Grovers' Corners

Sometimes I get frustrated living in a small town. I don't go to many professional shows. I'm not in any loop. It's not like there are any connections to make here in Cranbrook that will help me take my writing to the next level.

I was recently talking to a young man from Montreal who runs a Chinese Opera company. He fell in love with Chinese Opera in university and he and some like-minded individuals banded together and perform with some degree of regularity. He talked about Chinese Opera a lot. As in, I think it consumes most of his thoughts. That's not a bad thing at all. In fact, I envy him.

There are many people living in Cranbrook whom I've asked to what degree theatre is on their radar, as in do they go to plays(?). More often than not, the answer resembles "If I had to . . ." or, "My girlfriend wanted me to go to a play once, but I was like, 'No' . . ." or "No. Theatre can happen or not happen and my life would be no different." When it comes to the local theatre scene, there is a small band of folks here who will go to everything. There is a larger group who will go to all of the high school musicals. There are others who will go to plays if they know someone in the show or if they heard it's good. Many will visit the touring large-scale musicals in nearby cities. Precious few will attend the shows of local professional companies in said nearby cities (i.e. Theatre Calgary).

So, in contrast to my Chinese Opera-minded acquaintance who is surrounded by folks who may spend days just learning how to get a particular movement sequence just right, I spend most of my time around a wide cross-section of people. Pastors, stay at home moms, teachers, nurses, miners, landscapers and the like.

I often crave to get away and burrow myself into some little theatre cocoon where I'm just around theatre people all the time and I would go to plays and write plays (which everyone would just love and praise incessantly) and talk about plays and my life would just be about theatre. Nothing would be boring and everyone would just get me. I think about that a lot, actually.

But then. I go down to the Farmer's Market on Wednesday night (it took about five minutes to get there). It's pretty packed. There's a girl who I taught a couple of years ago - I really like her a lot. We hug and exchange "You look good"s. I see a whack of people I either currently teach with or have at one time. The musicians are former or current students. There's a bunch of church people - I find out that one of my good friends is going away next week, not this week like I thought. Everyone is glad to see me and I'm glad to see them. I don't know, it's charming. And irreplaceable. That's just one example of why, when to comes right down to it, I in fact do not regret my choice to live and work where I do. The other, more vital example is the shortbread chocolate cookies at Max's Place downtown (mmmmmmmmyummmAH!). They fix everything.

Yep, I'm unproduced. Yep, the biggest likelihood is that I'm going to stay that way. Really, it's true (it's okay). One of the reasons for that could be that I'm remote and don't have my finger on the pulse of our diverse, changing and urban world. But, people love stories. And who else is going to tell the ones that only I can tell? So, I'm telling them. And though yes, sometimes it does make me discontented with Grovers' Corners to go away and see (or think about seeing) other things, I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be. And mostly, I like it.

Catch-up

I was re-reading some of my earlier posts and realized that I have a few "I'll tell you how that goes" statements, and then I didn't follow through on letting you know how those things went.

Let's start with The Mimic's Riddle. About a year ago, I entered it in the 2011 Yale Drama Series Competition. There's nothing to report. It didn't go anywhere. Didn't hear back from the development programs either.

My overseas trip was totally awesome. Unfortunately, toward the end, the bunch of us got sick and the last few days were spent coughing and gasping. It was really terrific to spend significant amounts of time with friends and family. Favourite things that I had never seen before: The Musee D'Orsay and Newgrange were at the top of my list. I am a gallery/museum junkie and I went to as many as I could wherever I could. There are never too many art galleries! Oh, and I got to visit the Royal Court Theatre in London. That was super cool.

We had a big McSheaffrey hoolie one night in Edinburgh. Got as much of the family together as we could - as far as my trip was concerned, it was a highlight for me.

So, that was that trip. Also went to Florida and did the Disney World thing. Ghastly.

Rounded things off with a Stage Combat intensive in Vancouver at the end of June/beginning of July. Totally life-changing.

The clock is ticking on this sabbatical thing and, though it has been an incredible year (I encourage everyone to just take a year where you don't have to work - it really changes how you look at life), I have accomplished very little writing. I have, in the times where I haven't had activity directly in front of me, spent a lot of time reflecting and thinking. I know! Who does that? How is that productive? But, you see, that's the point. No to do, but to be.

I'm on page 36 of The School Play. It's.going.so.slowly. But again, there's a story in there somewhere - schools are breeding grounds for drama.

Take care and I'll talk to you soon.

Jacob

So, Jacob wrestled with God. You can read about it in Genesis 32 if you want.

I've been thinking about this one a lot today. It's a great story. Jacob was a great big jerk - I've never liked the guy. But, I gotta hand it to him on this one. He went after what he wanted and fought hard for it well into the night. I love the sense of urgency in this story, this sense of "I'm not going anywhere until I get what I came for and I don't care what it costs!"

I want to be like that. I want the characters in my plays to be like that.

I love that he limped the next day because he got smoked in the hip. Our struggles leave their marks, don't they?

Summer Drive

I'm surprised they held my spot here. I don't deserve it, that's for sure. I seem to get more drive in the summer, for some reason. Goes against nature, I know, but I just seem to get more pages written in the summer.

Came across this on the web today:

"Q: How important is the process of rewriting?
Robert McKee: It's absolutely critical. I quote Hemingway in my book who said, "The first draft of anything is shit." What's difficult for writers to come to terms with is to recognize that 90% of what we all do, no matter our talent, is not our best work. We are only capable of excellence maybe 10% of the time."

I know that some people roll their eyes at Robert McKee, but I think he's right about most things. Certainly this.

How can this not be debilitating? I confess I use this as an excuse in being unproductive. It's hard to start a new draft of something when you know that you've got at least 2 rewrites before it's fit to look at. It's a miracle that any of us bother. But we do, because we must. As playwrights, the thoughts of people sitting in the dark watching our stories for up to two hours outweigh the toil of countless hours of writing, rewriting, applying feedback, preparing readings, submitting and, let's face it, the internet detours we take when we're stuck. Which for me, is a lot.

Well. Back to mining for that 10%.

Stirring

Wow! That was a long nap. The last time I wrote, I was going into rehearsals for Noises Off. It closed 3 days ago. It's amazing how much creative energy goes into directing a play, even when it doesn't take up all of one's time.

It was a great success. I'm thrilled at how it all turned out. I was, of course, privileged to work with a great cast and it always helps to have a flawless script. The journey: tumultuous. A story in itself. It's a miracle the play got on its feet, let alone turned out so well.

We leave on a 6.5 week adventure next Wednesday (8 days). Before then I would like to complete a full draft of Tooth Sized Holes. I know. I have touched the script since I last wrote to you, but only just that. 11 pages. That's all I have to do and it will be done. Then I can start research on my next play. I don't know what the central conflict is going to be, but I am curious about the central question: What is the impact of a teacher on a student's success, really? I often wonder with students who end up being successful in one field or another, and who attribute their success to a certain teacher (and let's face it, lots of teachers like to claim a student's success as being somehow related to their influence) would actually have ended up in the same place anyhow.

I'll start putting out calls for stories on this as soon as I get this bleeding Tooth Sized Holes draft done.

Cheers for now. Here's a link to a little blurb on our production of Noises Off:http://www.e-know.ca/arts-entertainment/noises-off-a-madcap-good-time/

Sabbatical

I mentioned before that I was headed on a sabbatical this year. Teachers always get a sabbatical of a kind in the summer, but, in truth, it takes at least two weeks to stare at a wall and get all of your senses back. In the case of teachers who are returning to school in September, there is a two-week period where we ruminate (and in some cases, stress) about the upcoming year: what we have to do to get ready, what kinds of changes we want to make, and the like. That leaves four weeks. Which is great. Two of those weeks are usually spent trying to catch up on deep seated house and yard work. And then there is time to have fun with the kids. This is nothing to complain about by any stretch of the imagination, but summers for teachers aren't always as carefree as one might think. More carefree than usual, but still with expectations and need.

Sabbatical, on the other hand, carries with it a different rhythm altogether than what I've experienced at any other time of my life. Music practice with the kids is before school. It's quiet when they're gone. It takes longer to do simple tasks. I have time to write, but it's taking me a while to hit my stride and discover how I'm going to go about it, now that I have all this time. It would be horrible to let this year go by without milking absolutely every moment to execute the best writing I've done to date.

My writing break is over. I'm launching again. I received some good feedback on the latest draft of The Mimic's Riddle. I'll give it one more going over and send it to places like The Lark and the Banff PLaywrights Colony. Then pick up Tooth Sized Holes (I added the plural) and dig right into it.

It's good to be back. Wish me well.

On the Road Again

Tooth Sized Hole has its 60-pager. I've finished a complete rewrite for The Mimic's Riddle. It wound up being 80 pages, I think there were only 5 pages worth of original material. It was tough to murder more than a few darlings, but it turned out better than I feared.

I'll be taking a break from playwriting for a little bit, perhaps a month or so. I realized when I was near the end of this most recent draft that my poor husband and family were getting the crappy end of the stick with me having to shut myself away in my little room and write, leaving little opportunity to give them all a fun summer. As I said to a former student while sitting on the edge of a beach late last week, "If my kids knew what other kids do in summer, they'd be so mad."

I'm looking forward to reading (works both academic and fluffy), preparing to direct Noises Off, and having some fun with the kids before school starts. Not looking so forward to finishing up my deep house cleaning, but eagerly anticipating the results.

I'm currently up north in Dawson Creek visiting family. It's been our only road trip since the one we took in late July to Cedar City. On Sunday, we'll be on the road once more, returning to my favourite place on earth.