Choosing the Path

Or how about just walking A path. Any path. Any frakin' path that leads to something resembling a written page and scene that's advanced some plot. Too much to ask this happy holiday season? I don't think so. But then, hey, what do I know? I'm just the writer who's trying to get something down on paper before February.

That's all.

Piece of cake. Oh, sure.

Relaxing here at an hour that makes me weep a bit at how tired I will be "tomorrow" when I have much to do. And before I drift off to dreamland again, the urge to post returned as wondered about how people (and by people, I'm referring here to writers) choose to write what they do.

Currently, there are a few stories and plays on permanent stand-by in my brain. They're sitting on this ginormous tarmac in my head, waiting to take off but there's this one behemoth play that's broken down at the edge of the runway and it's holding up the whole gorram line. So how to fix it.

Earlier today, I took a few minutes out of an otherwise hectic day of not writing to read the pilot script for Studio 60, that NBC show by Aaron Sorkin that NBC killed. And wow... it was interesting to see entire characters and plot lines in the original drafts that didn't make it to final cut --- plot lines that show up later. It actually made me feel good about my writing and reminded me of a valuable lesson. Writing is rewriting.

This Sorkin script was good, but it wasn't (as Stephen King would say)... boss. It was just there, with random moments that were redundant, characters that I'm glad were removed and saved for better usage later on (Martha O'Dell), and some of the characters had the wrong names (Jamie instead of Jordan, Moore instead of Tripp). It was surreal to see an earlier draft of something like that.

Makes me curious to know what earlier drafts of his play A Few Good Men looked like. Or what an early draft of Steven Dietz's Inventing Van Gogh might resemble. Need to remember, this isn't about perfection. Not out of the gate. It's about getting up and moving. Getting on a path, any path. Eventually, through the rewrites and workshops, I'll find the write path for each play.

Hopefully that day comes sooner rather than later. But not tonight. Need to sleep, but I feel like the dawn is coming when I can start writing again. And I welcome those rays of first light and will smile when they shine upon my face. Until then, I bid thee adieu.