Co – Labor – Ating…

I’ve been collaborating of late. It’s not something I’m used to or even something I’m comfortable with.

We’ve been going back and forth with ideas for a book. Back and forth. We’ve been slamming our ideas at each other. Back and forth. Back and forth.

The thing is, we may not end up working together. But you never know unless you try, right? So, I’m trying.

And here’s what I’ve found out.

I recommend it.

Yes, I’m comfortable saying that before I even know if the book is going to be written.

Here’s the thing. As a writer, one of the best things you can do is step outside of your comfort zone. I’m not saying anything will come of it but it turns you on to ideas and feelings that are completely new to you. The person you’re collaborating with, or with whom you hope to collaborate, is coming up with ideas and coming at ideas in new ways. They might be lousy or stupid; the thing is, they’re new.

The enemy of creativity is stagnancy. Keeping yourself open to new experiences prevents that. I’m not saying you should yell “Nigger” in Compton (name that movie) but I am saying that using comfort as an excuse is just that – an excuse.

Asking what will come of it ignores what you’re already getting. So, I may never use any of the ideas we’re bandying about and I may never write one word of this book but it has spurred me on creatively and that is like bread and butter: something to chew on.

How to stop being a playwright…

I’m coming off a very funny rejection this morning. Here’s how it went. I heard from the theater a few times (yes, Tom, I’m talking about you now) informally and thought, “Well, if I was going to be rejected it would have happened by now, right?” Then, only after I thought that, I got the rejection.

I say it’s funny because you can never know when it’s gonna hit. Rejection is like a very bad simile – sorry, couldn’t help it. Seriously, though, rejection will always find a new way of sneaking up on you. As a writer, you just have to learn to accept it, embrace it, and… well, tolerate it, at least. It’s part of your job. It’s not the good part, but it is part.

So, as soon as I was done being rejected – which sounds so much more like a euphemism than I would like – I went downstairs to read the new issue of The Dramatist, a journal put out by the Dramatist Guild. I am not a part of the Dramatist Guild (no dinero) but my friend, Arthur Kraft, gave me his copy. (Arthur and I have a love/hate relationship with my writing. I love it and…)

The back cover of every copy of The Dramatist is tiled with pictures of established playwrights. And these are very small tiles we’re talking about. Very small. We’re talking about 100 pictures of playwrights back there and they are all staring at you as you finish the journal.

You and 100 playwrights. Those 100 playwrights could easily write enough plays to fill every theater in America. Now, consider that each issue has 100 different playwrights. That brings it up to 1200 playwrights. Now, consider that this only reflects a fraction of their membership. Now, consider all the playwrights who aren’t members.

Why the hell did you ever consider becoming a playwright? Against competition like that? Are you crazy????

And, there you go. If you ever want to be completely discouraged from writing plays, a single rejection is probably not going to do it. You need numbers on your side – and there they are.

Now, stop it so the odds get better for those of us still writing, okay?

(I’ll leave the numbers of novelists for someone else to illustrate. After all, I have books to sell, too…)

The word no one likes to hear…

I love writing. It is my passion and my pulse, my love and my life. I’m something of a fan.

That said, there are more things I hate about it than I can tell you. Here’s one.

I’m getting ready to write the second half of my new play, A Pound of Flesh & The Devil. It’s a terrific play, very funny, more free than anything I’ve written and it would be a blast to perform. I sat down today and wrote ten pages of notes, knowing I was making a great start to a very funny second act.

But it was like pulling teeth.

You see, what I really want to do is write something important. Something meaningful. Such as Climbing Maya, my book on success. I want to bring new knowledge to the world. I have several things lined up in that regard, too.

I am fighting the urge to change projects and write something else because I am trying to develop some discipline. I possess talent, skill, passion – but discipline is something I am still trying to learn. Something tells me I shall spend my life trying to learn it.

Discipline is more important than passion or talent or skill because it can keep you going even when those things sputter out. It’s the hard exercise that gives you strength when everything else gives out.

I might not be very good at discipline and, in fact, I have urges inside of me that say, “Do this! Do that! I’m bored! Do this other thing!” The way I am learning discipline is by accepting those urges while not giving in to them.

It is not easy.

It is necessary.

I’m sure I’ll talk more about it later.

Is there such a thing as not enough rejection?...

We have entered the winter chill.

No, I’m not talking about the weather. I’m actually talking about when submissions to publishers, agents, theaters – whatever – get processed slower and slower and slower. Call it “Holiday Syndrome”. Call it “Checking out for Christmas”. Whatever you call it, things slow down.

And I end up saying the dumbest things. For instance, I caught myself the other day, saying, “I’m not getting enough rejections.”

I feel I should explain this.

With the amount of submissions I send out, easily fifty or so each month, the way I know they’re getting to people is by the number of rejections I get back. Heck, even if I get a 1% success rate – which would be astonishingly high if you think about it – I would still need to get 99 rejections for every 100 I send out.

In the last few days, I’ve received two.

It drives me crazy.

Yes, I know. Everybody deserves their holiday time but I want the odds to start swinging my way. To do that, I need to get the rejections. It’s not that I want to be rejected; nobody wants that. I just want to get through them so I can get some good news.

Heck, Christmastime is a pretty nice time for good news.

Agents? Publishers? Theaters?... I’m just saying…

Dickweeds We Know…

I want to talk today about dickweeds. I have to believe that anyone who is pursuing a dream or just trying to make themselves knows a dickweed. In my case, it’s my step-dad.

I paid my mom a visit today and we got to talking about Wormfood Island. I couldn’t go into great detail about the rewrites I’m working on but I did mention how the publisher and the editor and I have gone back and forth with ideas on how to make it the best book we can when it’s released. This was actually the first time in my life – Yes. In my life. – that my mom had expressed any interest in my writing, so I was very happy to explain away how it all worked.

My step-dad didn’t say anything. What I didn’t realize was that he was biding his time. After a while, though, he was ready. “Would you say there have been a lot of changes?” he asked.

I told him there had. Even though the story is still the same, as well as the themes and all the cool bits, I guess I wanted him to be impressed.

“Did the publisher and the editor have a lot of say in the changes?” he asked.

I told him they had an equal part, that it was a collaborative effort.

“Would you have the same book if they hadn’t given you those changes?” he asked.

Of course, not. I told him how the publisher and editor have been instrumental in helping shape the book into what it is today.

This is when he struck. “So, you haven’t done anything. They did all the work and you’re taking the credit.”

Dickweed.

This is what I’m talking about: people who look for ways to belittle your accomplishments or make you feel like shit when you have none. I’ve known a few of these people in my days and have done a pretty good job weeding them out. Unfortunately, I cannot weed my step-dad… however much I might wish to do so.

If you have someone like this in your life, that would be my first advice: weed them out. You don’t need them. I don’t care if you’re trying to be a writer, trying to fly to the stars, or just trying to get in shape; the last thing you need is someone telling you that you can’t do it. You don’t want someone making you feel shitty about it when you do, either. Dump them!

That said, you may not be able to… I know what that’s like. This is when it’s important to remember just what dickweeds these people are. They aren’t following their dream like you are; all they can do is mouth off. It’s easy to talk down to a person. These people never try the difficult thing, they never pursue their dream. Those who have possess empathy for those of us out there trying. So, while you may not be able to weed out the dickweed, keep in mind what small people they are, small and insignificant. Pity them, for they will never know the joy that comes from facing the challenge, whatever that challenge may be.

And be thankful you’re not a dickweed, cause that would suck.

If a book is rewritten in the woods, will this metaphor still make any sense?...

And the rewrites keep… I don’t know… getting written, I guess.

Yes, I am wrist deep in Wormfood Island rewrites and at a point, actually, where there’s an interesting point to be made. Thus, this blog entry.

As of today, I’m about 75% through the book. The rewrites have only changed to book about a few degrees (direction-wise, not temperature-wise). It is the changing of those few degrees that makes the rewrites significant. Like the chaos effect, in order to cause an earthquake in chapter 10 you must first kill the butterfly in chapter one.

What makes this experience so meaningful to the writer is not the actual writing, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. As I stand here at 75% and scan the horizon, the thing that stands out in my mind is how solitary the landscape appears. The thing that makes writing, especially long form writing, so unique and meaningful is how much of it relies on faith.

I’m going to repeat that for those who know me as an atheist.

The thing that makes writing, especially long for writing, so unique and meaningful is how much of it relies on faith. I have to have faith that my ideas are not just what my publisher is asking for but what he wants. I have to have faith that my writing matches what the editor had in mind. I have to have faith that, through this process, the book will maintain that thing that made it special in the beginning.

Mostly (he said, dedicating this last thought to its own paragraph), I have to have faith that I can do this and that I’m right to do this. Writing is about walking into the dark alone, knowing that you alone can find the way. It’s about believing in yourself long after your friends stop believing in your, your family stops believing in you, and even a part of you has stopped believing in you. But writing is not just about being stubborn, because to do it well you have to come back out of the dark with something so amazing nobody imagined it was in there.

Standing at the 75%, I get the feeling I often get when I’m coming in from a long jog. I’m not home, yet, but I know I will be soon. I’m tired but it’s a good tired. And I’ve found something in the dark I can’t wait to show people.

(Wait! I’m not done! One more piece occurred to me and you can file this under “How Awesome It Is To Work With Northern Frights Publishing”. What I wrote about makes this process sound very solitary and, for the most part, it is. But I would be remiss if I did not mention how amazing it is to have a publisher who has stuck by me since the very beginning, who has believed in the book and the writer, to have an editor who cracked the shell of the book – a shell I felt really defensive towards at first – showing me another way of getting some of the creamy zombie yoke out. This has been a terrifying experience from the start but also one that I’ve found very fulfilling.)

Murielle Takes San Francisco!...

Announcement Time!

I love Announcement Time. It comes so rarely and gives me the opportunity to make announcements… anyway…

If you find yourself in San Francisco this January and are looking to see a staged reading, be sure to stop by The Dark Room Theater on January 9^th, around 5pm-ish. Writing Man Productions is staging a reading of my very funny farce (or so I’ve been led to believe), Murielle’s Big Date.

Vicky and I are going to try and make it up there and I’m hoping it’ll be lots of fun, certain to start 2011 off with a bang!