That's kind of what this past weekend was like.
I'm a part of a group called The Playwrights' Union here in LA, which is composed of writers who can actually write. It's not a namby pamby writers group featuring a bunch of people who have always wanted to write, but have never done so. This is the real deal, filled with people who are having productions, winning awards and kicking ass in the theatre world.
They do this annual challenge where you have a month to write the first draft of a new play (or as much of it as you can finish). Then you get together at the end of that month to sit in living rooms and hear what you've written. It goes from Friday night through Saturday night (of course, you go home and sleep, then come back). It's intense. This year, we had nine plays total.
I went on Saturday afternoon and I was nervous. Not because I was worried about my work. I knew it wasn't a complete first draft. I just wanted to hear what everyone else was doing. It was entertaining. Some plays were super polished. Some plays were in a more fragile state (for example, my play). But it was this really safe environment to hear work and to have yours heard. I had coffee with a friend today who was there and we were both marveling at how great the notes were and how generous the environment was. Maybe that had to do with the fact that most of us had gone to graduate school and have been writing for a long time.
But hearing my play read did feel like I was exposed. Like I was in that dream where you show up to school naked. Only in this case I had an erection that was bright red. Ultimately it was a good exercise in humility and process. You have to finish the work, present the work and then go and rewrite the work. It's a constant process and I'm happy that I got to go through it with eight other writers who are intelligent and talented.
We all had bright red erections that day.
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