character of Linda. It’s a very simple line, yet strikes to the heart of the play. Willy is talking about spending a lifetime paying off the house, but his boys are gone now and no one’s left to live in it,to which his wife Linda responds: “Well, dear, life is a casting off. It’s always that way”.