Writers are Babies

And I'm one of them. I admit it. Wholeheartedly.

Now. Before this experience of writing this new play, I always tried to be "mature" and not get upset. Now I just take that as a sign that I'm GIVING. Of course I take it personally. It's my guts out there for judgment.

I had a play reading last night of a new play I wrote called THE SNAKE CHARMER, which takes place over three different time periods: 1868, 1978 and 2011. It has an extremely talented painter who's obsessed with a new subject. It's got a closeted go-go dancer and his crushed out best friend. And an art history teacher who meets a student who breathes new life into her world. Lots of criss crossing, ricocheting and rebounding of characters, actors and time periods.

Watching the play last night I had no idea I had put so many personal things into it. I mean...I obviously knew I was dealing with some things that are personal...but watching it all in one sitting with an audience made it clear. I felt very exposed.

But it was a good kind of exposure because I've gotten a lot of comments and positive feedback from friends. My friend Susan said that my writing has matured and that I'm growing up as a writer. My friends Gina and Aurorae said the coolest things about the play and the themes it brought up. My friend Karen was impressed and called some of the intersecting "genius."

What? Crazy.

But this is what I've decided. I'm not doing this unless I can be vulnerable. Because life's not worth living if you're not going to give your all. As much as it was uncomfortable at the time, being in a rehearsal room with a bunch of actors and really tearing apart something that I had written...the end result was amazing. And not just because of compliments. This is a play that means something to me. It's not something I wrote because I'm trying to get a job. This is something that has come out of me. And I don't want to write something unless it has meaning for me.

It's just not worth it. This blog (as I'm wrapping it up soon) has meaning for me. It's not fluff. It's what's going on with my life on a minute by minute basis. It's the sublime to the ridiculous, but it's all me.

And I've just been writing things lately that don't have that sort of meaning for me. The plays, yes. But the TV stuff just doesn't mean anything to me. I want to work as a TV writer and make a living that way, but writing samples solely for the purpose of just selling...not interesting. Those have to have meaning too.

But right now I'm just writing the things that have meaning. I've got another reading/workshop coming up soon in the fall for this play I've been dying to get back to that's all about various Asian stereotypes, but not in a broad way...but in a very serious way. Although, there are darkly comedic moments to it as well. But it's a good old fashioned one room family drama in the tradition of an O'Neill play. Kind of.

And I'm sure because there's so much that's personal about that play that I'll be a baby about that one as well.

I wouldn't have it any other way.