Did you know laying face down on your bed groaning, “What is the plannnnnn???” does not actually help you write?
It’s true!
As much as I would have loved it to actually help me figure out certain plot points in my current project, this specific act has not, so far, enlightened me any further.
And yet, multiple times this week, I have laid, face down, on my bed groaning mightily, all while the clock of a Monday morning deadline ticked away.
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I think there is a cultural lore about artistic practices. Something spellbinding about a writing process. Well, it can seem that way anyway. For me at least—and, I would guess, many other artists—I hope that the mysterious glow about a process will turn out to be a reality and not just lore, that there will be magic, fun, excitement. That what I want will just flow through me and I will simply be the stenographer.
No twist, that’s not usually what happens.
There are times where I have sat in read-throughs or performances or even when I reread my work directly, where I have thought, “Who wrote that? Was that me?” because I was surprised my brain could come up with whatever it was. Those moments do feel kind of magical, like there has been some kind of divine inspiration. With a play like Isabella Bootlegs, I wrote a story that turned out to be more true than I thought which felt like cosmic guidance. But in all those cases, those realizations come long after the corresponding phase of the writing process has ended.
The middle of it is not usually magic. I would not say never because I think for some, there is some magic. Usually it’s work. Creation is a job. Even if it’s a hobby, even if it’s something you’ve hoped to do for your whole life, the act of creation is a job. And one that is usually poorly paid.
“Dream job” is a misnomer. People tend to focus on the “dream” part and think you should be thankful for being able to do something that so many other people only fantasize about doing. “Job” should be acknowledged in equal or greater measure. A job is always a job. It always has good days and bad days. Sometimes your coworkers—real people or imagined characters—are total dicks and you don’t have any control over it. Dreams can become nightmares. Jobs are work. Of course, nightmares can morph back into something more pleasant and work can be enjoyable to a great degree.
But—and I know I probably don’t need to say this again— “dream” job.
Some days that job looks like laying face down, growling into your bedspread, trying to scare out whatever revelation you need from its hiding place.
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At this point in my writing career and life as an artist, I’m a big proponent of just doing it. Write the thing, draw the picture, put a dance move or two together. Just start. Often starting is the major obstacle. I’m not saying it’s smooth sailing after that. But when you haven’t started the creative thing, it’s just as easy to keep not starting it. The idea stays in its precious state, sparkling and clear, exactly how you imagine it because all you’re doing is imagining it. You can’t ruin it if you keep it guarded inside of you. If you keep it locked up.
You don’t have to know the ending to start. You don’t even have to know the beginning. You just have to have some sort of spark. So start, I say. To me. To you. To our past and future selves.
Pieces of information will always reveal themselves during the work. If you wait to know everything that is going to happen before you start—which you can do, certainly—I think you’ll end up surprised by what you learn through the process. The person you thought was the main character could be a limited run side character. The color you wanted to use every hue of could disappear into the background. Nothing is certain. I tend to think a creative project and process is less tortuous if you remain an eternal student to your subject matter. Learning first, teaching second.
That does mean, however, you can get far into a project—a full draft, say—and still be searching for key pieces of information. You know it’s there, the crux of the plot, but you haven’t opened the right door to find it yet. It’s giving off faint noises from down the hall but, it’s a Beetlejuice hall. It keeps getting longer.
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I hope you are enjoying these mixed metaphors.
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Is it boring to listen to people talk about their artistic processes?
For most, the answer is…sometimes. Probably depends on the day. Probably depends on who you are and your relation to creative pursuits or the creative pursue…ant. Probably depends on, for example, if you’re in a coffee shop, being talked at against your will, by some writer who has a screenplay idea that “will change everything” even though they haven’t written a word of it yet. (You know who I’m talking about.)
As a creative consultant, I tend to love it. People who don’t do many creative projects or are just getting into them, often think they don’t have a process when really they just can’t see what it is. I love to chat through that with them, asking all the questions I can think of, and offering things to try. My hope is to make it clear that it takes time to develop a process but the base is probably there. And also, trying something that doesn’t work in your process is normal. Try something new.
I also love to talk about it because, in my opinion, we’ve been fed a bunch of bullshit about what an artistic process should look like. Even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person, through anecdotes of famous writers, you probably have an impression of a writer in the midst of a project. Wild hair, at a typewriter, pages all around, a glass of whiskey half empty at the corner of the desk. “Write drunk, edit sober.” All that.
“Write drunk, edit sober,” is definitely bullshit. In grad school, we’d go out for a drink or two after class. I would always have the intention of going home to write afterwards. By the time I got home, I never wrote. I just opened my computer to watch whatever sitcom I was watching for the hundredth time. It doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work for me.
And it likely doesn’t work for a lot of people. But because it’s a famous saying, a moniker, a mantra for some, many creatives start to think if you can’t write via one of the famous sayings, your process is not valid. Or is not a process at all. For every different person there is a different way to be creative. But you likely won’t know it unless you talk it through with someone else. Unless someone tells you or reassures you that there is no right way to do (most things), you may simply not believe it.
As a writer, I do usually like listening to other writers' processes. It can be enlightening or reassuring to hear about it. But also as a writer, I sometimes find listening to myself talking about my process…boring. This thought rattles through my: “Oh my god Samantha, this again. When are you going to figure it out??” Which, you know, is basically the exact opposite of what I would say to any other exploring their creativity. That is the thought of a frustrated writer, sitting at her desk, trying to keep her eyes on the blinking cursor, and not, definitely not, thinking about just walking away.
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I suppose I could stop talking around the groaning. I’ll spare you the in-depth synopsis, partially because whenever you begin rewriting, you learn new things about what the play is actually about (see above) and partially because it’s sensitive subject matter and we can save that for a different day. But the Reader’s Digest version is: a young funeral director takes over her uncle’s funeral home with a mission to get rid of their debt while also trying to get some existing customers to agree to prepay for green burial options. She has to prove something to her uncle by a certain day/time or he’s going to sell the funeral home to one of the big guys.
And that’s the cause of the groaning. The plan. I know basically what she has to prove but I also don’t have enough specifics to feel confident in how to move forward. I know the mechanics of some of the business that would be involved, but not enough specifics to know exactly how her plan would work. All the thoughts are basic and a bit fuzzy but I know the answer is in there.
I just haven’t found it via the groaning and the growling and the yelling “What’s the plannnnnnn???” and “How would that work?” towards the ceiling.
Ah, the glamor of being a writer.
I will move forward with the rewrite because, as I said, I know I just need to start. And I have a friend who is holding me accountable to a Monday deadline. (Although, since beginning this newsletter edition, I have moved that deadline to end of day. You know, for insurance.) And, sure, maybe it won’t become clear in this round like it wasn’t in the first draft. But maybe it will. Because I do have a start. I know what the play is not about. It's not about grief in real time. It's not about a terrifying, terrible funeral home. There are too many real stories of those and not the story I want to tell.
Ultimately, it's about preparation for something that is universally inevitable and that’s always ALWAYS still a surprise.
Writing is about that too. And art. And hell, living. We learn as we grow, we go to school, we have experience after experience that is supposed to teach us “stuff.” We become prepared for nearly anything and everything. Then, something will come along that proves there is always more education to be had in the preparation. When it does, we'll curse whatever whichever teacher didn't actually prepare us for this. And learn the lesson anyway.
So, in this case, that’s the question: What lesson are they learning and what is the best way, subsequently, to take the audience along with them on their journey to that lesson?
But in order to send them on the journey, I have to figure out the plan to first help them find the path.
To that I say…what is the plannnnnnn????
but, but…the little articles!
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