Go Deeper

I realized why I have been having such a hard time working on this rewrite.

I need to go deeper.

I plotted out the story of this new draft.  And while all of those things need to happen and all of those scenes move the action forward, I can't write to the story.

I have to know where they need to go, but I need to let them go there.  I have to LET THEM GO.  That phrase keeps repeating in my life.  Just let it go.

I have to not use any of the previous stuff I had before, even though a part of me loves some of that dialogue and it would be easier.  But I'm not the person I was when I sat down to write the play over a year ago.  My relationship is deeper.  The questions I'm asking are deeper.  I need to be more honest.

All of these life events happen that seem ordinary, but what happens to these particular people...

I had a conversation with someone today at the spa.  He was saying that he loves songs from the American Songbook.  He said that those songs can be sung over and over again the same way, but they don't mean anything unless you bring something to them.  You have to interpret them.

Things happen to these characters that have happened to people over the past several centuries over and over again.  People meet.  They marry.  They want to have kids.  They argue about their sex lives.  They break up.  They stay together.  None of that is new.  But the interpretation makes it fresh.  What these individuals bring to these universal rites of passage is what makes it seem fresh.

So while I didn't get a ton of writing done...I attempted.  And that's when I realized it didn't work.  But I accomplished something significant.  In this conversation, I had this epiphany.  The American Songbook still moves us because it's so universal.  But those songs continue to touch us because they are interpreted through our experiences, our contemporary time and our emotions.  That's what makes a great version of a song we've heard before like At Last, The Very Thought of You, Night and Day and the list goes on and on.

Sometimes the Universe speaks to us in ways that are unexpected.  It's the "God works in mysterious ways" concept.  I was having a feeling I needed a day away to just write and hole up.  I ran into this guy, Marc, who I had met the last time I was here.  Randomly.  We chatted up and had this conversation about the American Songbook.  We were talking about songs and he mentioned The Very Thought of You, which is the song I was thinking about.  Weird.  And I got the gift of having this epiphany and realization through this conversation.  So that was meant to be.

I like being available to what the Universe is trying to tell me.  You have to quiet things down in order to hear what you're meant to know.

Go Deeper.