begin to begin again

I have made it through!  Thank you for coming along on this little ride into the power of theatre.  I'm sorry about the long stretch of silence; when you work at an academic institution, the end of August is an extraordinarily busy time.  I was also battling a pretty severe cold on top of it, so I really had no time to post these, even though I was writing them all along.

Play #20 - The Limit

Play #21 - Tree of Life

Play #22 - Precipices

Play #23 - Self-Defense

Play #24 - Suspense

Play #25 - Children of Tantalus

Play #26 - It Grows on You

Play #27 - Emotional Rollercoaster

Play #28 - Itinerary

Play #29 - Suburban Bliss

Play #30 - Last Rites

Play #31 - Gold Intentions

So that's it -- 31 Plays in 31 Days.  It was a lot of fun, and I think I learned a fair amount about what goes into writing plays (whether I was able to put that education to use, you'll have to decide!).  Great thanks to my friend Gabrielle for suggesting that I participate!

Now it's September, eternal September, and that means it's time to write a blog post every day.  I felt that last year's effort was moderately successful; successful as a writing exercise, less so as an actual written product.  This year, I'd like to be a bit more out-and-out entertaining.  Having given up on "writing for myself," I'm now writing solidly because I enjoy it, and getting people to read my stuff is a big part of the fun.  That doesn't mean I intend to stop writing if I feel under-read (perish the thought).  I think I've found the distinction I was missing before in "writing for myself."  When I write should be for me.  What I write can be for others.

Matt Zoller Seitz, a film critic for whose writing and opinions I hold tremendous respect and admiration, wrote an article providing advice to young and aspiring critics.  Certainly, my ambition is not to be a Film Critic, in that I don't dream of providing critical analysis on films any more than other subjects; still, I think his tips are excellent in general for anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a writer or a person.

I especially like his tip #9 - "Just write, damn it."  It doesn't seem so complicated when you put it like that.

I don't expect this to be a very poetry-heavy month, as I plan to do a poem every day in October.  But, in the spirit in which this blog was founded, I would like to provide an excerpt from a poem I wrote recently:

I wrote and unwrote with the effort of one
Driven by the endless roaring gulph inside,
Who sought just a moment’s rest from fire.
Having cast the words into the flames, I realized late
That smoke, too, sends a message.

There are four stanzas to that poem, which is titled "A Surfeit of Wishes."  Another line from that poem:

But what ghost cannot fade invisibly?

I suspect that all ghosts possess this power.

I also suspect that I'm going to spend plenty of time this month writing goofy things that are hard to follow and engage with.  And I'm sorry, to a point!  All of these ideas burst out of me in great cascades, and so few of them are fully expressible in such pithy things as words.  Were there a way to hook our brains directly together, to feed the ephemeral insights and spectral epiphanalia into your corteces without such complications as the busywork of language interfering, you might not find me so confoundingly obtuse after all.  As it is, as we are, the work of communication must yet be shackled to this vain and foolhardy mechanism, constructed by each of us for our own use, with little enough regard given to the needs, wants, and realities of others.  What I'm saying is:  please read close.

Things you may expect this month:

• Another letter or so to my dear friend Caius
• Some meditations on the powers and inferences of games
• A frustrated, stream-of-consciousness cry from the abyssal realms to the halls of the infinite
• Complaints about the elusiveness of sleep
• Too little said in too many words
• Things that are not arcs described as arcs
• I will explain what the deal is with Lovecraft
• A narrative explanation of my playwriting process (my own little Adaptation)
• A few book and movie reviews that will make you feel like I think you are inadequate for not loving these things the way I do (I do)
• Probably something I've cooked
• Wit!  Wisdom!  Wanderlust!
• A solo trip to Orlando in which I do not even try to go to a theme park
• Themes of rebirth and self-reliance

Sojourn along with me, my friends, into this dreamworld of magic!