Look Straight Ahead

It's hard when you're already in a vulnerable place and you're writing your new play to read Twitter or websites that tell you what's happening with the rest of the world.

I have been adamant about not looking around...until the other day. 

I like to look at Perez Hilton just to get my mind off of things when I'm writing.  It's like mental gelato.  So I clicked on a link that gave an update on what TV pilots were hot this year and were likely to be picked up.  In a prior post, I mentioned that I'm intentionally out of the loop and that feels great.  Well, it only takes a second to find out what's going on and who's hustling and bustling and who's hot and who's not to start to feel inadequate. 

Then the Facebook friends are posting what shows they got picked up for.  Then Twitter friends are posting how great their rehearsals are going. 

And suddenly I find myself in that place of "what the hell am I doing?"  It's easy to crawl into that hole when you are already in the writing cave and all you have to do is to climb deeper into the cave to find that bottomless pit of despair and inadequacy.  Because that's where the entrance to that hole is...in the writing cave.  The writing cave is a vulnerable, lonely place because that's what it has to be in order for you to get the writing done.  When you're struggling with a scene or a character motivation or a plot line, it's easy to feel like you can't accomplish anything.  And it's not until you crawl out of the cave, into the light of day, that you know exactly what you have.  It may hurt your eyeballs with how ugly and misshapen it is.  Or it may cause you to squeal with delight at how beautiful and lovely it is.  But you don't know until you crawl out of the cave and you might not be able to crawl out of the writing cave if you fall into the bottomless pit. 

This goes back to the post I just posted, "Writing is Fighting."  You're constantly fighting with that insecure part of yourself because writing has to come from a place of confidence.  It doesn't always have to sound confident, but it takes that strength to even think that what's in your head is worth people listening to or seeing live on stage or paying money for or switching the channel for.  That's a lot of chutzpah. 

So I'm just going to keep my eyes akimbo and continue moving forward.  I'll give myself a little affirmation and then I'll just continue to work through this scene.  That's all I can do.