For the last little while, on my social media accounts, I’ve been posting images that contain writing encouragement and inspiration from other authors. I post these mostly as encouragement for myself, but also for others who might need the same kind of encouragement that I do. Here’s a selection of some of the ones that I have posted.
The moment as I near the end
There’s this moment. It happens when I’m writing, and it happens when I’m getting close to the end of a story, when I can feel the story is closer to the end than to the beginning. In the time leading up to this point, I have started out with the enthusiasm that comes from working on a new story, to slogging through the middle, and then when I get to the middle, it happens: I’m rushing. After the slog, I just want to be finished. I wanted to stop, to just be done. But there’s a story to tell and I need to tell the story. But the slog is miserable, and its when I hate writing. Its like Dorothy Parker said: I hate writing, I love having written. That feeling when the work is finished is like nothing else. So of course, it makes sense that when I start to get a sense of being near the end, I start to race towards it.
I justify this racing to myself. Its just a first draft. I’ll fix it in the next draft. Both of these are true statements, but in the end, I’ll know that I didn’t really finish. The story wasn’t completely told, and I cheated myself out of the actual ending. And I won’t be as satisfied as I would be had I slowed down and actually finished.
So, I’m learning to take a deep breath and slow down. Its not easy, but I think its important for me to learn.
Anyone else have find themselves rushing when they get to the end? How do you keep yourself from doing it?
3 Random Words = Inspiration
I thought I’d play around with some different ways of generating ideas. I wanted to stretch my writing and explore forms of storytelling that I normally don’t. Most of the ideas I generate on my own work best as plays. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to challenge myself by creating in a medium I don’t normally: the short story.
Maybe later, I’ll try the novel, but the short story is a good warm up. Using the Brainstormer app I can generate three words to kickstart my creative process. The story I’m currently working on came from the following:
What would these words say to you?
Revision, revision, revision: Capes
I’ve spent the last few days working on revisions on the last draft of my new play Capes. For this project in order to start revising, I gave myself some distance from the piece. I waited two months between finishing my last draft and starting to look at it again. That distance was extremely helpful in seeing things I couldn’t see before: where the dialogue was clunky, where character moments didn’t make sense, where the plotting didn’t work. I took notes for those moments in each scene. And then gave myself another week before diving in and starting the revisions.
I’m catching things that I could never have seen if not for the distance. I can’t say that I enjoy revising, but I do know how necessary it is. And seeing the things I’d missed in other passes (moments I’d let slide, dialogue that needed work,story moments that don’t work as well as they should), I am very glad  that I’m doing this. Its tedious work, and never quite as exciting (for me) as the writing of something new, but it is so necessary.
The Annual Navel Gaze 2014
As I say every year: I don’t do new year’s resolutions. Instead I take a look back at the year and see what I accomplished. Then I look ahead to the new year and see what I might want to accomplish in the year ahead.
Quite a bit happened for me in 2014. So, let’s go over the highlights:
- I found a full time job at an awesome company. After two years of working part time jobs, I finally found a full time job at EventMobi, doing tech support, and I love it there.
- Keystone Theatre presented The Last Man on Earth at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto, which allowed me to have this moment with a poster of me as Gormless Joe in the lobby.
- My play The Parliamentarians was performed at the Red Sandcastle Theatre. It was a huge thrill to work on this play with my very talented cast: Richard Beaune, Scott Clarkson, Rebecca Rodley, Siobhan Richardson and Adrianna Prosser, and I’m very grateful to both them and to Rosemary Doyle at the Red Sandcastle. Also, big thanks to my stage manager: Christopher Douglas. Its really interesting to see how the cast helped me improve the show. It was really gratifying to work with actors who were able to give some great feedback that helped me improve the play.
- Keystone Theatre presented its latest show, Gold Fever at the Toronto Fringe Festival to rave reviews. It was great to rework this play and find new depth. It was in the end, very different from the play that we presented at the Festival of Clowns in 2013.
- Sarah and I spent Canada Day weekend in Niagara on the Lake, which was an exciting surprise getaway.
- We also went to a cabin in the woods, on the other side of Ottawa. It was a little place with no running water and no electricity. Its the most rustic I have ever been. The purpose of the trip was to do some writing, and we did. I was working on a new play, and Sarah was working on an awesome new project. We’d wake up in the morning, and make some coffee on the Coleman stove, and then sit out on the porch overlooking the a ravine as the mist rose.
- In November I took a shot at NaNoWriMo and tried to write a novel in a month. I didn’t make it to the 50,000 word goal, but I learned a lot about writing, so I count it as a win.
- In addition to NaNo, I’ve been writing quite a bit.
- Sarah and I also took a big nine day trip to New York City, and it was awesome. We’d been planning the trip for a year and a half, and it was just as awesome as we had hoped.
Next year, is about creating.
- Reviewing the drafts of plays I’ve written this year, and starting the work on revising them.
- In May, I’ve organized a weekend Playwrights’ Retreat, with Artscape Gibraltar Point.
- Planning to submit one of my plays for the 2015 Toronto Fringe Festival. The only question is, which one?
That was my year, and a look ahead to next. How was your year?