Time Matters

Time and energy. To me, as a writer, those are the resources that I'm always trying to maximize (I suppose creativity and money fit in the list somewhere, too).

Once the kids got out of school at the end of June, I found a pretty good writing groove by waking up at 5am and working until they woke up. (Okay, not every day, and some mornings it was 5:30...) This usually got me 2+ hours of very concentrated writing time. I love writing first thing in the morning, because I don't have the cares of the day swirling in my mind yet. (By the end of the day, even by mid-morning, my brain is firing in a million different directions).

I had a pretty productive month revising my new novel, doing major rewrites of five or six chapters.

Now, starting yesterday, the kids are in camp for the next four weeks. I was pretty excited about this and the idea of a block of time every day for writing (no need to get up at 5am, right?).

The reality is that the chunk of time is a little smaller than I thought. My son has to catch his bus at 8, and then I take my daughter to art class, which lasts from 10-2, then it's time to pick up my son from the bus at 4. 10-2 is a nice four-hour block. Except for the walk to and from art class (deduct 15-20 minutes). And lunch (deduct 15-30 minutes--usually closer to 30, because I read tiny bits of the Sunday paper). This still leaves a good three-hour block, which is a luxury, I know.

But the tricky part is that a block of time with no kids around strongly attracts meetings, errands, chores, e-mails, house projects, etc. (Any parent will confirm this for you.) It's a common phenomenon for people to quit their day jobs to write, and then all of a sudden find they spend less time actually writing than they did before. (I'm sure this syndrome has a name.)

Luckily, I'm used to working at home, but this week has already shown me that I need to be more careful and protective of that small block of time. If I don't make a conscious effort to stay focused, especially starting so late in the day, I'm sunk. Just like for the 5am sessions, I need to clear off the desk, shut down the e-mail program, turn off the internet browser, and force myself not to check them for the duration (I rarely succeed at this for 3 1/2 hours, but I can make it for two hours).

By the time camp is over, I should have the system, schedule, and discipline in place (and then will need to start a new regimen).

((Big bonus for me--this weekend I have a getaway to the Cape with my playwrights' group at the house of a close friend. I try to go into these weekends with a strong plan for what I'm going to write/revise--otherwise those big gaping blocks of 4-5 hours of writing time are incredibly intimidating.))

More on Contest Fees

This is actually the text of a post I just sent to the Binge list. A small theatre in Massachusetts is charging a $15 submission fee and requiring four copies of the script, and the lucky writers win readings, and one of them wins a whopping $75. Ouch! But I've written before about why submission fees are dumb. Playwrights on various lists continue to work themselves into a froth about fees, which is fine, but... Anyway, here's what I said (I'd love better arts funding data, if any of you have it):

First off, I agree that the Firehouse Contest charging a $15 fee and requiring four copies is just dumb. I (like many of us) have written at length about why contest fees are a bad thing for both theatres and playwrights.

However, I don't think nasty letters and e-mails will ultimately solve the problem. Small arts centers like this are trying to do the right thing when they put together a festival like this. They want to have a role in helping developing new plays. Unfortunately, they need some (gentle) education about how best to do this. As playwrights, our ultimate goal is not to condemn and close down all groups that dare to charge a fee, but rather to continue their interest in working with playwrights and new plays, but to have them do it in a way that's more appropriate.

Keep in mind that theatres do not necessarily share our high opinions of new plays and playwrights. Many small community theatres are perfectly content to continue producing old standards, or plays that have been successfully produced in New York. To them, playwrights are odd creatures, with prickly demands (they never want anyone to change their words, they want to be paid, they want to know when rehearsals are scheduled, they want their name and title spelled correctly, etc.). These theatres know that when they do a new play, their audiences aren't sure what to expect, and it'll be hard to get people to buy tickets.

Some of them know about readings and contests and think it'd be a good idea to do one. But they don't know how. They didn't think about how to pay for it. Lots of contests in life require fees. Lots of everything in life requires fees. Contests for screenwriting and fiction regularly charge fees. Fishing contests, basketball contests, soccer tournaments. They all charge fees. So they see this as normal.

So, what are we to do? I think there are several options:

1) Don't submit to contests that charge fees. Pretty simple. If no one signs up, it sends a message.

2) Send and e-mail or letter, stating why you're not submitting. The Binge could put together a template, though the ICWP (International Centre for Women Playwrights) already has a basic letter that could be slightly modified and be useful.

3) Keep educating theatres (which is really what #2 is about)

4) Direct some of the energy that's currently being focused on theatres charging fees to the real culprit: Lack of arts funding in the United States. Our country spends less per capita on the arts than most other industrialized countries (I'm trying to get the stats, but am having trouble finding the exact numbers at the moment). Part of the reason theatres charge fees is that they're short of cash. Instead of writing a hot blooded note to a theatre company, write a passionate letter to your state rep or congressperson about increasing funding for the arts. You can go to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies to see information about advocacy and state agency spending. (An overview is here .) Overall, states spend a whopping $1.21 per capita on the arts. Federal spending is less. Many other countries spend orders of magnitude more than we do. (Please post suggestions about other useful web sites)

5) Don't post info about contests that charge fees. Don't post about the listings to this list, or send the listings to your friends. Make it very hard for info about the contests to get the word out. Keep telling Gary Garrison that's he's doing a good job for excluding fee-chargers from The Loop and the Dramatist. Encourage other publications to do the same.


Most of all, keep perspective. Fees charged by tiny theatres are not the biggest issues facing playwrights. Media coverage, royalty rates, arts funding, lack of risk taking by producers, and other issues have a much bigger impact on our ability to practice our art (and possibly make a living).


As for the comment the guy at Firehouse made about thinking that playwrights should pay actors and directors to do their work. Well, sure, in a way he sounds like a bonehead. As in, your theatre should be paying the actors, directors, AND the playwrights, bonehead. However, there's also something to be said to his statement. When I put together a reading of my work, I make a point of paying the actors and director, whenever possible. Often it's just a token, and sometimes I don't have the money. My writers' group pays our actors $15 every time they come to read with us (six of us chip in $80/semester) to show them that we value them as professional actors. It's not much, sure. But it's important that playwrights realize that it's not just an honor for actors and directors to work on our plays. They're doing us a service, and their talents and efforts need to be recognized.

Now, if a theatre puts sponsors the reading, I expect them to responsible not just for paying me, but also for paying the actors and directors. If I wanted to pay them myself, I'd put together my own damn reading.

Anyway, that's way more than my two cents.

Patrick

Jasper Fforde (and yeah, maybe I'm a little full of crap)

Went to Brookline Booksmith (actually it was at the Coolidge Corner Cinema) for a reading by author Jasper Fforde, who has a new book, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels is just out. There were probably 150-200 people who paid $5 each to hear his one-hour talk, and then they all waited in line 45 minutes or so to get him to sign books. And he was great. Very funny, as you'd expect (demand) if you're Fforde fan. When you hear him talk (very fast), you can begin to understand how he's able to create his two series on such a consistent basis, and why people like them so much.

He had a great list of ten principles that he uses when writing (though I don't remember them well enough to quote them). He said a lot of useful things, but one that I really liked was that first he wrote his books (feeling completely unqualified to do so). Later, after they were published and he did book tours and answered people's various literary questions, he figured out what he'd actually done.

(This points to a potential problem with the way that new plays are developed, in that quite often full-length plays have readings, where there are talkback sessions with the audience, which are all fine and good. But the expectation is often that somehow the playwright will use these to "fix" problems with the play. But maybe (I'm not the first to mention this), theatres should work together with the playwright to produce the play in whatever way seems to make the most sense. And then, after the play is actually produced, the playwright can engage in pleasant Q&As and everyone can think about answers to the questions about what is happening and why.)

In my recent post about fame and fortune, I, of course, said that they don't really matter that much to me anymore. Which is mostly true. But I'm also a little full of crap. I tell you, I'd sure like to have people lined up around the block to hear me talk and buy my books. And I'd like to have them name city streets after characters in my books (like they've done in Swindon, the setting for the Thursday Next series), or host an annual Gabridge festival (there is apparently an annual Fforde FFestival in Swindon).

And I'd like to have it all happen and still come across as funny and witty and unspoiled as Jasper Fforde. He's clearly having a ball writing his books, and he seems tickled that so many of us enjoy them as much as he does.

While, as I pointed out in my previous post, it takes a lot of luck to have a successful book published, Jasper Fforde's success also shows how hard work and ingenuity can turn a few strokes of good luck (and a very clever book) into something far more.

Jasper's made a tremendous effort to connect with his fans. Just take a look at his web site--he clearly enjoys the interaction with the folks who read his books, and he gives them a lot of material to look at between releases. He sends out e-mails to his e-mail list about when he's going to make appearances on tour. And in person, he's so entertaining. He definitely gave me a valuable lesson about how to make a book reading into an event worth remembering. I've done a few (mostly for very small audiences) and I know I have a lot to learn. He's given me something to shoot for.

In some ways, the playwrights in the theatre blogosphere provide our fans (what few we have) with ways to hear from us on a regular basis. But much of what's written tends to be for other playwrights. I know theatre is different from novel writing--i.e. locally produced, rather than broadly sold--but it is important for us to keep thinking about ways to communicate with our audiences between shows. How can we use the web to provide additional info/material/value to those folks who see our plays and are interested? Some writers are making progress on this, but I know I have so much room to improve (...it all takes time, we're all short of time, I know, I know).

Anyway, here's hoping for a long line at my next reading (or production). And yours, too.

Good Enough Theatre

David Alan Moore has a nice post about Good Enough Theatre, that's worth a read. His mention of the "good enough mother" writing is very well put. He raises a good question of whether (and I think especially in the press) this notion that plays are either dogs or angels is harmful to everyone in theatre.

Fame and Legacy and Art (courtesy of Novel Eye)

Novel Eye wrote a very interesting post on Fame and Legacy and Art, which included the following:

So, is it [Jacques-Louis David's Death of Marat] a good painting? Shama thinks so. It is a painting which has outlived both its artist and its purpose.

As someone who creates things, what are we to make of that? What is the purpose of art--fodder for tomorrow's advertising (I remember my horror when I realized that Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies would be remembered as "Smurfberry Crunch is fun to eat."

Is it better that it be remembered at all? There are countless pieces of art in all fields which will disappear without even a poor imitation to their name. I am depressed just reading lit mags, thinking of all the people who will never see this poem or this story, or this drawing.

It stops me from creating. Clearly it doesn't stop others--I put this out to Writing Life x3 and Mirror as people who actually do create and produce things in there spheres.

The question of does it matter if your work is remembered, or if it will even be widely seen or noticed is one I've thought about a lot. As an artist, I definitely strongly desire for my work to be seen and remembered. Writing, is after all, partly a passion to communicate with an audience.

The remembrance part: I don't think too much about that anymore. However, I recently bumped into someone from Denver who remembered seeing a play of mine that was staged there, ten years ago. Knowing that someone would still remember the play and production ten years later was a thrill. When I was younger, the idea of fame definitely seemed very attractive to me. If you'd given me the choice between fame and money, I'd have chosen fame every time. (Guess what, no one has made the offer so far.) Nowadays, I'd certainly still like to be interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Aire, but I don't need to be on Letterman or the Daily Show. I would like my work to still be published and read after I'm dead, I suppose. But I don't need it to appear in a list put out by the 22nd century's equivalent of Harold Bloom.

Do I think about potential audience when writing? No, and yes.

At the very start of a project, when I'm framing some of the basic direction of the piece, I am conscious as to whether it has a remote chance of being published and widely seen or read. I don't only pick projects that I think will be bestsellers or huge Broadway hits. (As if I'd know.) But I wouldn't spend 2-3 years on a project, if I didn't have some idea that it could reach an audience. Sometimes I realize later that my assessment of potential audience was complete self-delusion. A great deal of writing day after day is just finding ways to keep that bubble of self-delusion comfortably inflated. (The world will be happy to deflate the bubble once the final draft is complete.) (I spent 5 years writing a full-length play about the history of the creation of the English Bible. I'm glad I wrote it. It's had good readings and workshops and done well in competition. But I've had to accept that it might never be widely produced, or might (note the self delusion creeping in--the proper term here is probably) never be produced at all. )

Once I've committed to the project, though, I have to write the truth of the piece for me, whatever that is. (That sounds so hifalutin, doesn't it?) The production or publication process is so drawn out, that there's no point in trying to second guess the market, or even consider the latest fads, while I'm writing. Who knows what will fascinate people by the time I'm done? The trick is to get whatever depth out of it that I can provide. That, and a bit of good luck, is the only thing that gives it a chance to reach people after that.

As for them remembering it later, again, I think that's luck as much as quality. Or maybe, as discussed in this post by Mirror up to Nature, the luck has a lot to do with the rest of the life of the author and where he or she fits in with society. What's the story of the author and the times? I don't know. Once you're a writer and have lots of writer friends, you know there are scads of talented people out there with great manuscripts that will never be widely read. The bullshit story told to beginning writers--if you write something great, it'll get published/produced/staged--is a fiction designed to keep the pipeline producing more work for the producers and publishers to choose from.

I guess, though, if I let worries about all that stop me, then I'd need to go find something else to do (go become a farmer, or something). For now, I'll stick with writing.

Research aides: software

Check out this post at Writing the Play. (I found out about it from Laura.) She gives a very helpful list of software that might prove helpful in managing research info. I've written two full-length historical plays, and I wish that I'd had some helpful software to manage all the various documents and source materials. Instead, I have manila files and lots of color coded index cards. Next time I work on an historical piece (which might not be far off) or some other non-fiction project, I definitely need to check out the software listed on this post.

Our Harry Potter Story

One of the interesting parts of Harry Potter is, of course, not just that it's a compelling series of books, but that it's become a whole cultural/social phenomenon, with parties, and stories. I think that's part of why the hysteria is so particularly strong for this last book--it's a bit of a social break (and maybe that's why the most recent Star Wars movies stirred up such ire among fans--because the films' suckage (I know that's not a word) spoiled our ability to continue a social phenomenon that would have partially connected us back to our youth).

Our story: my father-in-law purchased book #7 for us, from a bookstore in CT. We live in Boston. This meant that he would have to mail it to us, on Monday or Tuesday, and we'd get it by the end of the week. To be honest, I'm third in line in our house, behind my wife and daughter, so I didn't really care. But Tracy really, really, really couldn't wait until the end of the week, and we didn't want to buy an extra copy. So Saturday morning, she drove down to Connecticut and her father met her half way, and she picked up the book at an exit somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Now we have our copy, and my wife gets to read it before and after work, and my daughter reads it during the day. They're struggling not to talk about it in front of me, and we're all on careful media diets to avoid spoilers.

I'm told that approximately a good chunk of all blogs have mentioned Harry Potter this week, so I guess I'm part of the club now.